Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(15)

She ached for him, but there was no healing his toxic guilt. He knew what waited for Wolfe in Alexandria at the hands of the Archivist Magister. Santi would sooner have died than see that happen. “Forgive me,” she said. “I have something to tell you.” She took in a breath. “It’s about Jess.”

That sharpened his focus. He was a fiercely smart man; she watched him assess all the possibilities before he said, “My God. What did that fool do?” But he was already far ahead of that. He answered his own question. “He realized the Brightwells would sell us out before it happened. But instead of involving all of us, he made his own dice throw. Not alone, though. Dario, at a guess. Not Glain; she’d have come to me. Thomas would have had none of it. You—well, I think you would have known better, too.”

He knew them so well. Khalila let out a slow breath, took in another, and said, “Dario and Jess, at a start. They involved Morgan, as I understand it. For practical reasons . . .”

“Your next words had better assure me that Wolfe knew what they were doing. That they didn’t drag him off as a prisoner without telling him.”

She swallowed and tried to think of some neutral answer, but that took too long. She saw the bitter ignition of rage in his eyes . . . and then he was moving.

“Captain? Captain, wait! Where are you going?” Because Santi was stalking toward the cabin door.

He didn’t answer.

She managed to glide into his path and put her back to the door. For a heart-stopping second, she was afraid he might just thrust her out of the way, but he came to a halt, glared at her with brutal intensity. “Please don’t go after Dario. He’s very ill. Please.”

“I don’t care.”

“Captain,” she said. “Imagine for a moment that Scholar Wolfe knew the Brightwells would most certainly betray us, and there was no possible way out of that trap. Don’t you think he would have advised us to use that as an opportunity? To turn a defeat to a chance? That is all that Dario and Jess did. They overturned the table, because there were no winning moves. As a military man, you know that sometimes it’s the only option!”

He didn’t like it. She watched the blind fury struggle against his good sense, and finally he slammed the heel of his hand hard into the steel bulkhead beside her and wheeled away to put his back to her. When he finally faced her again, he was more composed. “Jess is in Alexandria? Posing as his brother?”

“Yes,” she said. “I believe so.”

“He’d better have a care when I see him again,” he said. “But that can wait. Why tell me this now?”

“Because the plan that Jess and Dario concocted was for Anit to betray her father and convey us to Spain, where Dario has allies who will help us. But she’s lost her courage, it seems. We’re headed straight for Alexandria. I think you know that if we’re handed over in chains . . .”

He nodded sharply. “If we reach Alexandria, we’re dead,” he finished. “Most of us, in any case. They’ll execute me and Glain out of hand. And you, along with your relatives they already have, to keep your country in line. Dario . . . he might escape. Thomas, they’ll keep. He’s valuable to them.” It was a quick, concise analysis, and deadly accurate. It matched precisely her own.

“We need to take this ship,” Khalila said. “And we need all of us to do it. Including you, Captain.”

“Just the five of us against the entire crew?”

“Four,” she said. “Considering Dario’s condition. We are outnumbered. Yet Anit has left us free, and I find myself wondering why on earth she would do that, knowing how dangerous we can be. I think she can’t disobey her father—no doubt the captain and his men would report her in an instant if she tried—but, at the same time, I think she wouldn’t be disappointed if we are able to force the issue.”

Unlike Wolfe, who would have snarled at her and called her a fool, Santi gave that serious thought. She knew he was doing what she’d already done: analyzing each of the points of vulnerability, and the fortifications and arms that protected them. “Obviously, if we take the bridge, we can steer the ship,” he said. “But we can’t take the bridge.”

“We can take Anit.”

“She’s a child.”

“Old enough to run her father’s operations and command the hundred or so sailors who crew this vessel,” Khalila replied. “Which is, to me, old enough to be taken hostage. I’m not saying we hurt her, but since she conspired in the first place with Jess and Dario, and changed her mind . . .”

“Fine. We take the girl hostage and force the ship to Cadiz. What does that get us, precisely, besides a safe haven? I’m High Garda. I’m telling you that Alexandria has never been taken.”

“In the last thousand years, who’s tried? The last serious threat was the Mongols, and they were defeated by the Ottomans before they ever came close. Tell me, Captain: have the real, physical defenses of the Library ever been tested? Truly tested?”

“There are always four full companies inside the city, with the Elite unit stationed at the Serapeum. That’s not even counting the automata. No one is taking that city without tremendous losses on both sides. Which I would have told you if you had consulted me before embarking on this plan!”