Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(11)

But then, the impossible was just another challenge to Morgan Hault.

The paragraph read:


You can’t write back to me; this communication is one-way only. I pray you have the chance to see this. Don’t worry, it will only appear once and fade in an hour. It’s the best I can do with the time and tools I have. I am well, and, yes, wearing a collar, and I like it no better than you’d expect. I hope that in a few days I might be able to make contact with the man we discussed. He is our best hope. I am monitoring the Codex of the Archivist’s assistant; her security is far lower than her master’s, which is how I know how to find you. I will watch out for any danger and alert you in the same way as this. Keep a Blank with you at all times. I love you.

That was all business, until the last sentence, and the simple declaration of it stopped him cold for an instant. He’d sold her into slavery in the Iron Tower as part of this terrible bargain, and he’d never forget that. If anything went wrong . . .

Stop, Jess told himself, and closed the Blank. He kept his hand on it, as if he were holding her. Morgan is strong. She’ll survive.

Now he just had to keep his end of the bargain and stay alive, too.





EPHEMERA



Text of a letter from Khalila Seif to her father, undelivered


Beloved Father, I pray this reaches you, and that Allah’s infinite mercy has found you first, and freed you from your imprisonment.

This is my fault, though I take comfort in knowing you would never have had me do anything but what I have done. The actions I’ve taken have been taken from love, loyalty, friendship, and pure respect for the mission of the Great Library, which I know you also cherish.

It seems impossible that such pure things could have led us to such a dark place, but as you once told me, when you fight evil men, good intentions can’t protect you. But the fight must be made, and I am making it.

We have a plan to save you, and with faith and prayer and hard work, I believe it will succeed. I hope I will do you honor in this.

Please tell my brothers that I pray for them as well, though not as much, because they would be the first to tell me you deserve prayers more. And send my love and grieving regrets to my uncle for the loss of Cousin Rafa. He was betrayed by the very people he trusted without question, and that, more than anything else, tells me that we must win this fight even if it costs my life.

Inshallah, I will see you soon, Father.





PART TWO





KHALILA





CHAPTER THREE




The clouds were the color of lead and pressed flat on the horizon, erasing the line between heaving sea and sky. Khalila stood at the railing and watched the oncoming storm. She was aware of the wind whipping wildly at the long lilac dress she wore and was especially glad of the extra hairpins she’d put in her headscarf, which she’d wrapped carefully and tucked beneath the neck of her dress. It held in warmth, which was a blessing from Allah, because the gusts had an edge of pure ice to them that worked its way through any small opening to bite at her skin. Far too cold out, so far from the safety of land.

A weight settled around her shoulders, and she shot a grateful smile toward the young man who’d brought her a heavy coat. It smelled of thick sweat and wet sheep, but there was no denying its insulating power. “Thank you, Thomas,” she said, and the German nodded and leaned on the railing. That almost made them of a height. He seemed calm, but she didn’t trust it. Thomas, of all of them, had been the most devastated by the betrayal of the Brightwell family that had landed them aboard this ship; he couldn’t reconcile it. In Thomas’s rather innocent world, family was always to be trusted, and he counted Jess—and by extension Jess’s twin, Brendan—as a true brother.

“You’re thinking about him,” she said.

“How can you tell?” Thomas managed a thread of a smile.

“Your face,” she said. “I know how you feel. When I see Brendan Brightwell again, I’ll kill him. Betrayal is a serious thing, in my part of the world.”

She watched Thomas’s hands flex on the iron railing. His deep-seated innocence had been battered, if not broken. “Mine, too,” he said. “God help them if we come face-to-face with any of the Brightwells again, then.”

“Yes,” she said. “Even Jess, if he had some part in it.” She had a strong suspicion that Jess had everything to do with this, and for that, she wasn’t sure if she could ever forgive him. If Jess had arranged all this, he’d hurt Thomas, of all people, and she felt a great, banked fury for that.

Thomas met her gaze for a second, then gave her a quirk of a smile, very different from the usual full-souled one she loved. “The storm looks bad,” he said. “She’d be a fool to sail into it.”

“Anit is not a fool,” Khalila said. “But she will want to deliver us quickly to Alexandria. We are not an easy cargo, and we’ve already been delayed. We’re lucky to have this much freedom, to breathe the air and walk the decks.”

Thomas shrugged and gestured at the heavy, heaving sea. “Where else could we go?”

She didn’t miss the dark look in his eyes or the way he lingered on those waves, as if he was thinking about the peace that might be had under them. Khalila silently slipped her hand into his and held it. She knew her fingers were freezing, but Thomas’s were warm, and he didn’t seem to mind. Together they watched the lightning stitch through the clouds ahead. The thunder was inaudible over the boom of the sea against the metal hull of the ship. Even in these conditions, the huge cargo ship sailed smoothly, though Khalila kept her other hand on the railing; that might change soon, if that storm came at them. She supposed she ought to have been properly frightened of the weather, but there was a wild beauty in it as well. A power that showed, clearer than anything else, the magnificence of Allah’s creations.