Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(77)
Burak’s skinny, grease-smeared form appeared from around the side of a generator. He ran over, oblivious to the tension between them. “Leo! Where have you been? We worked all day and it’s going to be a long night, too, and you’re missing all the fun.”
Leo managed a strained smile, feeling a little jealous that Burak was still young enough to think everything was fun. “Well, you’re getting so good at this stuff, I figured you didn’t need my help.”
Apparently his smile was not convincing enough, though, since Burak’s cheerful expression faded into uncertainty. “Signora Pisano went over to the charging room. Do you want me to fetch her?”
Leo turned to Porzia again, his tone imploring. “If she doesn’t know, she can’t be blamed. We’d actually be protecting her.”
Porzia made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, grappling with indecision. “Promise me,” she said, and though she couldn’t elaborate on the specifics with Burak listening, Leo knew her well enough to guess: Promise me we’ll rescue Jumi and stop Garibaldi; promise me this is the right choice.
Leo flashed her a conspiratorial grin. “We can do this; I know we can.”
She gave him a solemn nod—her official acquiescence.
Leo, still smiling, turned to Burak and said, “Never mind. No need to disturb Gia, after all.”
*
Inside the tracking world, Elsa sloshed barefoot across the miniature sea and picked her way over the miniature mountains to the brass podium. She slid open the side drawer and returned the tracking compass to its proper place so the machine could retarget. Then she placed one of Montaigne’s worldbooks atop the podium, pushed all the right buttons in the right order, and pulled the lever to start it up.
The gears whirred, warming up. The tracking machine went ka-chunk, ka-chunk—just twice—then the gears wound down to a slow idle, sounding to Elsa’s ears as if the machine were too depressed to perform its duties. Elsa shut it all the way off. Maybe she’d made a mistake. She lifted the book off the top of the podium, wiped the surface down with her sleeve, replaced the book, entered the start-up sequence again, and yanked the lever.
Again, the machine refused to take the target.
Scowling, Elsa opened the return portal. The floor of the library was cold against her still-damp feet, but that was the least of her problems.
Faraz and Skandar were already waiting in the library, but before he could ask her how it went, Porzia and Leo arrived. At least Elsa wouldn’t be required to relate the bad news twice.
“Well?” Porzia said, flushed with nervous energy. “Where’s the bastard hiding?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” Elsa replied. “It didn’t work.”
That drew Leo and Porzia up short. Leo gave her a dumbstruck look. “What?”
Elsa pulled out a chair and flopped down, dismayed at the sight of Montaigne’s worldbooks stacked on the table. She said, “All the worldbooks went through the restoration machine—they’ve not only been handled by other people, they’ve been completely disassembled, repaired, and reassembled by someone else’s invention. The ownership must not have survived.”
“Damn,” said Porzia, hands on hips. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Faraz said, “But ownership is a property you just invented. Can’t you rewrite the map world so one of Montaigne’s books will work?”
“Oh, of course,” Porzia said. “If we had time to go to university and complete a doctoral dissertation on ownership properties!”
Elsa explained, “There’s an element of stochasticity involved whenever you scribe a complex property. Porzia and I could spend weeks creating a dozen different variations on the map world and still fail to produce one that would accomplish precisely what we require.”
Leo’s eyes widened in horror as the realization sank in. “So now we have nothing of Montaigne’s.” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Damn it, we had exactly what we needed and we ruined it.”
Had that been Montaigne’s true intention when he set fire to his house? To leave no trace of himself behind, no fragment to be exploited, to sever all connections that might lead to the worldbook’s true thief? Unwittingly, Elsa had salvaged precisely the objects she would need to locate him; and just as unwittingly, she had completed the fire’s work and destroyed those selfsame objects.
Porzia’s eyes narrowed, her lips pursed. “Wait a moment, Elsa. Did you ever fix that Pascaline?”
Elsa’s heart skipped a beat. “No, I didn’t! I borrowed some tools, but I never started the repairs. And Montaigne owned it for years—it might have a strong enough ownership bond even with the fire damage.” With a sudden burst of renewed hope, she shot out of the chair. “Porzia, you’re brilliant!”
“Well I hardly think that was ever in question,” Porzia said primly.
Elsa ran all the way to her study and back, returning breathless with the charred and warped Pascaline. The fire alone might have done it in. Or what about that time she’d disassembled it as a child? Still, it was their best hope—she could only pray the ownership was still intact.
All four of them went through to the map world together, as if Elsa needed help to be even more nervous than she already was. Her hand was shaking when she reached for the controls, and she had to squeeze it into a fist and then shake out her fingers to steady the muscles. Porzia pulled the lever for her.