Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(99)

“She doesn’t look to me for kind words. She has you for that. You were ever the politician. And the predator.”

Gregory’s smile froze in place, and shattered into a compressed, hard line. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing,” Wolfe said. “Except that you take a special, unseemly delight in your job.”

“And what do you think I do?”

“Play God with the lives of children.”

“Obscurist Hault is not a child. She is a young woman of tremendous potential who might one day prove as important as, if not more important than, your own mother. It’s in the best interests of the Iron Tower to—”

“To match her with an appropriate sire for her children? Oh yes. I know the game. I grew up with a mother who loathed the very sight of my father, and he hated her in turn. Odd, isn’t it, that your forced inbreeding has created generations of progressively less powerful Obscurists? It’s as if it doesn’t actually work to force people into loveless unions!”

“You know nothing—”

“As one of your more notable failures, I’d say I know everything,” Wolfe said flatly. “Go away, Gregory. Morgan stays with us.”

Jess stood up. Didn’t say or do anything; just stood up. Khalila stood, too. Thomas. Santi. Wolfe stood still with deliberate calm.

Dominic at last raised his head, and the relief on his face was very plain.

“This is a foolish waste of our charity,” Gregory said. “We’ve offered you safety. Refuge. Care for your wounded. And you’re throwing it back in our faces, and for what? You can’t keep her. She belongs to us. To the Tower and the Library.”

“She belongs to no one. Let me be clear: the girl makes her own choices, for as long as she’s with us. If my mother disagrees with that, tell her to come herself. I don’t listen to self-important lackeys.”

Gregory’s face turned an alarming shade of red. “As you wish,” he said. “Scholar Wolfe.”

He walked back to his table, anger in every stiff motion, and pointedly turned his back to them. Jess didn’t want to do the same. He didn’t trust Gregory not to stick a knife in it.

Dominic was still there. The young man looked scared as a rabbit, but he stayed long enough to say, to Morgan, “I’m sorry,” before he went back to his own table.

Not everyone in the Iron Tower was as content and smug as Rosa.

“Morgan?” Khalila settled back down in her chair and reached for Morgan’s hand. “They haven’t forced you—”

“Not yet,” Morgan said. “Thank you, Scholar Wolfe.”

He shook his napkin out and dropped it in his lap. “Don’t thank me,” he said. “I did it to annoy Gregory.”

“Watch him,” Morgan said. “He’s a snake.”

“I’m immune to his particular poison. We knew each other as children, and he was five years older. You can imagine how that appealed to his cruelty.”

She shuddered. “I’d rather not. And thank you, whatever you meant by it.”

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. And then the food arrived, and Jess was pleasantly surprised to find his roast beef and mash were as good as a Sunday feast at home—one of the few consistently pleasant things he could recall about his childhood. They’d even mushed his peas. For a while, the five of them concentrated on their food. Someone had wisely allotted Thomas a double portion, and he ate it at an alarming speed that worried Jess for a moment; maybe the young German’s stomach couldn’t handle such a sudden rush of rich food. But Thomas seemed happy, and at the moment that was all that mattered.

“Glain!” Thomas suddenly put down his fork—he was more than halfway done with his second large schnitzel—and looked around at the rest of them. “What is Glain eating? Is she allowed visitors yet?”

“You’re free to ask,” Wolfe said. “The Medica floor is below this one.”

“Soup,” Thomas said. “I’ll take her soup.” Without waiting for anyone else, he stood up and stopped a server, ordered a bowl to go, and quickly left with it. Santi, done with his meal, leaned back to watch him go.

“He’s making a quick recovery,” he said.

“Yes,” Wolfe agreed. He didn’t look happy. “Seems so.”

They exchanged looks—significant ones, Jess thought. “He’s strong,” he said, out of some impulse to defend his friend. Santi sighed.

“He wouldn’t have survived without that,” he said. “But strength won’t keep the darkness away, and being on his own in a hostile place isn’t good for him. Go. Find him.”

Jess didn’t hesitate to take that suggestion. And it led him to the Medica floor.




The floor, instead of having individual chambers, had been built open, with only suspended curtains sectioning off one patient from another. Most of the curtains had been tidily drawn back and secured, the beds empty. The Medica attendant on duty rose from her station to study him as he entered, then nodded toward one of the curtained areas. “Your companions are there,” she said. “You can stay a few minutes. No longer. The patient needs rest.”

Jess nodded and continued on, and found Thomas sitting at Glain’s bedside. He seemed fine, and so did Glain; she’d been propped up with cushions, and was trying to spoon up soup, but without much appetite that Jess could see. He pulled a chair closer and straddled it. “I’ve been told that the Iron Tower gets the best of everything,” he said.