Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(79)

“Take them out of my sight.” The Archivist sighed and took up his pen. “I have to find a new assistant.”

They took Brendan out first, and Jess was glad of that.

It meant his brother was spared the sight of the girl he loved being rolled into the spoiled carpet and taken away without ceremony, or even a last look from the man who’d killed her.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN




The corridors had shifted again, and Jess grimly memorized this configuration, too; he was starting to see a pattern to it, but he’d need more data to finish the puzzle. Not likely to get it in the time he had left. He had the feeling he’d been to this office for the last time.

Brendan’s hands were shackled now, and his ankles, too; as Jess was pushed down into the carrier seat, he got the same treatment. So did Wolfe. No chance of using their numbers to take down the six High Garda soldiers crowded in with them, though Jess had considered it as an option for a flash. Brendan sat silently now, as still as an automaton. He was half-soaked in Neksa’s blood, and Jess could imagine how that felt cooling against his skin. If he’d ever needed more of a reason to see the Archivist dead, he had it now.

“Bren,” he said quietly. And when he got no response: “Scraps.”

“Don’t,” Brendan said. “Just don’t.”

“Leave him,” Wolfe said from Jess’s other side. “Jess. Is Santi—”

“I don’t know,” Jess said. “But I’m glad to see you alive.”

“Are you?” Wolfe had recovered a ghost of his usual acerbic tone. “That’s mystifying, considering the horror I unleashed on you just now. Both of you.”

“My fault,” Jess said. “Dario and I, we thought . . . we thought you’d tell Santi what we planned, and Santi would put a quick stop to it. I hated not telling you, but . . .” He shook his head. “It wasn’t worth what you’ve been through, Scholar, and I am sorry for that.”

“Don’t take the world on your back. I don’t need your guilt, Brightwell. I need your mind working. We’re not finished.”

It looked like they were, Jess thought, but he kept that silent. At least Wolfe wasn’t broken to his core. Not yet. But Brendan . . . No, he couldn’t be. His twin bounced; he didn’t break. He never cared enough to be hurt the way that others could be. Or at least, he never showed it if he was.

“Not sure how we’re getting out of this, sir,” Jess admitted. “My plans didn’t include . . . this. Any of this.”

“I suppose it would be asking a great deal if they did,” Wolfe said. “But there’s all the time in the world to feel defeated.”

“Shut up, the lot of you,” growled one of the soldiers. “You’re going nowhere but into the cells and into the ground.”

Hard to argue that he was wrong . . . except that the carrier, which had been hurtling along at a fast clip, suddenly decelerated and threw everyone’s weight toward the front.

“Blessed Isis, learn to drive, you mongrel—,” shouted the same soldier who’d first spoken, and he pushed his way up to the front to bang on the driver’s compartment. “What’s happening?”

No answer. The carrier continued to slow down, and Jess looked over at Wolfe, then at Brendan. Brendan’s eyes were shut, his face tense and still, but Wolfe seemed more than aware of things. “Be ready,” the Scholar whispered, and Jess nodded. Ready for what, he wasn’t sure; with ankles and wrists pinned, it wasn’t likely he could do more than flail at random. But anything out of the ordinary was something that might, might be useful.

The carrier ground to a hissing stop, and a brisk, businesslike boom sounded three times on the door. “Come on, soldier, we don’t have all day,” barked a bored voice. “Orders and papers. High Commander’s orders.”

“Talk to the driver!” their guard commander shouted without opening up. “He’s got the clearances!”

“He says you’ve got them.”

“We’re transporting prisoners on the orders of the Archivist, you idiot. Can’t you see the Elite seal on the vehicle?”

“Word is, some faction’s stolen two of those very things. I’ll need to inspect before I can open the barricades.”

“What’s your rank, soldier?” the Elite guard barked.

“Lieutenant, sir. And yours?”

“I outrank you. Open the barricades!”

“Show me your orders and it’s yours.”

“Damn your soul to the crocodiles—” The commander backed up and drew his sidearm, and around them, his soldiers followed suit. “Be ready. I don’t like this.”

“Lieutenant?” More bangs on the door. “If you force me to crack this can, I’ll have your head, superior or not!”

He sounded like an annoyed, tired High Garda officer, Jess thought, and that must have decided the Elite commander, too, because he unlatched the door and slid it open, just enough to thrust his Codex out. “First page,” he said. “And then I’ll want your name. You can expect to be cleaning toilets in my barracks by—”

He stopped because he was coughing . . . and in a second, they all were:; helpless, racking coughs, though Jess couldn’t see any smoke. In the next seconds, his eyes filled with burning tears, and he felt, rather than saw, soldiers stumbling blindly toward the door, retching.