Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(112)

Jess collapsed into a seat—the Archivist’s seat, he realized—and looked down at the blood that covered his chest. Morgan was with him, but he felt very, very alone.

Tell Da . . .

There was nothing to tell his father. Nothing at all.

He’d succeeded in what he’d come here to do.

But he’d failed at the one thing that mattered.





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE




KHALILA

The amphitheater was a roaring sea of confusion. Only a few automata still roamed the sands, and they were being dealt with; Khalila forced herself to put the death and the loss aside and take stock of what was around her.

Someone needed to take control of this. If no one did, she thought, there would be nothing left of the Great Library by sunset, and Alexandria would be easy prey for what was coming.

She found the tall Obscurist in white robes—stained with blood and dirt now—and shouted, “Who are you?”

“Eskander,” he shouted back. “Where’s the Archivist?”

“Gone! Can you quiet this crowd?”

“I’m not a magician. I’m an Obscurist.”

He was, she thought, a great deal more than that, but she didn’t say it. She said, “Then can you make me heard? To all of them?”

The red-haired woman standing beside him unsnapped a leather case on her belt, took out pen and paper, and sketched out a quick series of symbols. She handed it to him. He nodded, pressed his finger to the paper, and said to Khalila, “Talk. They’ll hear you. Whether they pay attention or not is your affair.”

She took a deep breath and ran to the same lion she’d climbed before. It felt hot under her shoes, and she realized she was cold now, even in the heat of the baking sun. Panic raced through her, and then it was gone.

“Scholars! Librarians! Listen to me!”

The roar faded, purely from surprise, she thought, and she saw faces turning toward her up in the stands. She wondered what they saw: a slight young woman in a bloodstained robe and hijab? A fellow Scholar? She had no way of knowing. But she continued. There was no choice.

“You were brought here to see the Archivist’s enemies destroyed,” she said. Her voice rang from the stone, echoed, and it sounded like it belonged to someone else. Someone with real power. “You were to be witness to his power and his triumph. But that is not our Library. That is not our spirit, or our soul, or our purpose. We are not here to be powerful. We are here to protect and spread knowledge. The Library has survived tyrants and kings before, and we stand here today together, to say we are not this. Not kings. Not tyrants. Not rulers. We serve.”

She had their attention. No one moved. No one spoke. The last automaton had frozen in place.

“The Archivist made us into an ugly thing,” she said. “A thing that used fear to control the world. But we are not what he made us. We are more. We stand, unafraid. And together. Because we are the Great Library!”

The shout came back from thousands of them. Scholars. Librarians. Obscurists. Soldiers. It echoed from stones that had seen death and destruction, beauty and grace.

“We endure,” she said. “And now we will choose a new Curia, a new Archivist, and we will bring our light back to a world we left in darkness. Do you agree?”

The shout was a full roar now.

Khalila Seif lowered her head and listened to the Great Library being reborn. Fragile, hopeful, perhaps too innocent to survive in this changing world.

But new.

“Then each of the specialties, gather. Elect your new leaders to come forward. And let a new Archivist be chosen to lead us before we leave this place today.”

She hopped down from the lion and felt a kind of wave wash over her; when she reached Eskander, he said, “I stopped the amplification. You can speak normally.”

Her throat felt oddly raw and dry. She coughed, and as she caught her breath, the red-haired woman pressed a metal flask into her hand. It contained water, thank Allah, and she gulped thirstily. “Fine speech,” the woman said. “I don’t think the Obscurists need a meeting to know that the man who brought us here is our Obscurist Magnus, like it or not.”

“Not,” Eskander said. “But I will accept until someone better comes.”

Khalila studied him for a moment and then said, “You seem familiar, sir.”

He ignored her and walked away, and as he came face-to-face with Scholar Wolfe, she realized who he was.

Jess had lost his family today. And Wolfe had found his.

My father. Uncle. My brothers! Khalila gasped and flinched at her horrible thoughtlessness; she raced to find Santi, who was having his wounds treated by a silent Medica. “The prisoners!” she said. “Where are they?”

“I’ve sent the Blue Dogs to free them,” Santi said. “They were never taken out of their cells. It was all a feint, to get us here. And it worked.”

“Not for the Archivist.”

“Our success may be temporary. He’s alive. And he’s got plenty of allies willing to help him take back his throne. Let’s not forget the Spanish will be coming; they’re no longer bound by a treaty, and though they might claim to be coming to protect us, once they get a foothold, the Library will never be independent again. The Burners will see us as vulnerable. God knows who else.” He looked past her, to where Wolfe and Eskander were talking quietly. “But I suppose this will do, for today.”