Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(24)

Anit’s guards were surrounding her and pushing her into the house now, and Glain rejoined Jess and shoved him toward the house as well. She had her weapon out, too. “Good job,” she said. “Go on. It’s not safe out—”

He didn’t immediately hear the shot that hit her, but he saw bright blood spray the air from just below her ribs. A bullet had gone completely through Glain’s back and out her front, and for a moment he thought it had hit him, too, but he felt no pain. Just shock. Everything seemed to slow down.

“Glain?” He heard himself gasp it. She was still standing, swaying.

“I’m all right,” she said, and then she coughed, and a shocking explosion of blood came from her mouth. “Oh. I’m not?”

Then her eyes rolled back and she toppled forward into his arms. They were still ten feet from the door, and he found the strength—somehow, from somewhere—to drag her with him to safety, though a fuzzy darkness gathered in front of his eyes, and his body screamed for oxygen. He glimpsed the fresh, splintered mark on the doorway where the bullet that had felled her came to rest, but only as a flash, a point of information like the wide crimson swath Glain’s body left in its wake. His boot slipped in her blood. He felt rather than heard the impact of another bullet cracking the stone next to his head, and then he was inside, easing her to the floor, and one of Anit’s men was slamming the door shut and turning locks.

“Blessed Isis! Is she dead?” Anit asked. She crouched beside him. Jess checked the pulse at Glain’s neck and found a rhythm.

“Not yet.” His voice sounded oddly normal. As if the answer didn’t really matter to him. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it couldn’t. He felt numb at the moment, light and weightless.

“Jacket,” Anit commanded, and he stripped it off and handed it over. She pressed the cloth firmly against Glain’s wound in front and rolled her on her side. Blood was pumping from the hole in her back, too. “Fadil! Your shirt!”

The guard nearest to them stripped off his black shirt and handed it over without a word. Anit wadded it up and pushed it into the wound. She grabbed Jess’s hand and put it against the cloth. “Hold that tight. Fadil, get our doctor. Go.”

The shirtless guard ran.

“Doctor,” Jess repeated. Doctors were little better than hedge witches and herbalists, for the most part. “She needs a trained Medica!”

Anit said, “My physician was a Medica before we paid him handsomely to leave your service. Don’t worry about Glain.” She glanced at Jess. Forced a smile. “You’re lucky my house is made for events such as this. It’s a fortress, my father’s favorite bolt-hole, and fully staffed and stocked. Your friend picked the right spot to find herself wounded.”

Jess knew he should feel more than he did at the moment; Glain was a friend, a good friend, but all within was silence. He’d shut himself down, the better to do the work that needed doing. He still wasn’t healed from losing Brendan; he hadn’t even faced it, really. And now Glain. No. He couldn’t afford to feel it.

“Out of the way,” a thin, reedy voice said, and a person in a dark silk robe effortlessly slid into the space Jess had occupied as he got to his feet. “I am Burnham, the physician. And who is this?” The physician, Jess realized, was speaking to Glain and ignoring all the rest of them entirely. Jess’s first impression was the healer was male, and then the light shifted and he thought female, but it was clearly unimportant to the healer at all what others might interpret. Glain’s found a kindred spirit, he thought.

“This is Glain Wathen,” Jess said.

Shockingly, Glain started talking. When she’d come around, he wasn’t sure; he couldn’t see her face. Her voice came slow and almost dreamy. “Lieutenant of the High Garda. Captain Santi’s . . . I mean . . . I don’t know who my captain will be now. Jess?” Her voice suddenly sharpened on his name. “They won’t make Zara captain, will they?”

“No,” he said. “Not her.” It was troubling that Glain even said it; Zara had betrayed them, left them, sided with the Archivist. Had killed his brother. She wasn’t thinking straight. “Maybe Botha.”

“That would be good,” Glain said. Her voice drifted off, and she closed her eyes. “Botha.”

“Soldier. Soldier!” No response. Burnham gave a frustrated, wordless growl, then said, “Mistress Anit, I’ll need immediate assistance to move her to the surgery. Must close these wounds and repair the damage the bullet’s done. And she’ll need blood. A lot of it.”

Anit snapped her fingers, and a guard stepped forward and scooped Glain up in his arms. He grimaced a bit—she was no lightweight. Burnham nodded and walked quickly toward a hallway to the left. Anit stayed, watching Jess as he started to step back.

He lost his balance and fell back, gasping in surprise. The gasp turned into a cough that racked him almost limp. His vision grayed out. When it cleared again, he was sitting against the wall, and Anit’s cool hand was on his forehead. He was breathing in shallow gasps. Her expression was worried, but she made an effort to clear it when she realized he was taking that in. “Well,” she said. “I think you’re another candidate for my doctor. What happened to you?”

“Gas,” he said. He didn’t have the will to lie about it. “Traps in the Archivist’s office.”