Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(70)

“We should hurry,” Annis said. She’d seen the work but said nothing, only slightly compressing her lips. “I’d not put it past Gregory to have someone besides me checking on your whereabouts.”

“What are we going to say about the garden?”

“I’ve no idea at all. Do you?”

“Tell the truth,” Morgan said. “That you don’t know what happened. And I won’t tell him, either. Let him puzzle it out, unless he already knows that an Obscurist can go . . . dark. If he does, he might see me as more valuable yet. I imagine he’d like an assassin to order all his own.”

“Or he’d kill you,” Annis said archly. “A paranoid choob like that wouldn’t see you as useful. Only dangerous to his rule.”

“Can’t help that. We were seen there. It’s a good chance he’ll hang on to me even harder.”

Annis wasn’t happy with that, but she fell silent, and they hurried back through the winding maze of metal corridors. A brief wait for the bored guard to pass, and they dashed for the stairs. Easier to go down than up, but then they called the lifting chamber to take them up.

Morgan didn’t even notice anything out of the ordinary, so sunk was she in the sense of failure, until Annis said, “The devil?” and pushed buttons again. “Missed our stop.”

It’s Gregory. He’s got us trapped. He’s taking us where he wants us. Morgan readied herself for whatever was coming as the lift slowed and stopped. She exchanged a look with Annis, and they both stepped out onto the landing. No guards. No Gregory.

Then Annis said, in a voice that Morgan had never heard before, “Oh.”

She turned to look where Annis was staring, down the hall, where a door was standing open.

They took two tentative steps in that direction before a deep male voice said, “Still falling for that old trick, Annis? After all this time?”

Annis squealed, half in shock, half in delight, and a man stepped forward who Morgan hadn’t noticed at all; it was as if he’d wrapped himself in shadows and become part of the wall. Now he’d stepped into the light, and Morgan had only a second to take him in: an older man, silvered hair cascading over his shoulders, clean-shaven, with dark eyes and skin of dark amber.

“Barbarian!” Annis cried, and threw herself on him. He seemed unprepared for that, but only for an instant, and then he embraced her like he might never let her go again. “Oh, my dear. My dear. Is it really you?”

“Really me,” he said, and finally pushed her to arm’s length. As he looked her over, Morgan began to see the resemblance to Scholar Wolfe, especially the frown that grooved between his brows. “I swore I’d never open that door again, you know.”

“I know,” Annis said, and fit her hand to his cheek. “But I also know that you’ll not abandon those who so desperately need you. Not you, Eskander.”

“Won’t I?” The bitter smile was wholly like Wolfe’s. “You have a short memory. I abandoned Keria. And you.”

“No. You never did.”

“I didn’t save her when she needed me.”

“She didn’t call on you. Keria never was one to cry for help. She fought her battles alone, and she’d be happy to have died in one of them.”

He was like Wolfe in another way, Morgan thought: his unbreaking devotion, because she could see the grief and loss. She’d known Keria Morning, the old Obscurist, only as a frightening, cold, powerful woman until the last moments, but he had known her as someone completely different.

Someone to be grieved.

When Eskander’s gaze fixed on her, Morgan felt exposed . . . every fault and flaw showing. Another thing that Wolfe had inherited from his father, this intense, judgmental stare. “You’re my son’s student? Morgan?” She nodded. Wasn’t sure if she could speak. “Keria spoke of you, the last time I saw her. She thought you were a rare talent. She’d never said that before.”

Morgan wasn’t sure what to say to that, except, “I’m honored.”

“You shouldn’t be. Talent makes you a target. Talent makes you their weapon.”

“I’m not theirs.”

He smiled faintly. “Good. Then, take that off.”

He wasn’t wearing a collar. It hit her with a sudden shock that he didn’t wear the standard robes of a Tower Obscurist; he had on a loose black shirt, plain trousers, comfortably distressed boots. A belt that held what looked like a High Garda–issue pistol. Add a Scholar’s robe, and his likeness to his son would be uncanny.

It hit her a second later what he was actually saying. “Take what off?” She thought he meant the robe.

He touched his fingers to his throat, and she mimicked him and put her hand to the collar. “I can’t!”

“I can,” he said. “If you will permit me . . . ?”

“He’ll know,” Morgan said.

“Of course he will.” This time, the smile was dark and full of menace. “I’m looking forward to it.”

She nodded. She didn’t believe he could do it until Eskander stepped close to her, put both hands on her collar, and pulled.

She felt the harsh flash of broken scripts. Not broken: shattered. Destroyed. The power it took was immense, and it took her breath away.