Paper and Fire (The Great Library) (34 page)

Jess wanted to push her away, but it was—oddly—Khalila who spoke in that moment, clear and calm as glass. “Archimedes said mathematics reveals its secrets only to those who approach it with pure love for its own beauty. But the Archivist has no love for knowledge. He wants only power. You are the club he swings to get it.”

“Archivists come and go,” the Obscurist said. “The next will be better. You’re no more than children. You can’t possibly understand.”

Jess glared at her. “We aren’t children, and you don’t need Morgan. You have a tower full of your
quintessence
already.”

“Not like her.” The Obscurist touched Morgan’s cheek, and Morgan jerked away, eyes burning with anger.

Khalila stood up. It was a swift, controlled motion, and although it wasn’t threatening, there was a cold look in her eyes that made the Obscurist’s focus shift.

“You are Scholar Seif, if I am correct.”

“Yes, Obscurist Magnus.”

“I have heard great things of you. And I have a name. Please call me Keria.”

“I would not presume to be so informal. But if you touch Morgan again, if you try to take her away and lock her up, then you’ll have to kill me. I won’t make it easy.”

“Yes,” the Obscurist said. “I can see that. You, Jess? Are you also determined to be foolish?”

“It’s my finest quality,” he said blandly. Her smile had the power of a lightning strike.

“So I see. We’ll settle Morgan’s status later. For now, permit me to offer our help to the young inventor,” she said, moving to Thomas. “Don’t fear, Thomas. We’ll see you are well cared for here.”

“Hypocrite,” Jess said. “You knew where he was the whole time. As Scholar Wolfe said, we’re all just pieces on your game board. You’ll sacrifice any of us to get what you want.”

She had the same severe look as Wolfe, when she wanted to use it. “Do, please, tell me what my plans are, young man. I’m sure it will be very informative.” He could just
hear
Wolfe saying that, in exactly the same tone, and though Jess didn’t mean to, it made him laugh. Bitterly.

“Oh, leave them alone,” Wolfe said without turning. “I know exactly what your plans are.
Mother.
And I can promise you, we won’t cooperate in the least.”

There was a breathless silence for a moment, and then the Obscurist walked away, toward the stairs where she’d entered. “Gregory will see to your accommodations,” she said without looking back. “Morgan. Your collar will be replaced. It has to be done, so please don’t injure yourself resisting.”

Morgan stared at the woman’s back as if she wanted to plant a knife in it. Her hand gripped Jess’s again tightly. He was lucky it was the one without a bandage.

Gregory walked over to stand in front of the two of them and said with a calm smile, “Now, let’s be reasonable about this. You can either submit gracefully or submit when you lose the fight, and your friends end up suffering for it. All right?”

He held up his hand, and another Obscurist moved forward to put a wooden box in his palm. When Gregory opened it, Jess saw it held one of the golden collars. He felt Morgan’s bone-deep shiver of revulsion and took in a slow breath. “You don’t have to,” he told her. “Just tell me the word.”

“No,” she whispered. “It won’t do any good, Jess. I don’t want any of you hurt.”

Morgan stood up, closed her eyes, and stayed very still as Gregory clasped the collar around her neck and the symbols on the golden surface shimmered and shifted, and the latch just . . . disappeared.

Morgan sank down again beside him as if all the strength had drained out of her, and he put his arm around her waist. “Easy,” he whispered to her. “I’m right here.”

He turned his head and was suddenly, intensely aware that she was here, next to him,
real
. Being separated for months hadn’t dulled the impact of her presence on him, or—he thought—of his on her. A burning wave of hot and cold swept over him, and he thought,
I can’t let them have her. I can’t.
It had been different before, but here, seeing the mute, horrible misery in her eyes and the defeat . . . He understood how much she hated this place, rich and splendid as it seemed to be. He didn’t altogether understand
why
, but there was no denying it.

Gregory casually poured himself another cup of tea from the pot, sipped, and made a face. “Gone cold,” he said. “Too bad. You know, Morgan, you’d do well to be cautious. Keria Morning is the most powerful woman in the world.”

“I don’t care who she is,” Jess said. “Morgan is coming with us when we leave this place. And we
will
be leaving.”

Gregory laughed so hard, he slopped tea from the side of his cup. “You, boy, are one to watch. I might watch you end very badly, but at least it will be a good show.” He put the cup aside. “Come on. I’ll show you to your quarters. The good news is that there is plenty of space here, so you each get your own room.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“I wish I could even begin to guess the extent of it.” Gregory sounded dry and uninterested, but Jess couldn’t imagine that the man wasn’t
some
kind of important personage within the Iron Tower. He did notice that as they stood up, Morgan kept tight hold of Jess’s hand, and moved quickly away from Gregory as soon as the chance presented itself.
She doesn’t like him. That’s telling.

“I hope Glain will be all right,” Khalila said, as she helped Thomas up.

“She’s in good hands,” Wolfe said, turning in a storm of black robes to
stride back to them. “The Tower gets the best of everything the Library has to offer.”

“Except freedom,” Morgan said. He turned to look at her, and she dropped her gaze.

“Except that,” he agreed.

Gregory said, “Come on, then,” and led the way out.

J
ess supposed he shouldn’t have been astonished by the interior of the Iron Tower, but he was, and felt as much of a bumpkin gone to market as he had on his first day in Alexandria.

The tower’s central core held rooms. The garden room and Translation Chamber—which sat atop everything else—stretched across the entire expanse from side to side. Beneath that, stairs wound in a flat spiral around the outer walls of the tower, and Jess could feel the warmth of the Alexandrian sun radiating through the metal skin—muted, but not completely gone. Nevertheless, it was cool inside, an artificial sort of coolness that puzzled him, until he felt a breeze from a grate blowing unnaturally cool air. He mentioned it to Thomas, who nodded. “It’s like the heated air we use in the winter,” he said. “Here, heat is as much the enemy as our cold.”

“I can understand heat, but how do you cool air down? Ice?”

“Chemicals,” Thomas said. “There are some that freeze things. I suppose blowing air over a mixture of them might do the trick. I never thought of it before.” He seemed thoughtful, distracted by the question. That was good. He even seemed strong enough to take the stairs alone, though with Santi’s watchful support at the ready.

The cool air wasn’t the only marvel. The lights were made of clear glass globes with glowing centers that seemed like trapped starlight. And they were
everywhere
 . . . hanging from chains overhead, powering lamps sitting on tables. When he reached out to touch the nearest lit glass, it scorched his fingers as if he’d put them in an open flame. He felt like an idiot.

“It’s powered by electricity,” Morgan said. “The heat’s a by-product.”

“I didn’t think electricity could be used for illumination! I thought it was just a party trick, of no real useful application.”

“One of a great many things we’ve been taught that isn’t true,” she said. “Don’t be fooled by all the wonders. It’s a pretty prison. Still a prison.”

Gregory was already proceeding down another round of stairs ahead of them, and they had to hurry to catch up. Khalila seemed as fascinated as Jess with what they were seeing, though far less willing to risk skin in experimentation. She dropped back to chat with Thomas, and they had an animated conversation about the wonders of the square lifting device, quite like a small room on tracks, that rose and fell, carrying people from one floor of the tower to another. Electrical as well, Jess gathered from the densely technical discussion. Jess was used to the ever-present sound of steam pumps; it had been the constant heartbeat of London, and even in Alexandria the hiss of them was never far away. But here . . . here the power they used gave it an eerie, calm silence.

They arrived at a floor near the middle of the tower, and Gregory led them through a closed door. A central hallway ran straight through, bisecting the circle, and on each side of it lay more closed doors. “There,” he said. “One for everyone. Choose your own; they’re all equally well appointed, with full baths and fine beds. You’ve even got a window in each, though I would recommend against trying to open them. Or break them.”

“Are we to be locked in?” Santi asked.

“Certainly not. You’re free to come and go as you like. Explore the Tower. Just don’t try to leave.” His gaze swept over them and fixed on Jess. “We have sphinx guards downstairs. Ours
do
not
turn off. Nor are they susceptible to rewritten scripts. Their behavior is etched into their metal bones.” He checked an elaborately gilded clock that graced an alcove in the center of the hall, between two of the rooms. “Dinner will be downstairs in an hour. Morgan can show you the way. There are bells
in your rooms. Pull them if you require anything. Someone will be on duty no matter the hour.” Gregory smiled, and for the first time he looked less than friendly. It was not a pleasant change. “Morgan. After dinner, I will expect you back in your own room.”

She nodded, but said nothing. They watched as the Obscurist left and made his way down the stairs, and waited until he was gone before Jess walked to the door they’d entered and shut it. There was no lock to keep Gregory out. He wasn’t overly surprised.

“Morgan?” Wolfe was looking at the girl now, turning her to face him. “I know Gregory. I know what he does. Do you want to talk to me?”

“No,” she said. “You can’t help me, can you?”

He seemed to consider that for a moment. “We’ll see about that. Nic? Do you have a preference for a room?”

“One that isn’t inside this damned tower?” Santi chose a door at random and swung it open. Stopped and seemed to reconsider. “Or . . . I suppose I might grow accustomed.” The room, Jess realized as he craned to look, was enormous and luxurious, and the bed looked more lushly comfortable than anything he’d ever seen. Surely even kings didn’t sleep that well.

Jess opened the door across the hall. It was a mirror image, just as rich. The fabrics were muted golds and crimsons, and the floor was covered with a carpet so soft it felt like stepping on pillows.

Morgan said, “The rooms are all fine. He wasn’t lying about that.”

He turned and found that she was already inside and closing the door behind her.

Alone.
Alone.
It suddenly hit him like a fist to the gut that he had Morgan to himself and their friends would, perhaps, understand enough to leave them their privacy.

But probably not.

There were no locks on the doors. That was going to bother him a great deal, he realized. He searched for some way to jam his door shut, but found nothing.

When he turned back, Morgan silently came into his arms. She didn’t speak, so he didn’t, either, afraid to break this fragile truce between them. And then she began to cry.

He held her closer, wrapped in a protective hug. Her grief was a storm, and it sounded agonizing and hopeless to him, and went on until he worried she might be lost in it. “Hey.
Hey.
You’re safe, understand? Morgan!”

“No,” she said, and grabbed the inner edge of the gold collar around her neck. She pulled at it with sudden viciousness, and he winced as he saw it bite into her skin. “I’m trapped here, don’t you see it? Of course you don’t. All you can see are the pretty flowers and the beautiful rooms, but that’s just paint over something rotten. I’d rather die than lose my will and be one of them, Jess. I’m not afraid of dying!”

She meant it, and it stunned him. He kept holding her, not sure how thin the ice was he was standing on. “Do you want to tell me what scares you so badly?”

“They—” She seemed to want to answer, but he could feel the frustration, too. As if she couldn’t find the words. “I don’t think you’d understand.”

“Try.”

“They give us examinations,” she said then, and he felt her shudder from the memory. “Chart our monthly cycles. And when they think we are ready to conceive, they . . .”

His throat felt dry now and hot with anger. She was right: this was unfamiliar territory to him. He’d not grown up with sisters, and his mother had always been a distant visitor in his life. He had no real reference for these things. “They match you?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him. “When I ran away to see you, I avoided the day they’d marked out for me to be matched. But, Jess, I won’t be able to avoid that again now.”

“Then you can fight!” he told her. “You’ve never been afraid to fight!”

“I’ve seen what happens when you fight. My friend . . .” She took in
a deep breath, held it, and let it out. “I’m sorry, Jess. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m just so angry. And frightened.”