Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(51)
I have many times been asked to explain the nature of the divine fluid of quintessence, the unseen barrier through which all things must pass to change form. I direct your study to the minerals of the earth. The baser metals are found below the surface, in the darkness and silence, and are lumpen and unformed. The finer metals and minerals—silver, gold, all precious ores and gems—are found in an organic structure of life. They grow, treelike, slowly through many years, rising up through the invisible richness of quintessence, and are transmuted from the base to the precious as they rise toward heaven.
All things live. That which begins as inorganic becomes organic through the divine power of quintessence. And so we must learn to control this unknowable element, to discover how to make metals, minerals, the organic and inorganic alike transmute and transfigure, above and below the earth.
This knowledge is obscure, but it must be sought. It must be codified, taught, and revered, for only through this great work will the secrets of the world be revealed.
And those who seek it, I call Obscurists, who will cast the light of quintessence upon the darkness.
Let us now discuss how the principle of First Matter may be used to create new forms, with the help and guidance of the gods.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Morgan seemed too pale, he thought, and at the same time she seemed ethereally beautiful. Her unpinned hair cascaded down over her shoulders in messy, springy curls, and she was dressed in a plain dark dress that reached down to the tops of leather boots. The only jewelry she wore glittered in the moonlight: the gaudy, engraved collar that circled her throat. The golden collar of an Obscurist.
He dropped his knife to his side and wanted badly to put his arms around her; everything in him said it was the right thing to do.
But he knew it was wrong from the tension in her body, the flash in her eyes. Still, for one dizzying instant he imagined holding her and kissing her, and the feeling of her lips under his seemed as real as breath. The smell of her, roses and spices, washed over him in a flood.
Jess took an indrawn breath that seemed to fill him with her presence, her reality.
“You’re here,” he said. “You’re really . . . here.” It seemed impossible. No, it was impossible, by any imagining; she couldn’t leave the Iron Tower. If she could have, surely she’d have run away, not come here.
But then her hand brushed his, and he knew it wasn’t a dream or a trance or anything but real. She was here. Alive. Morgan smiled, and his heart shattered into pieces, because it was a guarded smile, not a happy one. “I won’t be here long,” she said. “I’ve managed to stay out for almost a full day, trying to find you. You do hide yourself well.”
“Then you can stay out longer? Get far from here?”
She was already shaking her head. “No, I’ll never make it out of Alexandria. They’ll find me soon. I haven’t found a way to take this off yet, and until I do, they can track me.” She withdrew her hand and traced fingers over her collar, the symbol of her enslavement to the Library. Some sanity came back to him, and with it, doubt. Maybe they’d turned Morgan. Maybe she was a lure meant to distract him from another, more serious threat. He didn’t see anyone or feel anything, but she was a stunning distraction. He couldn’t take his gaze away from her for long enough to keep a good watch.
So many things he wanted to ask her, but he settled for, “You must have had some great reason to come now. What’s wrong?”
Something clouded her face for a moment, and it almost looked like . . . fear. “There were other reasons, but mostly . . . mostly, it’s about Thomas. Jess, I think he could be held in Rome! I found reference to an ancient, very secret prison—”
“Below the Basilica Julia. I know,” Jess finished. “I’m sorry. I just found that out. But . . . do you have proof that Thomas is actually there?”
Morgan seemed shocked and then a little angry. He didn’t blame her. “Proof? No. But I thought— I thought you’d want to know, that it would give you something more to investigate. And instead I risked my neck to come here to give you information you already had?”
She really does seem pale, he thought. Even in the Iron Tower, there must be sun somewhere for them to enjoy, and she hadn’t gotten enough. She seemed thinner, too. And even discounting the deceptive shadows of the night, he read the weariness on her face. The frustration.
“Did you find records about him? Is he all right?” Jess asked, when all he really wanted to ask about in that moment was her. What she was enduring in the Iron Tower. Whatever it was, he knew it was his fault she was there. They both knew it, and it stood between them like a dark, brooding shadow.
“I know he’s still alive,” she said. “The Artifex seems to believe he has a use for him. Something about the design of the Library automata. From the reports, Thomas had notes in his Codex that might help improve the automata against the Burner attacks. They’ll want to get that from him, at least. If he proves useful, they’ll keep him alive. And if they think they can trust him, they might even . . .”
“Let him go?”
“No. But move him somewhere not as terrible. It must be terrible, Jess. From what I’ve read . . .” Her voice faltered, and it took a heartbeat for it to return. “Wolfe suffered horribly there. They were going to kill him before his mother finally intervened. I didn’t know human beings could be so . . . cold. So cruel. And especially not . . . not in service to the Library.”