Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(94)

“We got him out of his room!”

“We did,” she agreed. “But you see, you never knew the young Eskander. I did. He was wild and impulsive and full of passion. But he’s had forty years of strict silence and self-control, and I think you can see that he’s no longer a man who makes quick decisions. He heard us out. Now he’s thinking.”

“We don’t have time!”

“We have nothing but time,” Annis shot back. “Here, in the Iron Tower, that’s all we have. Here, read this. Is this what he was looking for? It’s well above my ken.”

Morgan took the Blank she held and skimmed the cramped, ancient writing, then shook her head. “That’s a formula to undo familiarity links, but it’s too specific. We need something broader.”

Annis rubbed her forehead and wiped the Blank’s contents. “I doubt they’ll give us access to something so advanced.”

“The Obscurist special library contains all the research that’s needed to write new, highly advanced formulae; they can’t leave out things if they expect us to invent properly. It’ll be here. And likely look completely benign.”

“Why can’t he do this? He knows what he’s looking for!”

“Because by accessing the contents here in the reading room, it doesn’t track to a specific person,” Morgan said. “If any of these texts are flagged as dangerous, then it’s best to have none of our names appearing on any High Garda list, don’t you think?”

Annis grumbled but went back to the Codex. “He might have given us a proper year instead of a range. This could take forever.”

Morgan understood how she felt, but she knew Annis wouldn’t understand the reverse. To the older woman, this was just annoyance and boredom. To Morgan, every minute off the clock was another minute the world turned closer to the Feast of Greater Burning, and she knew that she’d lose cherished lives there if they failed in this.

“We have to go faster,” Morgan said, and Annis shot her a grateful look of agreement.

“It’s a pity we can’t have the automata search for us,” she said. “Though I suppose ripping apart heretics is more in line with their mission.”

Morgan paused in the act of turning a page, and her eyes widened. She jumped up and threw her arms around Annis, who seemed shocked, but laughed. “You’re a genius!” Morgan said, and kissed her cheek.

“I have never in my life been told so,” Annis said. “Why, exactly?”

“The Archives,” Morgan said. “As newly discovered books come in, there are specially built automata, Scribes, who do nothing but read and transcribe the contents into the record. Isn’t that right?”

“Of course. The words have to be meticulously copied into the Archives to become available.”

“And how many Scribes are there?”

“Tens of thousands, back in the earliest days,” Annis said. “I don’t know how many today. Thousands, at least.”

“Pen! I need a pen!” Morgan began pulling open drawers in the copy desks on the sides of the room, unearthing bits of discarded paper, broken nibs, a half-dried bottle of ink . . . and then Annis pressed a working pen into her hand, and Morgan pulled a fresh sheet of paper from a stack.

“What are you doing?” Annis leaned forward. Morgan, without pausing as she swiftly, confidently sketched out the formula that she was building in her mind, used one shoulder to bump the woman back. She didn’t answer. Didn’t have time. The reading room had no windows, but she knew the world was turning fast toward morning, and when the sun reached its hottest, highest point for the day, people would die.

Her pen sketched one last Greek symbol, and then she sat back and ran through it in her mind again. It should work. No one had thought of the Scribes as anything but conduits before, and the Archives as the only real repository of knowledge . . . but the Scribes were the vital link between originals and copies.

She put the pen down, took a deep breath, and opened herself to the flow of the energy that bound up the world. This was going to require almost everything she had so carefully hoarded, but it would be worth it.

She touched a finger to the inked symbols, and they exploded into a matrix of swirling, glittering shapes that circled around her in a storm. Moving far too fast. She quickly began to place them in order, until they moved in a tight cylinder around her, and then she closed her eyes and pushed. What she was doing was nothing like rewriting the lion automata, which were individual constructions; the Scribes were all connected, stationary, linked by real mechanical wires and tubes of fluids as well as alchemy. They had been constructed so for a reason: to allow smooth, seamless, mindless action.

What affected one of them affected all of them. By design.

She felt, rather than saw, the formula disappearing into the flow, traveling from where she sat to the Archives, and into the first Scribe, who automatically relayed it to the next, and the next, and the next . . .

She collapsed forward onto the desk, gasping for breath, as the last of her energy trickled away and the insatiable hunger set in. No, no, not now . . . She felt as if she were smothering, drowning in air that was too thick to breathe. Rescue blazed in glowing, strong lights next to her, and all she had to do was reach . . .

But that was Annis, and if she reached out now, she’d destroy a human life. She wouldn’t be able to stop.