Paper and Fire (The Great Library) (35 page)

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, which was a foolish thing to say, and from the look she gave him—half-grateful and half-pitying—she knew it.

“Don’t,” she said, and put her hand on his cheek. “Don’t. Just say you’ll be here for me now.”

“I will. I am.”

“Then kiss me.”

He did, and tasted tears and sweetness on her lips. It was a long, gentle kiss, and not entirely innocent of passion.

Morgan suddenly broke the kiss and put her forehead against his. The moment snapped him back to reality and it physically hurt inside, like something stabbing deep. She leaned back and her eyes met his and held, and it hurt worse. He didn’t move. They had a history of this, of finding each other and being torn apart by words or deeds, and he didn’t want it to happen. Not now.
Not tonight.

He rested his fingertips on her Obscurist’s collar, this awful, beautiful thing, and it felt warm as blood to the touch; heat from her body or some kind of process within the gold, he didn’t know. “Morgan,” he said. “You don’t have to make this choice. It’s not me or the Iron Tower. You don’t have to—to pretend to love me to make me help you get out of here.”

“Is that what you think about me? That I’m
paying you off
?” She was angry. Hot spots of color darkened her cheeks, and now she pulled away from him completely and stood up with her hands clenched at her sides. “That I’m
selling myself to you
? I thought you understood me, Jess. I thought you understood how I felt!”

He held up both hands in a plea for peace. “I meant only that it doesn’t have to end with you settling for something you don’t really want. Even if
I
want it.”

“You’re an idiot!” She grabbed a pillow from the bed and flung it at him.

He caught it. “Apparently!”

“I’m not going to sleep with you just to get out of being matched in the Tower, if that’s what you’re thinking!”

There was a ringing moment of silence after that, and he stared into her suddenly wide eyes.

“Would that work?” he asked her. “If you did, would it—”

“Get out!” she yelled at him, and picked up another pillow.

“Morgan, it’s my room—”

“Out!”

He was too angry, too hurt, too full of stupid pride, to argue with her.

And he slammed the door behind him on the way out and went to Thomas’s room.

Thomas was standing in his doorway, and with one look at Jess, stepped back and let him inside.

“I propose chess,” he said. “There’s a board in the room.”

That was nearly as perfect an answer to his problems as Jess could imagine.

From the personal journal of Morgan Hault

I’ve done everything wrong. Everything. It’s all coming apart. It’s all my fault. I thought I could make everyone safe, and I thought that Jess . . . that we could patch our differences and find each other again. Even if most of that separation was from me, because I was afraid to be hurt again.

But he doesn’t understand me at all. And I hurt Sybilla. I left her behind when I’d promised to help her, too. I ran without even thinking about what that would mean for her. I ran to Jess, and then I didn’t dare get close to him, and now . . . now everything is in ruins.

I’ll be trapped here. Maybe I should accept what fate writes down for me. Maybe Dominic will be a kind partner to me. Maybe one day I’ll be as contented and bland as Rosa, and believe every lie shoveled into my face.

I hope they kill me before I become just another broodmare for the Library’s futile attempt to cling to its past.

Damn you, Jess, for making me hope it could be any different.

And thank you, too.

I still love you. As unwise as that is.

“M
ate,” Thomas said, and moved his knight into position. Jess groaned and tipped his king. It was his third straight game lost, but he at least felt somewhat steadier and a good deal more levelheaded.

“Let’s not use that term anymore,” Jess said. “Just say,
I win.
”

Thomas raised his eyebrows and smiled a little—the best that Jess had seen from his friend since finding him in that cell. “All right. You know, as much as I enjoy this strange new feeling of winning against you, you should go back and talk to Morgan.”

“Not yet,” Jess said. “She’d only throw another pillow at me. Or something more damaging.”

“I understand why she’s angry. What are
you
angry about?”

What was it, exactly? He didn’t know, except that he was angry at everything suddenly. Angry for Morgan, but angry
at
her, too. Stupidly. It didn’t even make sense. “She thinks I’m taking advantage.”

Thomas’s eyebrows rose to a ridiculous level, wrinkling his forehead like an old man’s. “Are you, Jess?”

“How can you even ask me?”

“Your motives are completely pure, then?”

Jess glared at him. “Set the board, Thomas.”

“You sound like Dario just now, you know.”

“Are you trying to insult me?”

“Only a little.” He outright grinned this time, and Jess smiled back. With months of grime washed down the drain and his hair drying to puffball brightness, Thomas looked almost like his old self. He had some spark back in his eyes. But the grin faded too quickly. “She’s trapped here. I know how that feels. Now you begin to see it, too, how being helpless twists us around.”

“It didn’t twist you,” Jess said. “You’ve done very well.”

Thomas’s expression didn’t alter. “It seems so, maybe. But I’m not the same. She’s not. Her confinement isn’t like mine, but don’t let the soft bars fool you. Taking someone’s will, someone’s freedom . . . it kills the heart and then the soul.”

“It didn’t kill yours.”

Thomas said nothing this time. He set up the board, white and black, and waited for Jess to make a move.

Jess didn’t have a chance, because a knock came at the door. He was hoping for Morgan, but when Thomas swung it open, Khalila stood on the other side. She glanced quickly at them both and said, “We have to attend dinner now. I don’t think they gave us a choice.”

“See?” Thomas said to Jess. “So it begins. The little deaths of freedom.”

They stepped out into the hall. Khalila stood quite alone, and Jess wasn’t sure if her arms were simply crossed or if she was hugging herself for comfort. He knew what she was thinking and feeling, because he’d felt it himself when Morgan had been taken away. At least he’d known where she was and who’d taken her.

Dario was just . . . gone. Vanished. And there was no way to know if he was alive, free, imprisoned, dead. All Khalila could do was hope . . . and hope was difficult, knowing what they all knew about the Library now.
He’s a smart one,
Jess told himself again.
Connections, money, friends . . . he’ll be all right.
He wanted to say that to Khalila but knew how useless it would sound.

When she looked up and saw him, she forced a smile and said, “I was just thinking about my family.”

That stopped him. Why had he just assumed she’d be pining uselessly after Dario? Was it because he was so caught up in his own thoughts of Morgan? “Your family?” He knew he sounded surprised. “Why? Are they all right?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve betrayed everything they believe in. Worse than that, I’ve so many Scholars in the family. Will they be all right, Jess? Do you think the Library will punish them for what I’ve done?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not.”

“I hope not.” The desolation in her voice hurt. He remembered her proud uncle, escorting her on the train to Alexandria, and the constant messages she’d received from her father and mother and siblings and cousins. Khalila’s life was full of love, and the decisions she’d made may have cut her off from that love. Would she have done that if he hadn’t come to her with his mad speculations and schemes?

Another knife cut of guilt slicing a piece of his heart away. He had no answers for her, nothing but a whispered, “I’m sorry,” which was no comfort. He wished she
had
been thinking of Dario. It would have been a simpler subject, an easier answer. This cut to the core of who Khalila was.

She made the choice,
some part of him said, but he hated that he thought it. Of course she had. That didn’t make it all right. In some ways, it only made it worse.

While Jess stood helpless, Thomas walked directly to Khalila and wrapped her in a hug that lifted her off her feet. After a second of surprise, she put her arms around him—as far as they would stretch—and put her head on his broad shoulder.

“I would be dead if not for you,” he told her. “I would be dead to everything and everyone I knew if you hadn’t come for me. All of you. Don’t think I will ever forget what you’ve done for me.”

“I had to,” she said. “I was glad to.”

“Even so,” he said. “If you lose your family, I will be your family. Always.”

She took a deep breath and said, “Thank you. Now put me down, you lumbering bear.”

He laughed a little and put her back on her feet. “Sorry. It’s like picking up a tiny bird. You should eat more.”

“So should you,” she said. Her smile was back. So was the light in her eyes.
It’s remarkable,
Jess thought,
that Thomas can do that.
He had so much light inside him that it warmed those around him. “Will you be my escort to dinner?”

“I will,” Thomas said gravely, and offered her his arm, like an ancient country gentleman. She put her hand lightly on it.

Jess was laughing at them, but it stopped quickly as Morgan opened the door of his room and their eyes met. He nodded to her warily. She nodded back. Her eyes looked red and swollen, but there were no tears now. And no forgiveness, either.

He was still considering what to say to her when the door to Wolfe and Santi’s room opened and the two men stepped out. Wolfe gave them all a dour glance and said, “What are you waiting for?” as he pushed past and opened the door at the end of the hallway. Santi followed, and then Khalila and Thomas.

Jess cleared his throat and gestured, and Morgan preceded him out.

It didn’t really feel like peace.

S
omehow Jess had expected a small, private room that would have been set aside for them, but instead the dining room of the Iron Tower was a large, open space filled with many, many tables and groups gathered at nearly every one. Most of those in the room fell silent and turned toward them as they entered, and Jess had an instinctive defensive reaction until Morgan murmured, “They never see new faces here. You’re novelties.”

Novelties.
He felt Thomas flinch, saw Morgan avert her eyes, and it made him even angrier.
We’re not your entertainment,
Jess wanted to shout. He began to have a small inkling of what Morgan’s life might be like
here, being the rebellious outcast in what seemed to be a group of true believers.

Morgan, gaze down, wasn’t looking at any of the other tables, but they were all staring . . . and whispering and pointing. A young girl rose from a nearby table and walked toward them. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen and had an unpleasantly smug look on her face, but what drew Jess’s attention was the rounded swell of her stomach beneath her dress. It took him a long moment to comprehend what that meant, and then he shot a fast, unguarded look at Morgan. Her face—what he could see from this angle—had set into a bland mask.

“Sister Morgan!” the girl almost purred, and extended both hands as if she expected Morgan to grasp them in welcome. “We’re so glad you decided to rejoin us. We missed you!”

She managed to make it look like her own idea to clasp her hands in excitement and pull them back when Morgan didn’t take the hint. Her smile turned brittle and a little vile. The silence stretched . . . and then Morgan said, “Rosa, we’re tired and hungry. Please excuse us.”

It was bare courtesy, and Rosa couldn’t have missed it, but she somehow managed to hang on to that smile and put both hands now on the curve of her stomach. “The baby’s started to kick. Do you want to feel it?”

“I’m afraid we are all far too tired this evening,” Khalila said, which sounded brusque but, in the way that only Khalila could manage, also sounded warm and kind. “Rosa, is it?”

“Yes,” Rosa said, and turned to her. She took in Khalila in one sweeping glance, head to toe. “You’re not one of us.”

“I am a Scholar,” Khalila said. “How does that make me alien to you?”

Rosa dismissed her and went back to Morgan. “Don’t worry,” she said, and pitched her voice a little louder to carry. “I know you missed your time, but Dominic is a patient young man. I’m sure you look forward to it.”

Dominic.
Jess felt something dark settle into the pit of his stomach,
because now he had a name for the Obscurist Morgan was expected to bed.
Dominic.
He scanned the room, wondering which of them it was. The puffy, pale one at the back with his attention fixed on his plate? The lean one watching them with silvery eyes? It would drive him mad, not knowing which one of them to hate.

Rosa started back toward her table but then turned around, as if she’d just thought of something. Pure, petty theater. “Oh,” she said to Morgan. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard about poor Sybilla?”

That, for the first time, broke through Morgan’s mask, and she quickly looked up. “What about her?”

“She had a . . . misadventure,” Rosa said. “Perhaps you should visit her on the hospital floor.”

This time, Gregory stood up from one of the tables not far away, and though he said nothing, Rosa quickly ducked her head and went back to her seat without another word. Gregory sank down, too, but Jess could feel his gaze on them.

On Morgan.

“Well,” Khalila said as they took chairs at one of the few empty tables. “I can see how the charm of this place might wear very thin. Morgan? All right?”

“Yes,” Morgan said, but in a toneless way that made Jess think the opposite. “Fine.” She swallowed and forced a little cheer. “The food’s very good. The servers will bring what you want.”

Thomas, settling uneasily into a chair too small for him, said, “Is there a list of choices?”

“No. You just tell them what you’d like. Wolfe was right; Obscurists are pampered. The best food, prepared just the way we want it; that’s just one of many ways they try to make us forget we’re—”

“Prisoners,” Jess finished.

“No,” Morgan said, and didn’t look at him. “Prisoners eventually get out.”

A servant wearing a gold band—didn’t that go against the entire structure of the Library?—came to ask politely what they wanted for food and drink. With no slate of choices, Jess was too tired to think creatively; longing a bit for home, though he didn’t know why, he just ordered roast beef and mash. Thomas must have felt the same, since he ordered schnitzel. Morgan asked for chicken; Khalila for roasted mutton. It was all very normal. As soon as the servant walked away, Thomas said, “The servants are pledged here for life as well?”

Morgan nodded. “The difference is that they do get to leave the Tower from time to time. Obscurists can only leave under the strictest rules and controls.”

“What about the ones who operate the Translation Chambers?”

“Our lowest caste,” she said. “They have the least talent for writing scripts; they can only interpret what’s already been written and infuse it with the quintessence to make it work.”

Jess thought it must be a strange blessing here to be a disappointment; it held the chance to take the outside air, see the world, at least a bit. “Lucky devils,” he said, and got a look of agreement from her. Just a brief one, but it made him feel less cold. He’d lost his anger, he realized, and partly because it was becoming clearer and clearer to him that none of this had to do with a choice Morgan had made. She’d not chosen to be born with this talent; in fact, she’d done everything in her power to avoid coming here in the first place. She’d never sought out being an Obscurist.