Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(40)

The Archivist seated himself behind his desk and fussed with the placement of his Codex, blank paper, pens . . . and then sat back and tented his fingers together as he stared at Brendan. “I had to be certain,” he said. “You and your brother are so startlingly alike. I needed reassurance that I was not dealing with the wrong Brightwell. That would have been a fatal error.”

“Well, you aren’t,” Brendan snapped. “And if you ever do anything like this to me again, the deal’s off and I’m gone, and my family will not take it well. Understand?”

“Of course.” The Archivist’s tone was smooth as melting butter. “I wouldn’t dream of subjecting you to it again. You are now a respected business partner—one I shall have to treat with care. I commend you for your honesty, young Brightwell. I much prefer to have loyalty and limits stated up front, especially when embarking on such a partnership. Now. How quickly can your father deliver the plans for this printing machine?”

“Thought you had plans for it,” Brendan said. “Wasn’t that what you threw the German lad in prison for, drawing them?”

“The Black Archives, where such things are stored, became a liability. We . . . closed them.”

“Meaning?”

“The contents of the Black Archives are gone,” the Archivist said. “Better that dangerous information be lost forever than inflicted on an unready world, don’t you agree?”

Brendan shrugged. “The more you burn, the rarer the volumes we sell. So that means our printing machine is the only version there is? Interesting. The price might have just gone up.”

“I expected nothing less from you,” the Archivist said. “But the price will remain as we agreed. If I find your father has broken trust with me, if these machines appear anywhere else, I will have you executed in a way that will burn in the memory of anyone tempted to cross the Library again, and I will hunt down every single member of your family, however remote, and do the same to them. Your father. Brother. Mother. Every cousin. Babes in arms. Are we understood, Brendan Brightwell? But if you keep your agreement, I will keep mine. Believe me.”

In Brendan’s experience of men who thought themselves honest (and rarely were), the phrase believe me was a clear signal they intended to do the opposite of what they said. But he nodded. The black storm inside his head wasn’t lessening, and he felt an unsettling tremble in his muscles, but for the purposes of this meeting, he’d have to manage through it. “We’ll require immediate payment in Alexandrian geneih, of course. English currency isn’t worth much at the moment, given the Welsh rampaging all over our country.”

“Already done. The funds have been sent to the bank your father specified. He has been in contact directly, of course.”

That woke prickles of alarm down Brendan’s spine. If the old man was negotiating directly now, what did that make him? Nothing but a hostage. And, most likely, an object lesson.

“Then are we done here? Because I’d like a stiff drink and something for my headache.”

“I wouldn’t drink,” the Archivist said. “It would probably kill you just now, and that would be an awkward situation. Best thing to do is to stay awake, stay active, and let it work out of your system. In fact, I’ll help with that. Your assistance will be helpful today.”

“With what exactly?”

“Captain Wahl will tell you. You may go.” The Archivist brushed the back of a hand at him, as if sweeping him away like an annoying bug. And just like that, he was forgotten.

That was one of the more annoying things about this evil old bastard, Brendan thought: he could sincerely threaten to peel your skin from your bones one moment and treat you as beneath his notice the next. And for a moment, Brendan seriously thought about using the dagger he’d lifted from the High Garda captain while she’d been searching him and burying it right in the old man’s eye, just for the sheer justice of it.

But that didn’t seem like a wise waste of his life.

The female captain, the one of the ice-cold eyes and Nordic heritage (and scars), stepped forward and fixed her unsettling stare on Brendan’s face. “You’re with me,” she said. “Step a toe out of line, and I’ll leave you dead for crows. Understand?”

“Charming,” he said, and gave her his best grin. “I’m sure we’re going to get along wonderfully.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN




Captain Wahl ushered him out of the Archivist’s suite through yet another different path, this one avoiding the Hall of Gods altogether; the Archivist had a frankly annoying number of ways to avoid his enemies, and every path seemed designed to end in disaster for someone bent on disturbing the old man’s calm. Wahl’s route marched him through a series of nondescript rooms, each looking the same; he supposed they were waiting rooms but could see no signs directing visitors to them. If you have to ask, he thought, you shouldn’t even be here.

“Captain,” he said as they passed through the seventh of such rooms, occupied by empty chairs and shelves of Blanks for the entertainment of nonexistent occupants, “exactly what are you planning for me?”

“If you’re worried I’m marching you to execution, I’m not,” she said. “But I do have full authority to leave you dead in the road if you try to escape.”