Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(48)

“You’re worse than my brothers,” she said.

“I’ll take it as a compliment. I need more siblings.”

She sent him a slightly horrified look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” he said. “It still hurts, and I’ll still flinch when anything brushes that wound. If you want me to feel better, don’t die on me, Glain.”

“I promise,” she said. “Let’s make it a pact. I can’t afford fewer friends, either. Hardly anyone likes me as it is.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Don’t get soppy, Brightwell.” She held on to his hand, though, and met his eyes squarely. “Are you all right? Truly?”

He took his life in his hands and kissed her swiftly on the forehead; her reactions were slower than usual, and he got away with it. Barely. “Don’t be late,” he said, and escaped.

Wolfe was, of course, already in the atrium. He was huddled with a scarred older man talking in hushed tones. Before Jess reached them, the other man scuttled off, and Jess watched his departure, frowning. “Who’s that?”

“Street beggar,” Wolfe said. “Anit’s put out word among the less legal Alexandria residents, and they’ve reported a number of sightings, not of the Archivist, but of some of his most trusted High Garda. And Zara Cole. Look.”

He unrolled a map onto the table nearby, and Jess saw that he’d already inked in some colored dots. “What’s the code?”

“Red for unconfirmed sightings of members of either High Garda Elite or individual Curia members. Blue for confirmed sightings.”

“And black?”

Wolfe put his finger on the single black spot. “Zara. You notice anything about the pattern?”

The blue and red covered much of the city. Randomly distributed. He tried to make sense of it and failed. “I don’t see it.”

“Look at the one quarter of the city where they were not spotted. Because I think he arranged for these sightings quite deliberately to confuse what he was planning.”

It came into focus as soon as the Scholar said it: there was a single neighborhood of the city where absolutely no sightings had been registered. Jess studied it, but failed to remember anything remarkable about it. “What’s there?”

“Dyers and papermakers, butchers and tanners,” Wolfe said. He moved his finger to a particular anonymous street. “And the highly classified and secret High Garda workshop for producing and storing Greek fire.”

Jess felt that go through him like an icy stab. “How much?”

“How much do you think the High Garda holds in reserve?”

Jess didn’t really want to think. “But it’s guarded.”

“Of course. And Santi would have tripled whatever the normal complement would be. The Archivist in Exile will want to burn this city if he can’t own it. That’s the kind of man he is. Better the emperor of ashes than of nothing.”

“You’ve warned Santi?”

“He’s aware,” Wolfe said.

“Shouldn’t we—”

“No. Let Santi handle defenses. We must hunt the Archivist in his den, at the Necropolis.”

They were lucky the old man hadn’t managed to recruit any Obscurists to his cause, Jess supposed. If he had, the odds would have been thoroughly terrible instead of just overwhelming. Bad enough they were facing, by his count, at least thirty High Garda Elite—fewer, if some had since defected, which Jess profoundly hoped—who were all heavily armed and trained to be deadly to anyone, even to their own fellow soldiers.

He knew the old ex-Archivist wouldn’t hesitate to kill, and order others to do it for him. His rule of the Great Library had been a long, bloody, brutal one. And even the cruelest dictators had allies . . . and could buy or compel more. Jess didn’t doubt the old man had plenty of wealth he’d siphoned out of the Great Library’s coffers. Money enough to buy his escape and permanent safety if they didn’t find him, and soon.

“You’re not wearing that Scholar’s robe,” Jess said. Wolfe allowed the map to roll up again and put it in a pocket inside the jacket he wore beneath the robe. Then he removed the robe, folded the thin silk up with practiced, expert motions, and slipped it into a small pouch that went in another pocket.

“I’ll wear it once we have him,” he said. “I want him to see the silk on my back, despite everything he’s tried to do to rip it away.”

And then the old man dies. For killing his innocent assistant, Neksa, if nothing else; the Archivist needed to know when the Brightwells held a grudge, they nursed it like a treasured child. He wanted that so much he was willing to die for it. Reckless, like his brother. Brave, like his brother.

Dead like me, too, he heard Brendan whisper. You can choose your own path. You always have. Don’t follow me into the tomb, Jess.

Jess had never let his brother tell him what to do.



* * *



—

The tunnels they took were surprisingly clean, wide, and spacious, fitted with glows that kept them well lit. He’d seen far worse.

Anit had changed into trousers and a close-fitting tunic, a style borrowed from countries farther east; her tunic was matte dark blue silk, and the trousers matched. That particular blue, Jess recalled, was considered the best for moving unnoticed in the dark. He supposed that even though dawn had broken, they’d spend most of the day in the shadows. If all went well.