Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(103)

Though he supposed he could have asked. It was simply that he was so close to finishing his task that communicating with someone else was a waste of time he couldn’t spare.

The ambassador, thoroughly exasperated (at least, that was what Thomas gathered from the way he threw up his hands), stalked away to berate Scholar Wolfe, who stood watching from the stairs.

Ja. This would serve. All the calculations fit. He’d need to install some fittings to secure the power supply and make it simple to replace, but it would do until he could spend the time to create something better.

When he finished, it was full light outside. Morning. And as he looked at the four weapons he’d built, the terrible power of them he’d harnessed, the focus broke inside him, and all the things he hadn’t allowed himself to feel rushed back in.

He sat down, hard, on a workbench and put his head in his hands. His breath came faster, and then faster still, an engine turning in his chest that he couldn’t control.

And he didn’t know why.

Someone called his name, but he couldn’t look up or answer. It wasn’t until her weight settled in next to him and he smelled the soft jasmine scent of her perfume that he knew Khalila had joined him. Her hands rested gently on his shoulder and his back. She was saying his name.

He couldn’t get his breath. The engine inside him was racing, faster and faster, and he saw black spots now, and his hands trembled like an old man’s.

“Thomas, put your head down. There. Slow, deep breaths. In through your nose, then out through your mouth. You’re all right now. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

Whether it was her even, quiet voice or the gentle pressure of her hands, he began to listen and follow her advice. It helped push back the dizziness, the spots, the panic that had threatened to send him to a very dark place. When his breathing slowed, he sent her a quick, guilty glance. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know—”

“I do,” she said. “You’re afraid. We’re all afraid. Do you feel a little better?”

He nodded. “I suppose—I suppose I felt very alone for a moment. When I’m making something, there’s nothing else, and then . . . it’s gone. And it’s only me.” He managed a smile. “And I am sometimes not quite enough.”

“Because of Rome?”

“Yes.” He didn’t want to talk about that yet, though he knew—and Wolfe had quietly told him—that only talking would ease the pressure building inside of him. “I needed to make something to help us. This was all I could think of. Is Jess—” She shook her head, and he didn’t finish the question. “He’ll be all right. He’s a survivor, our Jess.”

“Yes,” she said, and her arm slid into the crook of his, holding tight. “I hope Dario is.”

“Dario?” Thomas blinked. He’d missed something in his preoccupations. He’d been working so intently that he’d ignored everything, and perhaps . . . perhaps he shouldn’t have. “What about him?”

“He was taken,” she said. Her voice remained steady, but he felt the tremor in her. “He’s— I don’t know, Thomas. I hope he’s alive. I pray he is. If he isn’t . . .”

“He is,” Thomas said, and put his arm around her shoulders. She felt slight and fragile, but he knew her strength, too. “We will all be all right.” To his surprise, he almost believed it. “We’ve come so far, and through so much. And if I’m wrong, and today is the end of it . . .”

“I couldn’t ask for better friends to have at my side,” Khalila finished, which was exactly his thought. “I know. I feel the same.” She hesitated a moment and then said, “Do you want to tell me about Rome?”

“No,” he said. “I want you to pick up one of those and come with me.”

She slipped off of the bench and took up one of the sleek new weapons. She seemed surprised when she lifted it. “It’s lighter than I thought.”

“Yes. I thought of some improvements. Be careful of the trigger.” He picked up the one on the other end and led her out of the workshop through the back door. The dawn had that strangely magical glow to it, thick with morning dew, a soft and shimmering color that faded from blazing orange to gold to blue, and to the west still clinging stubbornly to night. The garden they’d entered had a stone wall built around it, and Thomas nodded at the far end of it. “There. Shoot.”

“I—” Khalila gave him an uncertain look but hefted the weapon competently enough. Wolfe’s training, and hard lessons in survival. She sighted, took a breath, and pressed the guarded trigger.

A beam of solid red light poured from the barrel and struck the wall, and the wall simply . . . vanished with a crack and a sudden puff of steam. No, it melted. Thomas blinked, and his brain made involuntary heat-transfer calculations, and he looked back at Khalila. “Is it hot to the touch?”

“Warm,” she said. “But not too hot, no. I only fired it for a second.”

Thomas nodded, raised his gun, and sighted as well. He fired at the newly shortened wall, and once again, it cracked, hissed steam, and melted into a thick, reddish mass on the ground. As he watched, the melted stone cooled to dull crimson, then black, like lava.

He checked the power reserve gauge on each of the weapons and nodded. “Good. They should each handle four or five of such bursts. Fewer, if the trigger is held longer.”