Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(78)

It was still stopped, thank all the old and new gods.

Dario yanked him to his feet. “Move!” Dario said, and squeezed by the frozen automaton lion. Just beyond, Glain and Wolfe were holding Santi upright and Khalila was helping Thomas, nearly buckling under his weight. Jess hurried over to help. Glain had used one of the portable lights from her pack and they all glowed an unearthly yellow-green. In that light, Thomas looked like a corpse newly risen from the grave.

Santi looked almost as bad, but he was moving on his own, clumsily.

“You were supposed to watch out for him,” Wolfe said to Jess with a poisonously angry glare.

“I did,” he snapped back. “Come on. This way. Thomas, can you make it?”

“I will have to,” Thomas said. “Did you shoot someone?”

“Yes.”

“Was that in the plan?”

“No.”

“We’re well off the plan now,” Glain said. “And we’ve got no map to guide us.”

She didn’t mean the path; that was distinct. Jess’s markers were still clearly visible. She meant the soldiers on their trail, and the hue and cry that was sure to run faster than they could. Zara would wake up soon, and if they hadn’t already discovered their way out, she’d tell them where to look.

“We need a diversion,” Jess said.

“We need an army,” Glain corrected. “And last I looked, we’re about a hundred short of even a small one.”

“Shut up and run,” Dario told her as he replaced Glain on Santi’s left side. “You haven’t changed at all. Still a gloomy girl with a bitter disposition. Cheer up—we’re together again!”

If he hadn’t been wearing Scholar’s robes, she probably would have flattened him for that, but Glain settled for a scorching look and took the lead at an easy, long-legged lope. Jess broke out his light and took more and more of Thomas’s weight, especially as the tunnel began to incline upward—strong he might be, but the German had been chained in place for too long. As they approached the upper exit of the tunnel and the grate, Jess boosted Glain up, then Thomas. Thomas helped pull up Khalila, Morgan, and Dario, and Wolfe and Santi came last. Jess grabbed Glain’s hold to avoid Wolfe, who still looked at him with blank anger, and climbed quickly up.

They all crouched in the shadows beneath Jupiter’s robes. The Forum beyond was busy, which was a gift; Jess sent a silent prayer up to his Christian god, who must have called in a favor or two for this small miracle in a land loyal to other deities. The Library hadn’t sent the word out yet to clear the Forum.

“How far behind us are they, sir?” Glain asked Santi. He was still breathing raggedly and favoring his side, but he seemed better. Functional, at least.

He was checking over his weapon, and didn’t look up as he replied, “Fifteen minutes until they’re in the tunnels, if we’re lucky, and I wouldn’t count on luck.”

“We have to get back to the Translation Chamber in the basilica,” Morgan said. “It’s our only way out. It’s how we planned to leave!”

“The devil of battle is that plans change,” Santi said. “And if we go that way, we’ll have to go to ground somewhere and let the beehive settle before we try anything. Either that or risk the public exits.”

“They’ll be waiting at every one,” Wolfe said. “Rome isn’t an easy city to enter or leave. They can make sure we don’t slip away. Morgan’s right: Translation is our only way out.”

“Then we use the High Garda chamber, where I arrived.”

“Nic. It’ll be guarded and on high alert, and you know it. We must go back into the basilica.”

“I’d far rather deal with High Garda than a pack of automaton lions hunting just for us, with orders to rip us apart.”

“I’d rather not die,” Dario said flatly. “So perhaps we should think on it.”

“If the problem is with the automata . . .” Thomas’s voice came quietly, tentatively, and they all hushed to look at him. He almost seemed to flinch from the sudden attention and looked away. “If that’s what you need to fight, I might have a way. There’s an inventor in Rome, Glaudino. I visited his store on Via Baccina a time or two when I was younger. We should go there.”

“Do you think you can trust him?” Wolfe asked, and Thomas shook his head.

“No, of course not,” he said. “He’s very loyal to the Library. He’d never help us.”

“Then I don’t see how this helps—”

“Because he works with the lions,” Thomas said. “I’ll need Morgan with me. And Jess.”

“Why?” Santi demanded. He caught and held his gaze, and Jess saw a visible tremor run through his friend. Santi must have seen it, too, because he paused and softened his tone. “I’m sorry, Schreiber. We’re all on edge. What will you do there to help us?”

“I can make one work for us.”

“One what?”

It was Morgan who answered for Thomas. She’d gotten it far quicker than Jess. “An automaton lion,” she said. “Oh, Thomas, brilliant. Brilliant. Do you think we can do it?”

“Glaudino’s workshop repairs the Library’s automata,” Thomas said. “We should be able to fix one and make it work for us instead.”