Paper and Fire (The Great Library) (15 page)

“Bad news?”

Jess’s head snapped up, and he met the High Commander’s eyes. He couldn’t read the man at all and he couldn’t trust him. So he folded up the note, put it in his coat, and said, “No, sir.”

He half-expected the man to ask harder questions, but it was late, and he was of too insignificant a rank. The High Commander brushed a hand toward him. “Go.”

“Sir.”

He walked out on legs that felt less steady than those he’d walked in on, and once he was out and the door boomed shut behind him, he still felt eyes on his back, as if gravity had increased its pull.

As he stood for a moment in the round vestibule, getting his mind together, for the first time Jess realized that there were
no guards.
The man in charge of the most feared army on earth had
no guards.
That was a stunning statement of his power.

That was when he looked up at the flanking statues of Horus and Menhit. The hawk-headed Horus and lion-headed Menhit stared back, and, as he watched, Menhit shifted her weight from the traditional pose. She held a flail in one hand, and the flexible metal strips dangling from it whispered against each other as she moved.

He tore his gaze from Menhit back to Horus, who carried a spear.

Horus cocked his head, birdlike, to stare harder at Jess.

Our eyes are on you.

He jumped when a hand fell on his shoulder and pulled him back a step.

“
Cachu
,” Glain breathed. “What is it about you they don’t like? Did you kill their pets? Come on!”

They walked fast, and Jess became horribly aware that all of the war-god statues they passed were turning their heads to stare. Behind them, Horus stepped down from his pedestal in the alcove on the wall and took a long stride down the hall. Then another. Behind him, Menhit descended, that hissing, sharp flail cutting the air before her.

It was all bluff. When Jess attained the end of the corridor, he looked back to see Horus stepping back up to his pedestal in an eerily smooth, flowing motion.
Threats,
he thought.
Intimidation.
The Artifex’s stock in trade—and the Archivist’s. Extremes of emotion colliding inside him made him feel sick.

The rest of the squad stood clumped at the end of the hall, looking one step from running as Glain and Jess caught up.

“Why did they do that?” Violet Bransom sounded utterly shaken. “Why would automata come for you?”

“They didn’t,” Glain said. She sounded brisk and matter-of-fact, and if he hadn’t known her well, he might have believed she hadn’t been frightened at all. “It was likely some malfunction. If they’d meant us harm, someone would be mopping our remains off the floor right about now.”

“Then why—”

“I don’t know,” Glain said, cutting Bransom off, with the definite subtext of
and I don’t care.
“You heard the High Commander. The squad passed. We’ll receive individual commissions by Codex. This may be my last opportunity to say it to all of you, but I’m proud of you. Very proud.” Her gaze touched each of them in turn, and last of all, Jess. He nodded.

“Thank you, sir,” Wu said, and Jess echoed it. “Oh hells, Bransom, stop cringing like a child. You’re a soldier now!”

“I wasn’t cringing!” she said, and glared at Jess, as if it were somehow his fault. “What about Helva?”

“Helva will be on Medica duty until she’s well enough, but I imagine she’ll pass, too. They say she’ll make a full recovery eventually.”

Jess drifted slowly away and let the group talk, as their good fortune slowly began to sink in. He continued to stare back down the hall, where the eight-foot goddess Menhit relentlessly swished her golden flail, her leonine jaws baring in a grin that showed sharp, cutting teeth.

Jess went back to his room and tried to go back to sleep, but his heart was pounding, his hands clammy, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that the jaws of a trap were slowly, slowly closing around him. He couldn’t lie still. Finally, he rose, dressed in common clothes, and paced his room restlessly as he tried to still the anxiety inside. He didn’t want to wake up Glain, and Dario and Khalila didn’t deserve to be rattled awake at this terrible hour, either, but he felt more alone than he ever had.

He sat down and picked up his Codex and turned to the page where
Morgan’s messages appeared. He knew it was useless, but he took up his pen and wrote,
I need to talk to you. Please.
I need you.

He watched the page, waiting for her familiar handwriting to appear, but it didn’t come. Of course it wouldn’t. She could reach out to him, but he couldn’t do the same to her. He didn’t even know if she was reading it. So he kept writing, almost against his will.
I feel very alone tonight. And I miss you. It’s stupid, I know, but I miss the touch of your skin, the smell of your hair. The weight of you in my arms. Horus help me, I sound like a lovesick poet. I should thank the God of Scribes you’ll never read this, because I don’t deserve to write it. You still hate me. You might not ever want to see me again, and, even if you do, you might never feel the same as you did before. I know that. I just . . . I miss you, Morgan.

Then he reversed the stylus and brushed it all out, erased as if it had never been, and felt more alone than before.

He needed the comfort of someone familiar.
I want to go home,
he thought, which was strange; he had few happy memories of London, really. And it had hardly ever been safe. Still, in this moment, he desperately wanted to walk in the door of his family’s town house, to see the wan smile of his mother and see his father busy at his massive desk.

A bit of home.

After a moment of debate, and knowing it was bound to backfire on him, Jess gave in to temptation and went in search of his twin brother, Brendan.

T
he sentries posted at the gate asked where he was going, and he told the truth: visiting relatives.
I’m not a child running for comfort,
he told himself.
Father’s been pestering me to find out what Brendan’s up to, anyway.
Because Brendan should have left Alexandria long ago, headed back to London, but Jess had learned his brother had taken up residence in the city instead.

Maybe his brother had broken with the family business. Maybe they were both outcasts now.

Leaving the compound this time felt like shedding a giant load from his shoulders; he wasn’t on a mission, wasn’t under pressure to dodge, avoid, not be found out. He had been allowed off the grounds without argument, and now he walked into the cool, misty night of Alexandria with his hands in his pockets.

It felt, for the first time in a long time, like freedom, even with the weight of the copper bracelet of the Library still clasped around his wrist.

Alexandria at this hour was a relatively quiet place, except near the docks, where lights and noise and activity continued as ships loaded and unloaded and sailors found leisure. He avoided that; pubs here in Egypt were far different from the friendly, cozy places he’d grown up with at home. Add sailors to the mix, and they were almost always dangerous places, especially at this dark hour.

He knew the way to his brother’s rented home; he’d walked past it a few times, studying it. But it occurred to him that along the way, he needed to make a stop at the shadow markets.

Growing up in the book-market trade, he’d been dragged along to these sorts of places since he was old enough to understand what went on there and the risks. He remembered, at ten years old, carrying a satchel of rare books for his father as they followed warrenlike alleys into a particularly wretched little shop near Cricklewood. It had not, of course, sold books; it sold pens, journals, Codices—all the products of the Library. The old man who ran it had opened up a trapdoor to a tunnel that ran below the shop, and well beneath the city, they’d found London’s Graymarket, a moving, ever-changing feast of illegal books and those who craved them. There were always two or three clumps of nervous newcomers who’d found caches of books in dead relatives’ homes and looked to sell them off for a quick profit; those, his father always targeted first. He bought cheap, and relieved those otherwise upright citizens to scamper home with their guilty money.

Then he’d set up at a table all his own, and sell the
real
beauties to true collectors.

The Alexandrian market was nothing like that, of course; there were no tunnels here, or if there were, Jess had never found them, except for sewer drains. It meant that the Alexandrian smugglers had to be even cleverer and a good deal bolder.

He found Red Ibrahim’s daughter, Anit, minding a table. There was absolutely nothing on it, not even a hint of what was for sale; everyone knew it was a matter of requests and fees, not options. She looked up at him as he approached and gave him a calm look. “I have nothing else for you,” she said. “I heard about your adventures at Alexander’s tomb. Clever of you to escape.”

“Clever had help,” he said, and handed her a paper drawing of a sphinx, and the location of the switch he’d found. “In memory of your brothers, Anit. Thank you.”

She said nothing for a moment, just stared at the page hard, then folded it up and slipped it into a pocket of her skirt. “You’re not negotiating for this?”

“No.”

She pulled the chain from beneath the neck of her dress and held the embossed ring that hung on it like a talisman. “Then I’m in your debt.”

“If you mean that, there’s something you could do for me. I’m trying to locate someone who can tell me about the fate of a boy who was arrested at Ptolemy House about six months ago, taken to the Serapeum, and questioned. I want to find out where he was sent after that.”

Anit sat back in her chair. “This is not what we do, Jess Brightwell. We sell books. Not information.” Then she looked down, and said quietly, “But I will ask.”

He nodded and almost walked away . . . but then came back, leaned over the table, and said, “Be careful how you go. I don’t want to bring anything down on you.”

She actually laughed like a little girl. Genuinely amused. “My father is the most wanted man in all of Alexandria; I am quite used to being careful. But thank you for your concern.”

She was right, of course—not that it made him feel any better about having involved her.

Then he went about his real business of the night, to a deserted street on the outskirts of the University district. It held spacious homes built in a modern style, but with bows to Egyptian design and sensibility. Expensive, this area. Well-known for being the home of several prestigious Scholars. There was even a statue of the great inventor Heron on one corner, though, to Jess’s great relief, it was only made of stone and was not an automaton.

He still hesitated in the shadow of Heron’s statue as he studied the house in front of him. It was large and comfortable, with Egyptian fluted columns and red- and gold-painted decoration. A small fountain whispered in the courtyard, sending a little silver mist into the air. It was a private sort of place. He liked it.

Jess moved quietly up the shallow front steps and knocked.

His brother opened the door.

For a moment, they stood there staring at each other—still eerily similar mirror images, even now, though Brendan’s hair had grown long and messy around his face and he’d gained a few pounds. Egyptian life either did not agree with him or agreed with him too much. Hard to say which at the moment.

“You’re supposed to have left town months ago,” Jess said. “Idiot.”

Brendan was wearing a loose silk sleeping robe, and he stepped back, rubbed his face, and said, “Get in before someone sees you.”

Jess stepped into a darkened entry hall. He had the impression of expensive tastes, beautiful decorations and furniture, but it was a strangely empty sort of display, as though an expert decorator had done everything. No real personality to it. And, of course, no books. Not even a Library shelf of Blanks. Brendan wasn’t much of a reader.

“What are you doing here?” Brendan asked. Jess shrugged, and got a hard-eyed glare from his brother in response. “For God’s sake, do you know what time it is, Jess?”

“I’ve passed training,” he said, because he realized he had to say
something
, and Brendan gave him a disbelieving stare.

“What do you want? Congratulations? A nicely wrapped gift? Weren’t you supposed to be a full Scholar by now?”

“Aren’t
you
supposed to be back home?” Because Brendan wasn’t supposed to still be in Alexandria. “The last letter from Mother almost seemed worried about you.”

“Almost,” Brendan said. “Well. That’s something.”

A girl of about Jess’s own age appeared in the doorway. She was dressed neatly in a loose white gown belted with gold, and her hair was swept back smoothly in a braided queue. Pretty features, sharp cheekbones, skin the color of blushed copper. She met Brendan’s eyes with remarkable ease to say, “I see you have a visitor. May I bring you anything, sir?”

Brendan said, “Coffee, please, Neksa. Jess?”

“Coffee,” he said. “Thank you.” Jess watched the girl go her way and waited until she was out of earshot before he said, “You know, you don’t have to pretend with me.”