Paper and Fire (The Great Library) (11 page)

G
etting out of the Lighthouse meant, in the end, waiting for a whole flock of Scholars to leave at once, and striding along with them as if he were one of them. Jess quickly offered to carry a heavy load of equipment for the small, overweight man leading the party, and that had earned him instant friendship—at least, until he handed it back at the end of the road and headed for the High Garda compound at a run. Running felt good on such a bright and perfect morning.

When he arrived back, he searched for Glain. Her quarters were empty, but he finally spotted her walking the halls in the company of Captain Feng. He couldn’t read her expression, but he doubted she was with the man by her own choice. The conversation seemed one-sided.

Despite Glain’s worries, no one seemed intent on ordering him today, so Jess indulged in some much-needed sleep, then rose with the intention of doing some reading. As he stepped into the hall, he realized that the door at an angle to his on the other side—Tariq’s room—was standing open. He’d gotten halfway across the hall to say hello before the memory caught up with him of Tariq slumped against the wall.
Tariq was dead
, and someone was in his room. He stopped in his tracks.

Inside the room, Tariq’s closest friends, Wu and Bransom, packed up his few belongings. Jess felt it like a hammer to the chest as he watched Recruit Bransom—as sturdy and muscular a young woman as Glain—wipe away
tears as she picked up Tariq’s personal journal, embossed with his name. The cover, even at the distance from which Jess observed, was smeared with dried blood, and she scrubbed restlessly at it with the sleeve of her own shirt. Her hands were shaking.

Someone will write the final lines in that journal,
he thought,
detailing the dates and circumstances of Tariq’s death.
Jess might even be mentioned by name. Then Tariq’s family would read it, weep over it, hold a memorial to read aloud from it, and finally send it on to the Library’s archives, where he would become a permanent part of the knowledge of humanity. Immortality, of a kind.

We’re just paper on a shelf, in the end.
Jess felt an unexpected surge of anger, because no matter how honest and forthright Tariq had been in his journal, it couldn’t encompass
him
—the sharp humor, the way he’d cleverly cheated at dice, the shady jokes he’d loved and often told. The way he’d died. And for what? Tariq was gone, and Jess still felt the tension and release of pulling the trigger and sending Tariq sprawling against that wall where he’d died. Never mind that his shot hadn’t been fatal in itself; it had left his friend helpless for the slaughter that came after.

Bransom looked up unexpectedly and saw Jess. She looked wounded and vulnerable, and tears glided down her cheeks . . . And then he saw the flare of real rage.

She slammed the door in his face.

In a subdued, sour mood, Jess spent the rest of the day in the barracks Serapeum—a small offshoot that contained a few dozen shelves of permanently loaded Blanks that held books most often requested, and a wall of ones waiting to be filled. He took one from that section and sat down to page through his Codex to find what he wanted. He remembered—thanks to Scholar Wolfe’s ruthless grilling about the vast list of books in the public collection of the Great Library—that there were one or two extremely obscure histories of crimes against the Library. Maybe someone, somewhere, had included clues to secret prisons. The research might be useful.

Best of all, though he knew someone, somewhere was watching what he ordered to read, he had a long history of reading historical texts. Even if the Archivist had a watch on what he read, this wouldn’t appear out of the ordinary.

Jess missed handling originals. He’d grown so addicted to the feel of those books—the individual differences in the bindings, the leather or fabric covers, the weight of papers, the smell. They were a very different experience than these Blanks, which all felt so . . .
sterile
, somehow. Words that could be readily dismissed and replaced didn’t have the same moral heft to them, to him, but he recognized he was a rebel and an outcast, even here among those who loved the Library.

Another reason to never lower his guard.

He was immersed in text and making handwritten notes to himself on a separate sheet when he sensed someone standing close by. He looked up to see the faces of Garrett Wu and Violet Bransom, and instantly knew it wasn’t a social visit.

Jess put the book aside and his pen down before he stood up to face them. “I didn’t do it,” he said. “Tariq was shot from above. Ask Sergeant Botha.”

“You shot him first,” Bransom—they never called her Violet, and Tariq had coined her official nickname, Violent, the first day—said, and with one shove, she put him back down in the chair. He didn’t resist. It gave him excellent leverage to kick knees and break bones. “I saw it. He went down when
you
shot him.”

“He was aiming at a Scholar. You know, the one we’re sworn to protect at all costs? Are you actually telling me you wouldn’t have done the same?”

“You’re lying,” Wu said. He wasn’t a bad guy, and Jess normally got along with him, but seeing that stiff, angry expression, he knew getting along wasn’t in the cards today. “Tariq would never betray us. And he’d never shoot a Scholar. That’s sick!”

They’d never accept the truth, and Jess didn’t blame them. Tariq had
been a friendly sort, likable. Jess had taken pains
not
to be part of the group. He’d wanted to stay apart, after the pain of losing his friends from his Postulant class.

And this distrust was what caution and distance had earned him.

“I’m telling the truth, and Botha backs me up about how Tariq died. Whether I shot him or not makes no real difference.
I didn’t kill him
. A sniper from the rooftops did.”

“And you think you did your
duty
,” Wu said. The boy’s fists were clenched hard at his sides, his stare very dark and fixed. Jess knew the look. He’d faced it before. He kept his attention split, because Bransom would be the one to make the first move, if one was coming. “You’d do it again, wouldn’t you? To any one of us.”

“Yes, I’d do it again, to save a Scholar’s life. And so would you!” He was getting angry now, could feel it like a sunburn blooming under his skin. “Tariq was working with them. Maybe he wasn’t the only one.”

Wu’s face went a dangerously dark shade. “You saying we’re
Burners
?”

There was, Jess knew, no insult he could have given that would be greater, but there was no taking it back, and it didn’t matter. Neither of the two facing him was listening anyway; they had their minds well made up about what they thought. He was wasting breath.

The area had quietly cleared of other soldiers. Disputes between people of equal rank weren’t prohibited, unless officers were present. Bransom was about to kick it off, he thought, and he prepared to shatter her left kneecap, but just then a calm voice from the doorway said, “Is this a private two-on-one fight, or can anyone join?”

Glain Wathen stood there, looking dangerously still, despite the mild tone. A superior officer.

It broke the tension like a hammer on glass, and Wu and Bransom stepped back. “Squad Leader,” Wu said, but the look he gave Glain was chilly. “Just working something out.”

“Then do it where I can’t see you,” she said. “If any of you start
something here in the Serapeum, you’re all on report, and I promise you, you do
not
want to see my temper just now. Are we understood?”

Her fingers tapped the seam of her trousers, and Jess knew that particular tic of hers; it meant she really was spoiling for a fight. The others must have known it, too, or at least they were aware of the dangerous light in her eyes. Bransom nodded and stepped away from Jess, and after a slight hesitation, Wu followed. “No problem, Sergeant,” Bransom said. “We’ll . . . catch up later.”
When Wathen’s not around
was strongly implied, but Jess didn’t much care. At least they gave fair warning.

Jess watched the other two walk out, and when they were out of earshot, he said, “Do I really look so feeble I need help,
Squad Leader
?” As he said it—snarled it, really—he realized that he’d been ready to fight. Eager, even.

So was she, because in three long strides Glain was across the room, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him upright from the chair. He knocked the Blank off the table, and the thump of impact froze them both for a moment as they looked down.

Then she shook him. Hard. “Go on, Brightwell, test me today. See how far you get!” He looked into her eyes, and his own restless anger and frustration faded because he saw it mirrored in hers. He slowly held up his hands, and she let go and stalked a few steps away. Paced. After a moment, she bent and picked up his book to pass it back to him.

“Should I even ask what’s put you in this mood?” he said. She cut him a look so sharp it had edges on it.

“Captain Feng. He made it abundantly clear that I have some choices to make,” Glain said. “Hard ones.”

“Your career or your friends,” he said. “You knew that was coming, didn’t you?”

“I never wanted any of you as friends! I came here to succeed, and that requires focus. You know that. I know you do.”

He did. He was capable of the same ruthlessness when required.
Achievement here at the Library was an altar on which one sacrificed many things . . . friendship being the least of them. To go on up the ranks, knowing what he did now—that would require sacrificing his morals. Ethics. His soul.

He also knew that Glain wanted—no, needed—to succeed. She tried not to show how much it meant to her, but it was as clear as the Lighthouse’s beacon. “Do what you have to do,” he told her quietly. “No one will blame you. Least of all me. I’m a selfish bastard, anyway.”

She let out a strange, pressurized little laugh, and then caught her breath. Fought for control for a moment, and when she’d achieved it, deliberately relaxed. “We can’t talk here,” she said. “Come on.”

She led him back to his quarters, and waited until he was inside and the door shut again before saying, “You went to the Lighthouse, didn’t you? Were you seen?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I talked to Khalila. She’s willing to help.” Out of habit, they both kept their voices low. Best to assume unfriendly ears were everywhere, especially now.

Glain frowned. “I don’t like involving her,” she said. “Of all of us, she’s the one with the most to lose. And what about Dario? Do you trust him?”

“I don’t always
like
him, but trusting him is another matter, and of course I do. Fair warning: he’ll still give us grief just because it’s his nature,” Jess said. “He’s angry about Thomas, though. I trust him to do whatever’s required.”

She nodded and sat down on Jess’s bed, leaving him to pull his desk chair close. “What were you and the others clashing about back there?”

“Tariq.”

She hadn’t been expecting that, and he saw the shift in her body language. Some might have seen it as defensive, but he knew it was more self-defense against her own pain. “I should have realized that they’d blame you and said something first. Sorry.”

He shrugged a little and kept silent. Nothing much to say.

“I’ve sent the death notification to his family,” she said. “It was my
place, as his commanding officer. I suppose I had to learn how that felt sooner or later. Would rather it had been later, and for a better cause.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Not the truth, of course. I said it was a training accident, very regrettable, and that he performed his duties with great integrity and concern for his fellow recruits.”

He let that sit for a moment before he said, “Did you suspect him at all?”

“Not really. I knew he had questionable friends. I certainly didn’t expect him to try to put a bullet in a Scholar!”

“And here I thought you automatically suspected everyone of the worst.”

“Let’s just say I never assume the best. But Tariq’s dead, and it seems likely he was killed by those who paid him, for failing in his mission. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Jess said. “Do you suspect anyone else in the squad?”

“I have to suspect everyone. Including you, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s fair.” Jess cleared his throat. “About Thomas . . . Feng said you had to make a choice—”

“He did,” Glain said, and met his eyes squarely. “And I have. You know what it is.”

She and Dario have something in common after all,
Jess thought. They didn’t agonize about a decision. They just made it, and damn the consequences.

“Khalila and Dario are trying to find us more information about the secret prison,” he told her. “What you said earlier, about the Black Archives . . . do you think there’s a chance that information about Thomas might be there?”

“It’s where the Library keeps anything secret, so of course.”

“I’ll ask Dario to look into it. We need to move faster than this,” Jess said. “I can’t get Thomas out of my head. What if—”

“If you’re thinking about what he might be going through”—she let in a breath and blew it out slowly—“don’t. There is nothing you can do to stop it, and guilt is a useless emotion.”