Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(77)

“And still no sign of the Archivist,” he said to Glain as he closed his Codex. She was bloody, but only a little of it was her own; she’d fought like a woman possessed. She looked pale and strained now as the adrenaline departed.

“No, sir,” she said. “It seems likely he was never here at all. All this was set up to kill you when you came looking. They meant it to be a deathtrap.”

“And if I’d come with just you and Jess—”

“We’d all be dead,” she said. At his look, she smiled. “I’m good, Scholar. Nobody’s that good.”

“Well, perhaps you’re—”

“Sir!” Glain was moving suddenly, and he went immediately on his guard for whatever was coming . . . but she was running toward Jess Brightwell, who was in the act of slumping to the ground with his back against the gunfire-chipped door of a tomb.

Wolfe followed. He didn’t see any wounds, but the boy was pallid, sweaty, breathing in strangled gasps. His lips had taken on an unsettling violet tinge. “He can’t breathe,” Glain said. “He’s been like this since—”

“I know,” Wolfe said. “Didn’t he see a Medica?”

“Yes. He said he was all right. They gave him a mask of some kind—” She dug in Jess’s pockets and found a small, formfitting device of flexible rubber that fitted over his nose and mouth. It seemed to work, after a tense few moments; his breathing eased, and his color improved from grave gray to sallow. Color back in his lips and fingernails, at least a little.

“He’s not well,” Wolfe said quietly. He’d been afraid of this. Afraid that his obsession, his lack of sensible caution, had finally cost a life. Worse still, the life of someone he cared for. Brightwell was in his charge, and he’d been reckless with the boy. “He should be in a Medica treatment hospital, not here.”

“If he hadn’t been here, this might not have turned out as well as it did,” Glain observed. “He’s tough. He’ll be all right.” Her words were brusque, but the way she smoothed his hair back from his face was far more telling. Glain had a soft streak in her. In that she reminded him of himself. Rather strongly.

“He’s waking up,” Wolfe said. The boy’s eyelids were fluttering, and they finally raised on a blank stare that seemed utterly unaware for a few long seconds before he blinked and focused on Glain’s face.

“Welcome back,” she said, brisk as ever. “Good job you didn’t do this in the middle of the fight.”

“Well, I try to time my collapses conveniently,” Jess said, which almost made Wolfe smile. Almost. The young man’s face looked sharp, as if the skull under the flesh showed through. Unnerving. His skin seemed far too translucent. “Scholar, you’re all right?” He tried to get up. Glain pushed him down and placed the mask back over his face. He tried to bat it away. She speared a commanding finger at him, and without a word exchanged, he surrendered and breathed as deeply as he could. It did not seem deep enough to Wolfe. I’ve killed him. The thought struck deep, and it hurt so badly he drew in a startled breath. A death in slow motion, but nevertheless, a death. He wondered what exactly the Medica had said. Surely not that he should be back on duty, doing what he was doing. And he knew Jess would never tell him.

“I’m fine,” he told Jess. “Fine work, Brightwell. You blinded the Minotaur, I understand.”

Jess managed a shrug, and a hint of a smile behind the mask. He pulled it away to say, “Best I could do. The damn thing’s almost invulnerable.”

“Breathe,” Glain scolded, and shoved the mask back in place. She looked at Wolfe, and he saw the same bleak knowledge in her eyes.

He nodded. “Don’t make me nail this to your face, Jess. I will if you don’t use it when you’re in need.”

“It works less every time,” he said quietly. “The mask won’t help too much longer.”

“Well, as long as it does, you use it. We’re going back,” Wolfe said. “I need to talk to Santi, and get a better sense of where the old man’s been sighted. And you, Jess: you’re going straight to the Medica facility, where you will stay. Understand?” He could only pray the medical branch had tricks up their sleeves they hadn’t yet tried.

“Sir? There’s news,” Glain said. She pulled out her Codex and flipped pages, then showed him a High Garda message from the Lord Commander’s Scribe. The Greek fire production and storage facility was compromised last night, and High Garda security killed. The situation is now resolved and the production facility is once again safely in our control. No further action is required. “This had to be the Archivist’s handiwork. But I doubt he was actively on the scene. He’s not one to risk himself that way.”

“True,” Wolfe said. “That’s why I expected to find him crouching among the dead like the coward he is. But he’s seen me coming, and gone somewhere else. He failed to capture the Greek fire storage. Where else would he try to strike?”

“Serapeum?”

“No, too difficult, though he’d try to disrupt every location vital to the Great Library, if he could. Suicide attacks at the Iron Tower. Lighthouse. Serapeum. Santi would have thought of it already, even if he’s unable to prevent every one of them.”