Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(68)

Because you did not need the help. But you are outnumbered now, the ring said. And so, I help.

Morgan forced a smile. “Anyone else want to try?”

No one seemed to, but then she felt a little shiver, a waver in the power in the ring. It had only a limited reserve. It would refill itself from the latent power of quintessence floating in the air, but not quickly.

She couldn’t wait here.

Before the Obscurists could move, she dashed for the doorway, threw it open, and ran out into the corridor. Deserted. She made for the long spiral of stairs, heading down toward the more occupied levels. She tried to shout, knowing it would echo through the central corridor, but one of the Obscurists had managed to dampen sound around her. It was a simple enough prewritten code; they probably had an entire volume of them, all designed to keep themselves safe and undiscovered. But Annis had discovered them, and they’d killed her trying to find out how. Or she’d chosen that death instead of telling them. That would have been more like her.

Grief burned, and Morgan found herself gasping against tears as she plunged on down the steps, feet silent, not even her sobs making a sound.

She missed a step and almost fell, and forced herself to slow down. She saw people moving two floors down. If she could reach them . . .

Something hit the wall beside her, raising a puff of dust and an explosion of sharp fragments. It made no sound, but when she looked back she realized that one of the Obscurists had found another gun and was firing it at her. They no longer wanted her alive. They just wanted to stop her from telling anyone else.

A clap of sound so loud it deafened her brought her to a sudden stop; she felt as though her skull had shattered. Am I shot? Am I dead? She didn’t know until she lowered her hands from her head and saw no blood . . . and then saw the shape striding up the stairs toward her. The thunderclap had been an internal Translation within the Iron Tower.

And the man coming toward her was Eskander.

She opened her mouth to scream at him to take cover, but though she felt the strain of trying, the sound just . . . vanished. She didn’t know how to dismantle the effect, and there wasn’t time to try.

But Eskander didn’t need her warning. He plunged past her on the stairs, heading up, and she felt him slashing at the altered reality in a way she couldn’t even grasp as he moved.

Sound snapped back into being. His footsteps on the stairs. Her breath heaving in her lungs. “They’re armed!” she shouted, and a fraction of a second later she heard the shot. It seemed to echo through the Iron Tower like a scream, and she caught her breath as she saw Eskander stagger and miss a step.

No. No, that could not be.

He went to one knee.

Go, the ring told her with a decisive snap. She lunged forward and reached for some line of defense, something, anything, and the ring’s whisper said, Be calm. Feel the air.

The air.

She shifted the density of the air in front of Eskander into a thick block, a shield made of nothing, and as the second shot rang out, she saw the bullet hit the block and slow. It was as if it moved through thick gelatin, and when it finally tunneled its way through, it simply dropped to the stairs and rolled away, all its force spent.

Morgan pushed that shield back as she ascended the stairs. She extended it and formed it into a bubble that trapped the Obscurists inside, battering uselessly at the milky barrier. Will it hold? she asked the ring, and felt a warm pulse of approval. The power had come from the walls of the Iron Tower, from the generations of powerful Obscurists who’d been born, lived, worked, and died here. The barrier was anchored in that power. It would not break, and it wasn’t likely these traitors had the skill to rewrite their formulae to remove it.

She went back to Eskander. He’d gotten to his feet, and he was a little shaken, but when she said, “Show me,” he pulled his hand away from his side to show her the wound. “How bad is it?”

“It missed anything vital,” he said, and groaned. “Not entertaining, but I’ve had worse in my youth.” He smiled at her briefly. “Sorry I didn’t read your message immediately. It’s a busy day.”

The smile vanished as he looked at the Obscurists she’d trapped on the stairs. There was a dangerous light in his eyes. “They killed Annis.”

“Yes. She must have found them doing something they wanted to keep hidden.” She took in a deep breath. “They’re working with the exiled Archivist. I think they’ve been sabotaging our control of the automata and hiding the changes. We’ll need to do a full review of all of the machines to be certain what’s been compromised, and what it means.”

“I was already aware of some of these changes,” Eskander said. “But I’d asked Obscurist Salvatore to investigate.” He pointed to the eldest of the trapped people. “That is Obscurist Salvatore.” He sounded angry, but she thought it was mostly frustration with himself. “I chose the guilty to investigate the crime.”

“You couldn’t have known—”

“It’s my business to know,” Eskander said. “Now more than it’s ever been for any other Obscurist in history. And I’ve failed. Annis is dead because I did.” She saw the flash of real grief in his face, but like her, he had to put it behind him for now. “Your job is to take Salvatore’s place and review the entire inventory for compromise. Test them all.”