Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(59)

He stopped breathing. Like a child, hiding in the dark from the monsters, that was all he could do. There was nowhere to run. No one to call on for help.

“You know,” the shadow said. “We’re old friends, you and I. I’ve been with you in your darkest moments. I’ve cleaned your wounds. I’ve listened to you weep. Remember?”

“No,” Wolfe whispered. “No. You’re not here. You’re not—”

A cold finger touched his lips. Cold and thin as bone.

He closed his eyes.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” the voice said. “I am here to ask you a question, Scholar. You remember how I asked you questions, don’t you? Sometimes it was very gentle. Those were the good times.”

That had only made it worse, the times when the questions had been kind and soft, and there had been a cup of tea and a sweet pastry and a bath. Fresh clothes. Wolfe remembered it so vividly every scar began to ache.

Kindness made the inevitable cruelty so much worse.

“Do you know who made me do that to you, Scholar? It was your old friend the Artifex. He’s always been afraid of you. You, you see, would have become the Artifex, and he knew that. He’s still afraid of you taking his place. Is this his doing now?”

Wolfe shook his head. His throat had gone painfully dry. I’m talking to a phantom, he thought, but the finger touching his lips felt so real. So cold, but so real.

“The Archivist,” he said. “It’s the Archivist who wants us all dead. He’s old. His grip is slipping on the throne.”

“More than you know,” the whisper said. “Be patient. This will be over soon. They’ve left you alone, but the questions are coming. And I will be coming back to ask them.”

He knew that was true; the questions always came, and always, always, the gray, pale shadow was there to ask them. He was going mad, completely mad, and this was an impossible nightmare.

The cold finger left his lips. The chill lingered like a fog.

“You let me go,” Wolfe whispered. “You said you’d let me go.”

“I always keep my promises. You remember, don’t you?”

He did. He remembered. And that was more frightening than the idea that this was a ghost, a phantom, a madness. “Qualls.” The name alone made him feel faint, and he had to brace himself against the wall. “No. You’re gone. Gone. You let me go.”

“Did I?” Qualls gave out a terrible, chilling chuckle, a scrap of iron on stone, of screams echoing from far away. Even in full light, the man had always been terrifying. Something about him was dead, and it showed in his eyes, his smile, the not-quite-human way he moved. “Very well. Go. The cell door is open . . . if you have the courage to run.”

And then he was gone, as quickly as that. A shadow in shadow.

No, Wolfe thought. He was never here. Couldn’t have been here. I’m broken.

Santi’s voice whispered, Broken bones heal twice as strong.

Wolfe held his head in his hands, shivering, sick, shaking from the onslaught of memory, and finally, he realized there was a way to know if it had ever happened at all.

He slipped out of bed, went to the cell door, and pulled.

It opened without a sound.

Wolfe froze, shocked into stillness. He’d never expected this, never thought it would move.

He was here. Qualls was here.

He went weak against the bars. Go. I can run. I can escape.

But something inside him twisted and screamed in terror at the thought. I won’t make it.

He heard a soft growl.

Red lights glowed in the darkness: the eyes of the sphinx, moving forward with slow, deliberate pads. Wolfe leaned against the bars and tightly wrapped a hand around the bars to hold the door shut. If the sphinx pushed . . .

The growl turned to a hiss, and the light grew brighter, until quite suddenly it flared into a red glare bright enough to dazzle his eyes. He blocked the worst of it with his left hand while keeping his right firmly around the bars, and slumped down. Hoped he looked as desperate and dejected as he felt.

“I can’t sleep,” he said to the thing. “Please. Help me. Tell them I need something to help me sleep. A bit of wine, a drug, anything. For the love of the gods—”

In the harsh red light, he saw a lion’s paw swipe at the bars at the level of his fingers. If I let go and it isn’t locked . . .

But he had to let go or have his fingers severed. He snatched his hand back just in time and leaned all his weight against the door as he covered his face. Through the cover, he sensed the sphinx was pacing back and forth in a restless figure eight. A paw rang sharply against the bars again, and he flinched. Pretending to cry left him perilously near the real thing, but he held himself back from plummeting off that cliff. He’d spent months in a cell like this, huddled and broken. He wouldn’t go back to that.

“Please,” he said, in a voice he allowed to tremble and break. “Please, for mercy’s sake, let me sleep.”

It sounded true because it was. A wail came from deep within him, and he let it out. A tormented, ugly sound.

The sphinx hissed, and then he heard it take up its slow, steady pace moving down the hallway. The other cells were deathly quiet now, no rustles or moans, snores or cries. Everyone was aware of what had happened.

Wolfe moved to the corner of his cell closest to Saleh’s and whispered, “Noise. I need noise. Pass the word to the other end of the hall.”