Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(100)

“Can’t we take a straighter course?” Brendan asked after the twelfth turn and a zag in the opposite direction, again.

Anit didn’t answer, but Jess said, “Pressure-sensitive floor, am I correct? The path has to be perfect.” She didn’t answer, but in two more turns, they reached a huge wall of shelves stretching along the side . . . and one small section let out a pressurized hiss and slid inward and off to the side on a track. Anit led the way inside.

The hidden entrance sealed itself behind them, and lights flickered on—bright lights, bright as yellow suns, and aimed into their eyes. Jess threw up a hand to try to peer past, and Anit said, “Stop where you are. Don’t move. Brendan, put your gun away.”

Brendan looked prone to argue. Jess said, “Do it,” and his twin finally complied.

“Clear,” Anit said in a completely normal tone of voice, and walked forward. More lights came on, and the spotlights that had pinned them in place faded; looking up, Jess saw they were odd glass globes with thin metal inside, not at all like the usual comfortable chemical glows. He’d seen something similar before, and it took him a second to place it.

The Iron Tower. Morgan had explained they ran on a forbidden technology: electricity. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised that Red Ibrahim had taken advantage of it as well.

The lights coming on in the hall beyond revealed a tight group of men, all armed. They’d been aiming, Jess realized, while he and Brendan were blinded in the glare. Anit could have easily stepped aside and had them shot dead . . . but she hadn’t.

“Anit? Is that blood? Are you injured?” A tall man stepped forward. He had a reddish tint to his dark skin, and an accent that, to Jess’s ears, placed his birthplace along the African coast. Somalia or Kenya. A shaved head and gold rings in his ears.

“No, Tadalesh. It isn’t my blood,” Anit said. “It’s my father’s. He’s dead.”

These were Red Ibrahim’s people, and all of them took the news as Jess could have expected: angrily. “Who killed him?” Tadalesh demanded, and took a step forward, aiming the gun at Brendan, who of course raised his, too. “Was it you?”

“No,” Anit said, and pushed Brendan’s arm down. “It wasn’t him.” For a second, Jess was sure she was about to confess, and that might get them all killed . . . but Anit, guilt ridden or not, had better sense than that. “If you want someone to blame, forget the hand that pulled the trigger. It’s the Archivist who’s our real enemy, and theirs as well. We have common cause now. This is Brendan Brightwell and Jess Brightwell, and they are cousins in the trade from England.”

“Why’s that one wearing a High Garda uniform, then?” asked a hard-looking woman who held a High Garda rifle.

“As you well know, not every High Garda soldier is our born enemy. Some of them make our lives easier. Consider him a friend unless he proves me wrong.” Anit took a deep breath, looked down at the blood on her dress, and said, “My father is gone. His sons are gone. But I remain, and you answer to me. Serve me well, and I will see you all rich, safe, and happy. Cross me, and I promise that you won’t live long enough to regret it. I may be young, but I am not naive, and I am not stupid.” She looked up again, and her eyes were burning with determination. She looked very much like her father now. “By the blood of my father, I will see him avenged, and I will carry on his business. If any of you disagree, say it now; for the next minute, and the next minute only, I will allow you to walk away without penalty. But if you go, you will never work for me, or with me, ever again.”

Time ticked by. Red Ibrahim’s smugglers—the top ranks of his lieutenants, Jess thought; surely these were his most trusted associates—looked uneasily at one another, and though a few shifted their weight, none of them walked away.

When the minute was up—and Jess was certain Anit had counted it to the second—she said, “All right. We have an opportunity, and one that won’t come again. Come with me.”

“Did she mean that for us, too?” Brendan asked as Anit strode away through the circle of her lieutenants—hers now, not her father’s—and down the hall. Jess shrugged and followed. He didn’t know what she planned, but he knew one thing, and only one: she was their only ally just now.

And one way or another, they needed to get to the Feast of Greater Burning.



* * *





The secret area of the warehouse went down into the rock, tunnels that opened into a warren of rooms, passages, and (or so Jess assumed) entrances and exits. Red Ibrahim had built this place to preserve not just business, but lives; there were rooms where fugitives could live in comfort for extended periods, and even bathing facilities and a small kitchen.

Anit led them past all of it to a large round room filled with books and scrolls. She went straight to a honeycomb of wood that held scroll cases and checked tags and pulled out a leather holder that seemed ready to fall to pieces.

“The cow that came from remembers the first Pharaohs,” Brendan said. Anit nodded, cleared a space on a table, and unrolled the scroll carefully. Tadalesh turned up the lights in the room, and the lieutenants crowded around.

“What is it?” one of them asked, craning his neck to make sense of it.

“The Colosseum,” she said. “Where the Feast of Greater Burning will be held. Every Scholar and librarian in Alexandria is required to be there. The full Curia will be there. And the Archivist.”