Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(97)

“I’m ready,” she said.

“No, child. I don’t think you are.”

She didn’t even have time to draw breath or brace herself before a wave of agony hit, so intense that it seemed to burn her from the inside out, combust everything inside her and char it black, reduce it to ash and reduce the ashes to nothing. He’s killing me, she had time to think, in that endless, torturous limbo of pain.

For a moment she floated, anchored to her body by only the thinnest fraying cord of light . . . and in that moment, the power racing through Eskander exploded out and through her, tracing an intricate web of paths through her body. As each channel snapped to life, another lightning-hot spasm of pain raced through her, but it was a different frequency of pain that resonated more and more strongly inside her, until with a hissing snap, she was . . .

Incandescent.

When she opened her eyes, the glow remained, a brilliant golden whisper over her skin that only gradually faded, and with every blink, she saw the pulse of the world around her—not only living things, but everything, lit in energy and structures like crystalline castles. And below her, around her, the whispering opalescent power that coursed through the air, the ground, stretching through the sky to brush the stars.

Eskander let her go and stepped back. She stared at him in wonder, at the brilliant flare of him, until the effect finally faded and he was just a man, and this just a room.

She felt . . . new. Completely new.

“What—what did you do?” She could barely get the words out. Eskander picked up the book that he’d set aside and flipped to the marker she’d put inside. He read the passage rapidly and nodded. Turned the page and nodded again, then walked to his desk, where he sat and took out pen and paper.

He wasn’t going to answer her, she realized, and she tried again. “Sir, how did you . . . how did you fix . . .”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I destroyed. I rebuilt the nerves and pathways that your own life force depends upon into their proper structure. You were like a tree struck by lightning; some part of the tree still lives, but the trickle of life isn’t enough to sustain it. Neither completely dead nor completely alive. Now you are alive again, and an Obscurist completely. Don’t mistake me: you’re not indestructible. The power you have must be carefully measured and portioned, and you must learn when, and how, to use it without destroying those paths again.”

“But—I only did what I had to do to save others—”

“You are not a god,” he interrupted her. “Saving lives is something all men and women must do when called on, but never think you alone can do it. I’m accounted the most powerful Obscurist in a thousand years. Do you think I can save a hundred lives at a time? A thousand? A city? Of course I can’t, because Obscurists are just humans with a better view of the world, and a larger lever with which to move it. Others can act, and must. We are not the saviors of the world.”

It set her on her heels, and in the next moment, she felt angry. Angry that he wasn’t willing to step into the full responsibility of his power. “So that’s it? You’re not going to help save those people who are going to die? My friends?”

“Morgan, if the power we wield was the answer to every question, the Obscurist Magnus would be the Archivist, wouldn’t he? But Obscurists are forbidden by law to hold the post. I know this is a disappointment to you, but I’m not the savior you’re looking for.” He never stopped writing while he spoke—quick, certain strokes of his pen, and now he sat back, took the page in his hand, and pulled the symbols off the page and into the representation she was familiar with—glittering, spinning symbols surrounding him. But the ones he’d created were not chaotic. They already had a smooth, humming, complicated path, interweaving and interlocking like gears in a precision machine. “However, I can help, and I will. The Iron Tower is the fragile point where the Library rests its weight; we always have been since the first Obscurist created the Codex and the Blanks. Could the Library have survived without us? Yes. But not in its current form. It depends on us for almost everything, and that must continue in some fashion. The Codex, the Great Archives . . . these things must remain intact, even as we plan some better future for them. The Translation Chambers I will block once the moment is right. Be careful until then. The Archivist will still have an easy avenue of escape.”

“But—you said—”

“I said I wasn’t your savior. I never said I wouldn’t do what I can.” He banished the formula he’d written with a wave of his hand. “I can open the doors of this tower. Remove our collars. I can stop Gregory, or at least make him run to the safety of his master. But I can’t force any one of these Obscurists to follow you out into the world. Most of them have never set foot out there; like me, they’ve been caged so long they’ve forgotten the smell of free air. And none of them are combat ready. We’re house cats, not tigers.”

It was a shocking dose of cold water, and for a moment Morgan didn’t know what to say to him. He’d said it with such dispassion, such lack of concern . . . as if all this, even the deaths clicking relentlessly toward them, were academic exercises.

“And what about your son?” she asked.

Eskander turned toward her. There was the ghost of Christopher Wolfe in the shape of his face, the bitterly dark eyes. “My son must save himself,” he said. “As must we all. There is no single person who can stop any of it. Gregory must be overthrown, and I’ll have to step into his place to keep order. My place is here looking after these people, not out there fighting.”