Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(109)

Morgan shook her head. “I don’t know. But maybe . . .” She turned her head, as if she was listening. “Break the seal.”

“What?”

“Break the seals.” She blinked and looked at him. “I don’t know what that means. It’s what the ring tells me.”

“What ring—”

Morgan shoved that aside with an impatient gesture. “Just do it. Now! We’re running out of time!”

They were standing in a deathtrap of monumental proportions, Jess realized. And no time to ask more questions. He looked to Wolfe, and Wolfe said, “Nic, go south with Khalila. Thomas, north with Jess. Dario, with me to the east. Glain and Morgan, west. Look for a Great Library seal on the statues; that must be what she means. Go!”

They scattered, moving fast. Jess kept up with Thomas, though he knew it was costing him the last of his endurance, and they spotted a vast archway to the north. Over it was a Latin phrase: Sapientia melior auro. Wisdom is better than gold.

Zeus’s massive seated form sat carved in marble beside that entrance. At any other time the sight might have awed him; the statue stood ten times his height, a breathtaking work of art in perfect marble. But just now he only cared about one thing: the seal of the Great Library embossed in gold on the base of the throne.

He pulled his sidearm and hammered at it with the butt of the gun. It cracked but didn’t break.

Thomas moved him aside and slammed the point of his elbow into the seal—once, twice, three times.

The seal broke, and beneath that lay a lever. Thomas turned it.

The entire statue rolled aside on noiseless wheels, and behind it stood a closed door.

Locked. Jess was too sick to even try to pick it; he shot the lock away, and Thomas swung the door wide.

He could hear ticking the moment the door opened.

The room held a simple metal console with a clock embedded in its surface. As Jess watched, the second hand swept backward. It was counting down.

“Do you see an off switch?” he asked. Coughs were boiling at the back of his throat, and he felt his lungs filling with foam and liquid.

“No,” Thomas said. He pulled a panel from the front of the thing and bent down. “Yes! I see it!” He bent down and tried for it. Grimaced and shook his head. “I can’t. My hand is too large to fit. Jess, here. Here!” He grabbed Jess and pulled him down before Jess could move, and pointed. Jess followed his pointing finger and started to reach for the red valve.

It was too easy. He rested his fingers on it, hesitated, and shook his head.

“Turn the valve!” Thomas shouted.

“That’s wrong,” Jess said. His brain was cloudy, but he pushed that away. Pushed all of it away. He’d seen this before; he’d seen Great Library traps all his life, meant to catch thieves and smugglers. The valve was bait, like a mockup of a rare book left within easy reach. It was there to catch the unwary.

He looked to the other side. There was another Great Library seal, glass cleverly painted to look like metal.

Break the seal.

He smashed his fist into it, ignored the pain as the glass shattered, and found another valve under the shards.

He turned it.

The ticking stopped.

“Mein Gott. Thank you. I should have seen that,” Thomas said. He was visibly shaken. “The others—”

“The others might fall for it,” Jess said. “Go. Tell them.” He couldn’t get up. His mouth was full of foam again. He couldn’t gag down a breath; his lungs felt filled with concrete. He spat the foam out, coughed, and managed to croak out, “Go!”

Thomas looked at him for an instant in agonized indecision, then took something out of his pocket and pressed it into Jess’s hands. “Drink it!” he ordered, then turned and ran as he shouted a warning. Maybe he would reach the others in time.

Jess looked at the lump of tattered cloth that Thomas had handed him, and slowly began to unwrap it. There was a glass tube inside, full of liquid. He tried to remove the stopper. His fingers kept slipping. The air is burning, Jess thought. But it wasn’t the air. He was gasping but getting nothing from the effort. He was suddenly and tremendously tired. I’m dying in a room full of books after all. The biggest collection of all, he thought. And that felt right, even if he was afraid and in pain and angry that it had to be this way, that he had to do this alone, that he wouldn’t get to say good-bye.

He’d forgotten about the vial. It was still in his hand, but it no longer really mattered.

He let it roll away across the floor.

He let his eyes drift closed, and time drifted.

Something’s on my face. He came awake with a gasp, and realized it was his breathing mask; he could barely draw in the next, choked breath, but he tried. It cleared his lungs enough that he was able to manage desperate, shallow gasps.

I think I was dead. Was I?

Khalila. She was weeping, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She was dragging him across the marble floor, and in the next blink Dario was there, too, dragging him faster.

Something was wrong with the light.

The light flickering behind the two of them was green.

The Great Archives were burning.

Dario and Khalila dragged him to the center of the vast chamber. Three of the Archive wings were silent and safe.

The entrance where Morgan and Glain had been working was a hell of green flames. The inscription above that arch said, Scientia ipsa potentia est.