Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(33)

The young woman smiled and studied her and said nothing. Then she held out her hand, palm up, as if she was asking for something. Morgan, uncertain, extended her left hand. The other woman’s fingers closed around it, and she felt a shock like lightning striking. The water boiled and bubbled around them. The sun rose and fell, rose and fell, as if it was a toy on a string, and then it began to drift upward, and the two of them followed.

There was someone in the way.

The old Archivist looked down at them with his bitter eyes and seamed face and said, “Give me what is mine.”

Gargi—somehow, Morgan knew the young woman traveling with her was Gargi Vachaknavi, whose blood inhabited the ring—said the first and only word she would speak. “No,” she said, still smiling, and let go of Morgan’s hand. Without being asked, Morgan stretched out and touched that same hand to the Archivist’s face.

He blackened like the Philadelphia wheat. Poisoned. He turned to ashes and floated away on the tides, and Morgan looked at Gargi and said, “Was that right?”

Then Morgan realized that she, too, was rotting away. Flakes drifted off of her into the water. She cried out and reached for help, but the sun went out and then she was swimming desperately for the surface, but half of her was gone now, turned to ashes, and when she opened her mouth to scream, all that came out was a wet cloud of blood.

She woke up with a shock. Her heart hammered so fast it hurt. She slowly sat up and stared at the ring on her finger. Did that cause the dream? No, surely not. Surely the dream was only her own weariness and rage and pain coming back to haunt her while her guard was down. The ring couldn’t cause nightmares. Couldn’t communicate with her and give her orders, or warnings, or anything else. It was simply a storage device, carrying ancient energy.

If she believed anything else, even for a moment, she’d have to throw it into Thomas’s forge to be melted down forever.

But despite the dream, she couldn’t argue that the ring seemed to have helped her. She felt better. Stronger. More in control of herself and her power than she had in a long time. And though the opportunity to sleep had been welcome, she doubted that simple rest had worked that much magic.

When she consulted the view from the garden’s windows, she was surprised to find it was still dark. The clock showed just after midnight. Odd. She felt she’d slept the day away.

The ring sat heavy and warm on her finger, and she lifted it up to the light to admire it as she brushed tangles out of her hair. The red spot moved slowly from one side to the other—not responding to the action of her hand, but traveling on its own. Sorcery, she thought again, and shivered a little. There had always been, in her mind at least, a hard wall between the ideas of magic and the rational, logical, reproducible effects of alchemy that drove the seeming magic of the Great Library. She could quote every philosopher and researcher on the similarity of all matter, on the transfer of energy, on every principle that allowed an automaton to follow coded instructions, or a Blank to fill with the contents of a recorded book. She understood these things. She understood why they worked.

But this ring felt . . . different. As if it was grounded in the same principles but it went farther, deeper, stranger, than anything she knew. It was terrifying. And intriguing. She knew of the legendary Gargi, of course; she was a woman who’d risen so far above other Scholars that no one, not even the most repressive of kings, could erase her brilliance. And I am decidedly not her, Morgan thought. So why is this ring on my hand?

Because it’s needed.

She didn’t know where that thought came from, but she accepted it as true without question. She felt healthy, steady, focused.

She also badly needed a bathroom, and her mouth tasted foul. Her hair was hopelessly tangled. Still the middle of the night, but she could at least try to seem presentable.

Morgan went back to her room and used the toilet, dressed, brushed out her hair. It was undeniable. She even looked better than she had in months.

As she readied herself to leave, there was a hard volley of knocks on the door. Agitated, frantic knocks, and she quickly threw it open.

Red-haired Annis stood there, mouth open, breathing hard. There were fierce spots of crimson in her cheeks, as if she’d taken several flights of stairs to reach her. “What is it?” Morgan asked. She was honestly afraid that something had happened to Eskander, as alarmed as the other woman seemed to be. Annis was fond of Eskander, always had been. She couldn’t think what else might spark this kind of emergency.

But it wasn’t Eskander. Standing behind Annis was Scholar Wolfe, looking tired and drawn. “Your friend is hurt,” Annis said.

“You’re hurt?” she asked Wolfe directly.

“Not me,” Wolfe replied. “Glain was shot. The doctor with her has done the best they could, but Glain needs more,” he said. “She’s losing too much blood. She doesn’t have long. I need you to come with me.”

Morgan didn’t hesitate. She stepped out of her room, shut the door, and said, “I’m ready.”



* * *



—

If anything, Wolfe had understated the problem; Morgan knew that the second she saw Glain lying so still and quiet in the bed. The physician sitting with her rose when they entered and came to meet them.

“Any change?” Wolfe asked.

“None. She’s bleeding internally, and I don’t have the facilities here to open her and find the torn vessels. She’ll die of shock if I try.” The doctor seemed extraordinarily competent; Morgan took the diagnosis as complete truth. She moved to stand next to Glain’s bedside and looked down on her. She’d never seen Glain this still, not even sleeping; the young Welshwoman was always in motion, eyes darting behind her lids if nothing else. But now she seemed pale and unmoving as her own funerary statue.