Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(28)

The Library has been forced to live under bad leaders before. Let him age, and wither, and die. We will outlive him.

All we can do now is to protect our son, who has been so terribly wounded.

And to do that, you have to swallow your anger, and wait. Wait until it’s time for revenge.

I read over this, and I realize that though it’s all true, I had meant to say this in kinder ways. But you know that I love you. And I love our son, lost as he is to us.

It’s odd to me, of all people, to be counseling you about caution.

With love,

Your hermit





PART FOUR





MORGAN





CHAPTER NINE




Morgan’s first mistake was almost her last.

Being parted from Jess and Wolfe was something she’d expected, but she still hated it; worry about what would happen to them distracted her too much, and when the Obscurist’s carriage had come to collect her from the Great Archives, she’d had to resist the urge to fight. She could have easily gotten free, but that wouldn’t have advanced their cause. She had to be inside the Iron Tower to do that.

The last place she ever wanted to be.

The carriage had been reinforced with scripts to keep her powers blunted, and the first thing the Obscurist who’d come for her had done was lock a golden collar around her neck. She’d felt the alchemical formulae written inside it connect with the power in her, and the collar had sealed itself shut.

But that still wasn’t a mistake. It was an advantage. They believed they had her under control. And in the days since, she’d bided her time and pretended to be cowed. She’d sent a message to Jess, but the Obscurists were slow to trust her again; they kept her locked in a room, and when she broke the wards on the door, her collar shocked her into unconsciousness for several hours. When she woke, the wards were up, stronger than ever.

They’d also taken away her Codex. There wasn’t a writing utensil or scrap of paper left in the room, and apart from a food tray slipped through a slot in the door, she’d been left completely alone for four days.

On the fifth day, they let her out, but only to meet with the Obscurist Magnus.

He had her summoned to the lush gardens near the top of the Tower—an entire floor devoted to beauty and growth, and windows that were open to the outside to permit the warm sea breezes. No point in trying to throw herself out of them; they would snap shut well before she reached them. She’d experimented with that more than a few times during her last internment here.

She took a seat near a pool filled with blooming lotus flowers, and a servant—another Obscurist, but a very lightly talented one—brought a cup of hot tea and sweet pastries. Tea seemed like a miracle to her; they’d denied any to her from the moment she’d been locked away. Morgan poured a cup and took her first sips just as Gregory came into the garden, and the sight of him drove it all home to her in a way the collar and the familiar sight of the garden had not: she was a prisoner here, again.

And he looked so damned smug about it.

Gregory had always struck her as a would-be tyrant, and now he wore the robes of the Obscurist Magnus, the second-most powerful (or, perhaps really third) person in the Great Library. Everything about the way he approached her, from the superior smile to the arrogant thrust of his walk and the toadies scurrying in his wake . . . it all showed how much he enjoyed his newfound power. Wolfe’s mother had died in this garden. There had been a lot of damage, as Morgan recalled; she could see the repairs now that she looked for them, and the new plants.

Gregory had commissioned himself a new set of robes. These were far more elaborate than what Wolfe’s mother had been content to wear, fine as those were. He was a petty, selfish man. The Archivist had set about raising men and women to the top of the Library who believed more in power than in learning, more in arrogance than in humility. Gregory was only the latest of a rotten breed.

The smell of blooming flowers seemed overpowering, and her stomach lurched as she realized that if she couldn’t leave this place under her own terms, she’d never leave it at all. Worse: she’d be tasked with the job of accepting Gregory’s match for her. Bedding a man she couldn’t love. Birthing a child that, if sufficiently gifted, would be kept just as much a prisoner—or seeing it taken from her and sent away to the orphanage if not gifted enough.

To a stranger’s eyes, the Iron Tower might seem luxurious. Elegant rooms, fine foods . . . the Obscurists went begging for nothing, except their freedom.

But it all left a rotten, wretched taste in the back of her throat, and for a perilous moment she was afraid she might spit out her tea. She drank down the rest in a gulp and set the cup aside, came to her feet, and met Gregory as an equal.

“I knew we’d get you back, Morgan,” Gregory said. “All that drama and death, and for what? You end up where you belonged from the beginning. And don’t worry. I’ve learned a thing or two about controlling unruly residents. Keria wasn’t willing to face the fact that you represent both a huge gain for us and a huge risk. I am.”

“So you’re going to lock me away,” Morgan said, and shrugged. The collar felt heavy and thick around her neck. Gregory seemed to waver in the heat—when had it gotten so warm in the garden?—but she was sure his smile grew wider. “Or try, more likely. I’ve escaped from this tower more than once. I’ll do it again.” Her voice sounded strange. Hollow, as if she heard it through a long metal tube. Voice communication, she thought. Thomas would be fascinated; she wondered if she should mention it to him. She turned slightly, as if she expected to find him standing nearby, and then realized that, no, Thomas was not here, Jess was gone, their little company of friends and allies was shattered into bits, and suddenly the grief and loneliness overwhelmed her. She wanted to weep. Jess, she thought, and felt empty to her core. Jess. She needed him here. She needed him to tell her that it would all, finally, be all right.