Paper and Fire (The Great Library) (43 page)

“Yet you come running to me for help.”

“I’m bringing you an opportunity you’ll never see again. It’s business.”

“And we thought you didn’t have the Brightwell heart,” Brendan said. He was smiling and his eyes were bright, and in that moment Jess knew his instincts had been right. He
couldn’t
trust his family. Ever. “We’ve got business for you to do first. Show us you’re trustworthy, and then we’ll look at this
opportunity
of yours. Or don’t, and we’ll kill some of your friends, if not all of them. Your choice.”

“Jess?” Santi said. “I’d like very much to shoot this man, but he’s your blood. You decide.”

“Don’t.” His heart was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach. The air still smelled of that faint trace of spices and old books that were so much a part of his childhood, but overlaying them now was the muffling scent of smoke. London was burning. So was his past. “What do you want from us, Callum?”

“
Callum
, now, is it?” Two years ago, his father’s glare would have cowed him. Not today. He met it with one of his own.

“It is,” Jess said. “I’m not going to call you Father anymore. Be grateful I don’t call you worse.” He turned to Santi and Wolfe. “You could kill them, maybe a few of the men, but they’ll get some of us, too. It’s not worth it.”

It took a long, tense moment, but their guns went down. So, unwillingly, did Glain’s.

“Good,” Callum Brightwell said. “Glad we sorted out our particulars. Come with us. We need the help of a Scholar.”

I
t was a long ride in an uncomfortable freight wagon to St. Paul’s, and while they rattled around inside the hard, empty space, Brightwell explained what he wanted. It was ominous and daring, and Jess could unwillingly agree that it might well be the chance of any self-respecting smuggler’s lifetime.

St. Paul’s Serapeum had long been an unattainable target, though it contained some of the rarest, choicest volumes on display. But in the growing chaos, with the High Garda fanning out across the city searching for Jess and his friends, it was as vulnerable as it would ever be.

“It’ll take a Scholar’s robes to get us past the Garda barricades,” Brightwell explained. “And a bright, shiny bracelet. Once you’re in the building, they’re busy boxing up things to send them to the Archives. A few liberated volumes might find their way clear with an enterprising thief in a black robe.”

“You expect us to help you
rob the Library
?” Santi asked. He looked at Jess’s father as if he were a particularly unpleasant sort of bug he’d found in his stew. “Are you completely mad?”

“You’re no longer part of the Library, is what I’m hearing. You’re on the run from it, like the rest of us poor criminals, so don’t play the proper High Garda captain with me. I could turn you in as easy as dropping a handkerchief. You’re lucky I’m generous, and you can be of some real use.”

“Nic,” Wolfe said. He was staring at Brightwell with flat, dark eyes, like he wanted to take a bite out of him, but his voice was calm enough. “I’ll do it.”

“No, you won’t!” Santi shot back. “You’re too recognizable. One look at you, and you’re in the hands of the Artifex.”

“Of course it’s got to be me. You don’t have another gold-banded Scholar to—” Wolfe realized his mistake, but it was too late. Khalila held up her wrist, and her sleeve slipped down to reveal the gold bracelet. “No.”

“I’m not as recognizable as you, and there are plenty of female librarians wearing hijabs. I will be fine.” She managed a smile. “Of all of us, which one looks least like a thief?”

“No!” It wasn’t just Wolfe this time objecting; it was all of them, talking over each other. Khalila looked at Jess, who
wasn’t
objecting. He just nodded at her. She nodded back.

“Quiet, all of you,” she said, and opened her pack to dig out her black Scholar’s robe. It was a little wrinkled and worse for wear, but in the current conditions of London, Jess doubted anyone would notice. “Tell me what you want me to find.”

“Oh, use your best judgment,” Brightwell said with a deceptively kind smile. “Something lucrative and rare. Two at least. Three if you can manage it.”

“You’re not going alone,” Dario said, and grabbed his own robe from his bag. “Jess, weapon?”

Jess ignored him. Glain glared but silently offered a knife, and Dario nodded and slipped it into the back of his trousers, under the cover of the robe. “Once it’s done, we’ll meet you back here in the freight hauler.”

“Oh no,” Jess’s father said. “We’re
all
going in. While you steal the books, we will be opening a way out.”

“Way out?” Jess echoed, and then he understood, just before Callum pointed a thick finger at Morgan.

“She,” he said, “is the magic key to our escape. She’ll send us to Lancaster, or as close as can be managed. Then we’ll talk about opportunities, if you like, once we’re safe in family territory.”

“I can’t,” Morgan said. “I’m just a student. I’m not—”

“You’re an Obscurist, and by all accounts that I’ve heard, you’re far more powerful than the ones trying to teach you anything useful. Imagine
what we could do with you, Morgan. You’re going to open
many
doors for us, all over the world.”

The bad taste in Jess’s mouth went sour.
Morgan, too.
She’d only just escaped from the Iron Tower, and already his own family wanted to put another chain on her, make her their pet Obscurist. Maybe she’d been right to run and hide before. Even from him.

“All right,” Morgan said, with a calm that surprised him. “I’ll send you to safety,
if
you let me send the others first.”

“I’m not as naive as I look, sweeting. You’d get them through and refuse to send the rest of us.” He took on a calculating look, glancing from Morgan to Jess and back. “But I’ll compromise. Never let it be said I’m not a fair man. You can send all of them ahead except Jess. Then you send me, Brendan, and my men. You and Jess leave last.”

It was a clever way to exploit the two of them again, and Jess knew it would work. It couldn’t fail. She knew it, too, and nodded.

“You two Scholars, your job is to get inside and get the books without being noticed. Never mind what the rest of us do. Make your way to the Serapeum’s chamber—what do you call it?”

“Translation Chamber,” Morgan said quietly. “It’s hidden behind a statue of Queen Elizabeth toward the back of the Scholar’s Reading Room.” She caught Jess’s eye. “I studied ahead, in case we needed to escape.”

He loved her for that. For many things, just now. “And how do you plan to get past the lions?” he asked his father, whose grin never slipped.

“With help,” he said. “You don’t need to know.”

Jess exchanged a quick glance with Thomas. His father had a frightening amount of inside knowledge, but he clearly didn’t know that Jess could turn off the lions or that they could potentially convert them to their own cause.

Something to keep in reserve.

There was a rap on the front of the freight wagon, and Callum nodded. “Get up,” he said, and rose, grabbing for a handhold as the truck lurched. “Don’t cross us. Trust me, this is the best deal you’re going to get.”

“I’m sure it is,” Wolfe replied. “You strike me as such an honest man.”
The sarcasm is heavy enough to drown in,
Jess thought, and in looking between the two men, he knew in his heart he’d choose Wolfe over his own father anytime. As difficult and prickly as the man could be, at least he was honest.

The wagon wheezed to a lurching halt, throwing them against one another, and Jess all but lost his footing when Thomas bumped him. But then the back of the wagon clanked down and his father’s men were rushing out with a purpose, shouting.

They were nosed against the Garda barrier, and the Brightwell bullies made quick work of the two London Garda soldiers on duty. There was almost no one at the barricades, but those who were there ran. By the time the second Garda soldier hit the ground unconscious, the area was all but deserted.

Jess heard screaming from somewhere frighteningly close, and as he turned that way, he saw a distant pinpoint of greenish light arcing through the dark, growing larger. It was a ballista pot of Greek fire, and it hit no more than five blocks away, exploding and splashing the rooftops with luminescent liquid that began to burn instantly.

“The Welsh army is coming close,” Wolfe said. Brightwell nodded. “Well?”

“We’re waiting,” he said.

“For what?”

“For them.” A group of men and women ran toward them from a side street—ten of them, by Jess’s quick count. They looked grimly serious as they exchanged nods with Callum. “You’re late,” he said. “Go on, then. You’ve been paid well enough for it.”

The leader—a woman with black hair twisted in a thick braid to one side of her head, with features and skin that reminded Jess a bit of Joachim Portero—flashed him a smile, but without humor. “We don’t do this for
money
, criminal. We do it for principles.”

“I don’ t care why you do it,” Brightwell said blandly. “So long as you succeed.”

She led her small force up the street toward the Scholar Steps, where Jess had once run for his life from lions—and those lions, he realized, were still there, crouched, waiting. They were the massively muscled English sort—shorter manes than the Italian version, without barbed tails. Designed to crush and tear. One rose to all four paws, turned red eyes toward the intruders, and let out a chilling roar.

The woman let out a bloody cry of challenge that was almost as chilling, reached into a bag at her waist, and drew out a glass globe.

Burners. My father’s working with
Burners
.

He felt Morgan’s hand closing hard around his arm and reached out to hold her closer. “Nothing we can do,” he said.

The leader’s throw landed accurately right on the lion’s head and spread caustic chemicals down the metal face and into the red eyes. Glass popped and sizzled, blinding it as the chemicals ignited and began to burn with a fierce intensity. The lion shook its head, trying to throw it off, but the thick stuff clung and melted, turning the automaton’s face into a hideous, twisted mask of skeletal cables and clockwork.

The other Burners were throwing now, too, targeting the other lions. One automaton managed to dodge the rain of bottles and landed hard on a screaming victim—man, woman, Jess couldn’t tell, and in the next instant it didn’t much matter, because the scream cut off quickly. Some of the Burners weren’t much older than him. Jess shut his eyes as the lions thrashed and roared, the bottles of Greek fire flew and broke, and another Burner yelled in fear and pain.

Then Morgan said, in an unsteady, hushed voice, “It’s over.”

He opened his eyes again to see the last of the lions had collapsed on its side. It was melting into a tangled mess, cables twisting and snapping, gears and springs deforming. The metallic roaring faded to a strange, distorted whimper, and then . . . nothing.

Four lions lay dead—did automata die?—in a shimmering pool of Greek fire, with two Burners bloody and crushed nearby. It was a terrible sight, and the street and steps scorched black from the rippling heat.

“Well,” Callum said from behind him. “That was well worth the price.”

Jess didn’t even think. He rounded on his father, fist pulled back, and as Morgan shouted his name, his brother grabbed his arm and held it while Jess shouted and struggled. “Let go!
Let me go!
”

“Be smarter,” Brendan said quietly. “He’ll kill you.”

“I could have—”
Stopped this without people dying,
he almost blurted out, but he could see Thomas’s warning stare over Brendan’s shoulder. “I could have done this differently.
Burners
, Brendan. Since when do we work with
Burners
?”

“When it’s smart to do it,” he said. “Profit, not philosophy, remember? Relax, brother. We have it under control.”

Khalila and Dario, with Thomas and Glain, moved up the Scholar Steps; they were meant to go straight to the Scholar’s Reading Room and grab as many books as they could. Each of them had their packs already loaded with originals, but Jess couldn’t tell his family that now. He didn’t trust them with that rare, precious knowledge. Or with the idea of the press.
Then where will we turn?
He didn’t know. He felt sick, having led his friends here, to a safety that vanished like fog under the sun.

Once inside the columned entrance, Callum Brightwell led his sons to the left, where a statue of Queen Elizabeth in battle armor stood guard. There was no obvious entrance, and Brightwell gestured impatiently for Morgan to catch up. Just beyond them, Khalila and Dario had gone into the Reading Room, and Dario had already picked up an original volume to add to a small crate. Khalila passed him another. Her hands, Jess saw, were shaking badly.

Glain and Thomas hovered at the corner, watching over them in case of trouble, but so far, the room was much too busy for them to be noticed. Black-robed Scholars hurried from one table to another, stacking books with haste that spoke of real fear, while a second set in sand-colored librarian robes brought over more crates and helped with packing. It looked like barely controlled chaos.