Paper and Fire (The Great Library, #2) - Rachel Caine Page 0,112

lives ten times over. “We don’t have much choice, do we?”

Santi didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded. They were well committed now, and any delays might mean capture, imprisonment, death.

Jess stretched out on the marble couch. “I’ll go first,” he said. “I’ll distract them with a story about fleeing a sneak attack on the High Garda in Rome. Send Glain after me.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Khalila said. “She’s injured.”

“That’s why she has to go next,” he said. “If I’m alone telling the story and she arrives . . .”

“It’s confirmation.” Santi nodded. “All right. Morgan, if you can do this, you’d better do it now.”

There wasn’t much choice. Morgan fitted the helmet over Jess’s head. He muttered the standard good-luck phrase under his breath and waited for the mouth of the wolf to close over him . . . But those jaws never shut. He felt the pressure of Morgan’s hands on the helmet, but there was no surge of energy. No power ripping him apart.

He tilted his head to look back at her. “What’s happening?”

Her eyes were round and shocked, and she said, “I don’t know! It’s as if—as if I’m blocked from that path. It won’t let me send you to London!”

“Is it malfunctioning?” Wolfe demanded. “Because we can’t stay here, Morgan.”

“I know! It’s not . . . The power’s there, but it’s only letting me go . . .” Morgan closed her eyes a moment, and Jess felt something this time—a slight tingle, like a surge of static electricity. She caught her breath and whispered, “No. Oh God, no!”

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Jess sat up and stripped the helmet off. Morgan’s eyes were filled with tears, her hands trembling as she raised them to cover her mouth. When she met his eyes, the tears spilled over. “Morgan!”

She gulped back what seemed like sheer panic, and looked from him to Wolfe as she dragged her hands back down and balled them into fists.

“I’m so sorry. They must have— They must have known we’d try this. I can take you only one place from here,” she said. “Just one.”

“Where?”

“Alexandria,” she whispered. “Into the Iron Tower.”

Wolfe stared for a moment, black eyes gone blank, and then shifted to send Santi a look. “This is my mother’s doing.”

Jess dumped the helmet on the floor with a crash. “We can’t go back to Alexandria. We have to fight.”

“Then we’ll die,” Santi said flatly. “And Glain won’t survive that injury unless she gets help quickly. We can give up, or we can take a chance. The Obscurist isn’t pledged to be loyal to the Archivist. She’s loyal to the Library. There’s a difference.”

“Hairsplitting,” Wolfe said, but then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nic is right. We must chance it. It’s that, die fighting, or—” He didn’t need to state the alternative. They’d all seen it below in the cells. The torture chamber.

“Not the Tower,” Morgan whispered, and it was just for Jess. “I can’t go back there. Jess—”

He grabbed her hand and held fast. “Yes, you can,” he said. “I’ll be with you. I promise, I’m not leaving you.”

“Jess!” The wordless plea in her face hurt him, because he knew he had no way to answer it. He shook his head and saw the light go out in her eyes. He’d just betrayed her. Again.

“We’re agreed?” Santi asked, and one by one they nodded. Even Morgan, though the pallor on her face spoke louder than words. “Go.”

Jess settled the helmet over his head and felt Morgan’s trembling, powerful hands come down on it. And this time, in bocca al lupo, the lightning came, and struck him apart into pieces and sent him shrieking into the dark.

EPHEMERA

An excerpt from the personal journal of Obscurist Magnus Keria Morning (interdicted to Black Archives)

I have always tried to believe. Always.

When I learned that, as late as three hundred years ago, Obscurists were allowed the same freedom as other Scholars, that the Iron Tower was only a place of work and study, and not our gilded prison, I accepted that these changes were made purely for our own protection.

Then I read in the Black Archives that two hundred years ago, the Library ruthlessly crushed a revolt by the families of those kept here with us—our children, our lovers, our husbands and wives. Those we loved were killed or exiled. The Archivist set new rules. Crueler rules. We could no longer keep our families or even our children, unless the children were gifted as