Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(58)

“That was stupid,” Dario told her as he pressed his lips against her forehead. “If you hadn’t come back—”

“You’d have gone to your cousin,” she said.

“No. No, flower. I’d have fought every one of them to get to you.”

She sighed. “Then we are both stupid. I’d do the same for you.”

“Your hand!” He frowned down at it, cradling it carefully. “Let’s find a healer.”

“In a while. First, let’s find Captain Santi.” She pulled back and looked at him directly. “I’ve found us a way home.”





EPHEMERA



Excerpt from the personal journal of Niccolo Santi. Not yet available in the Codex.


I sit with my journal and my pen, and I find nothing to say. I look back on other pages, and I understand why; every page is full of Christopher. The things he does that annoy me, or amuse me, or delight me. The joy of sitting together in the quiet between missions, when we still had those to look forward to together. He has always been a sharp ball of thorns, and difficult to hold on to, but that has never stopped me from loving him.

In the silence where he should be, I hear nothing.

I wait.

I try to lock away the rage I feel for this stupid Brightwell boy and his stupid plan that has sent the man I love into another dark hole in the ground, endless nights of fear and pain and anguish. There is nothing in the world worth Christopher’s suffering. Not to me. Let the Library rise or fall; it only matters to me if he is alive, and safe, and sane.

If that is heresy, then I will be happy to die a heretic.

If he comes broken out of that place—and he must come out of it—then I will take every bruise, every hurt, out on Jess Brightwell.

God help me if this takes Christopher from me for good.





PART SEVEN





WOLFE





CHAPTER TWENTY




“All right,” Wolfe said in a low whisper, leaning against the wall that separated him from Ariane, on his right. “Ready?”

“Ready,” she whispered back.

“Twenty-two guards on this level,” he said. “Four hallways, with four guards always assigned to each one. Two walk, and two rest. Each guard is armed with a standard High Garda pistol, rifle, and two knives. There are six automata: one on each hallway, and two that roam at random. Guards change in six-hour shifts, but each hallway changes an hour after the one to its right. All right. Repeat it.”

Ariane repeated it. Where she faltered—she was not well, and he worried that she wouldn’t be strong enough to keep this up, soon enough—he patiently reminded her, until she’d recounted it perfectly three times. Then she moved on to teach the sequence to the person housed to her right.

This was the routine now, every day, noting details and adding to them, and sharing so that every person had the same information, should any opportunities come.

But it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

Wolfe wanted to sleep, to be rested for what was coming . . . but once he’d stretched out, as always, relaxing brought the memories. He’d fought them every night, sometimes all night; lack of rest made them more vivid and compelling, but the vicious circle was hard to break. His hands trembled. His skin itched so fiercely that he rubbed scars until they bled. Hunger, thirst, the constant, gnawing chill . . . those, he could stand. But the memories were the worst.

Please, Nic. Help me. Help me one more night. He slowly closed his eyes and summoned up Nic. First his smile, the one that came so rarely in public and so easily in private. The rich, dark color of his eyes, the soft silk of his hair. The scrape of a beard Nic could never quite shave clean for more than an hour or two.

His neck. Powerful shoulders. Scars. The shape of his chin and his hands. Everything about him, built memory by memory, until Wolfe could feel his warmth, his strength, as a barrier between him and the pulling darkness. What are you so afraid of, Christopher? Santi’s voice, quiet and gentle in the night. Your scars have healed. They can’t break you now. You are made of scars, and so am I, and together, we can forget them all.

I’m not afraid, Wolfe told him. Not now. He twined his fingers with the warmth of Niccolo Santi’s hair and kissed him, and the warmth of that let him drift away, lost in the feeling, until the nightmares lost their way and sleep found him.

It didn’t find him for long, because he woke in a convulsive rush and sat up with his heart pounding and nerves jumping. He’d heard something, something more than just the random noise of a prison.

There was someone inside his cell.

Dark as it was, he could hardly make out the shape, but he was certain it was a human shape, wrapped in black.

“Quiet,” a voice whispered. Barely a thread of sound. “Hush now, Scholar. Crying out will do you no good.”

The voice was too soft to identify, but he knew it on some deep, visceral level. I’m imagining things, he thought. I’ve lost my mind. No one can get in here, past the guards, past the automata.

For a wild, random moment, he thought he knew who it was, and he whispered, “Nic?” But of course it wasn’t Niccolo Santi, conjured up by his longing.

“No.” The voice was just a whisper. “You know who it is, Scholar. You always know when I arrive, don’t you?”