Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(70)
Softly, Elsa said, “What’s wrong with her?”
“She is ill,” said Garibaldi, “and not of my doing. I believe she has been ill for some time. Consumption, you see.”
“You are mistaken. She has been quite well.”
Garibaldi said, “A scriptologist of your mother’s talent would have no difficulty scribing restorative properties into Veldana, so her symptoms would not trouble her while at home.”
“No.” Elsa’s mind raced. His version of events sounded plausible, but perhaps Garibaldi had made her sick, or perhaps she was not sick at all. How could she know the truth when she couldn’t trust a word he said?
“I did not cause her illness, and indeed it has been a matter of some inconvenience for me. Yet”—he spread his hands philosophically—“here we are.”
“You claim to be faultless, and yet your Carbonari minions abducted her, and now you force her to stay in this toxic world.” Elsa pressed her palms to the curved glass lid of the chamber. She wanted to take her mother’s hand, but even with her so close, she was still out of reach. It was too much. Elsa ran her hand along the bottom edge of the glass, desperate to find a release mechanism to open the lid.
Garibaldi grabbed her wrist. “I wouldn’t do that. If you attempt to open the casket without entering the correct code, the machine will asphyxiate her.”
Then Elsa saw the latch for the lid, and just below the latch a row of six metal switches. Six binary switches meant sixty-four possible combinations, of which sixty-three would kill her mother. She yanked her hand out of Garibaldi’s grip. “You’re a monster.” A brilliant monster, perhaps, but she wasn’t about to admit that aloud.
“Every great leader gets demonized by someone. It is the price we pay for pursuing our vision of the future. But I am just a man, and though my actions may seem abhorrent, I can assure you they are all in service of my country.”
“If you are not a monster, then prove it: release her into my care immediately.”
Garibaldi gave her a sad look, as if he pitied the simplicity with which she saw the world. “Alas, that is not an option. I require Jumi’s book. If you can find and retrieve it before my men do, I will consider her a fair trade.”
Elsa bit her cheek to force away the sting of angry tears. “Very well. But I warn you: if she dies for the sake of your ridiculous political games, I will rain destruction upon everything you hold dear.”
Oddly, Garibaldi responded with a well-pleased smile. “I have every confidence it will not come to that. I do not think even you understand the depths of your power when you are … properly motivated. I expect our transaction will be completed quite soon.”
*
Leo felt as if he’d been thrown from the seat of the spider hansom, the breath knocked out of him. He had steeled himself against the possibility of confronting his father, but somehow he had not prepared for this new version of Aris. Even the boy-Aris of his childhood memories held a certain sway over him. He’d always had that effect on people, drawing them in like moths to a flame. But this older Aris, more shrewd and subtle, had unfamiliar depths.
Who was this new Aris, grown son of Ricciotti Garibaldi? How could Leo and Aris be Leo and Aris, without the youngest brother to complete them?
His mind reeled, and Aris’s sharp gaze seemed the only lifeline within reach. Aris said, “Everything is going to be all right now that you’re with us again, brother.”
Leo’s lips parted, but he couldn’t find the strength to contradict him. Instead, he said, “What are you planning?”
Aris cocked his head, as if he thought this an amusing question. “To finish our grandfather’s work, of course: bring an end to the tyranny of foreign kings and unite our people. With Jumi’s book, we can realize Grandfather’s vision for Italian unification.”
Leo thought back to the day before Elsa had arrived, to the earthquake that wasn’t an earthquake, which had corresponded with chilling accuracy to the moment when the Carbonari abductors brought Jumi and her mysterious worldbook into the real world. He had no proof, but could it be that one was the direct result of the other—that the tremor had been the world’s straining protest against the sudden introduction of such a powerful object? And, too, he remembered the shattered carnevale mask, the mask that had always reminded him of Aris.
“Listen to me, you can’t use that book. If Elsa’s mother has truly invented a way to make scribed weapons, no one can know about it. Can’t you see that using it would endanger all scriptologists?”
Aris cracked a grin. “I know you’ve missed the benefit of my mentoring these past years, but really, Leo—have you forgotten that anything worth doing is going to be dangerous?”
“Don’t mock me,” Leo said hotly.
“You’re angry, and I don’t blame you for it,” Aris answered, dropping the smile. “But we’re not enemies, you and I.”
Leo watched his brother through narrowed eyes. “I don’t know what we are now.”
The greater part of his concern was reserved, however, for Elsa. Surely Father wouldn’t hurt her, not now that he knew how valuable she was. No, not hurt … but ensnare? He’d wanted all along for Leo to find him, and Leo had led Elsa right into his trap. Rosalinda was wrong, he thought. He was never smart enough. He couldn’t see how to get himself—or Elsa—out of this mess. He cast a worried look in the direction she had gone.