Paper and Fire

by Rachel Caine

  "Thank you, Neksa," he said, and watched as she disappeared through the doorway. Jess stood quietly and moved to the hallway.

  Empty. She was gone.

  He closed the door with as much care as he could before rounding on his brother to say, "Are you mad? She's wearing a silver band!"

  Brendan grabbed his wrist and twisted it up to put Jess's copper bracelet at eye level between them. "I don't think you've got much cause to throw stones at me!"

  Jess pulled free. It wasn't hard. "Does she know?"

  "About what?" Brendan's bland denial was maddening. Jess outright glared at him this time, until his brother finally shook his head. "She knows I'm a trader. Nothing more."

  "You understand that this"--Jess gestured at the fine house, at the girl who'd left the room--"this is why our parents keep writing to me! You're going to drag her down with you. There's no possibility she comes out of this unhurt, and if you really care about her--"

  "Who says I do care about her?"

  That stopped Jess cold. He stared at his brother with an unpleasant churn in his stomach. "What in the hell are you doing?"

  "My job," Brendan said. "Unlike you. Father pinned his hopes and a large part of his fortune on you coming here and excelling, and instead you're just a spear carrier. A nothing, dead in battle a year from now. What use are you to us?"

  "What use is she to us?"

  "We need someone inside, in a position of real authority and access. It obviously won't be you. So she's a present to Father to salve the vast fortune I lost here--a direct way into the highest levels of the Library."

  "You're not planning to abduct the girl!"

  "Of course not!" Brendan seemed to be honestly puzzled why Jess would think of it. "She's in love with me. Through her I can gain access to information you never could."

  It was a cold plan, and it felt dishonest in ways that had nothing to do with mere theft. His brother had always been a schemer, but Jess didn't think he'd ever been this bitter cold before. "Brendan," he said. "Where does Neksa work?"

  His brother gave him a slow, cold smile. "She works for the Archivist. Oh, not a trusted adviser, obviously; merely a clerk. But she sees things. Knows things that could be of huge benefit to the Brightwell business."

  "I don't--" Hard to believe he was saying this. "I don't think you should do this."

  "Why not?"

  "Because it's--" Because it's a filthy betrayal of a woman you've pretended to love. "Because it's wrong." Even to his own ears, that was weak.

  His brother laughed. It sounded bitter. "Everything we do is wrong. Haven't you noticed?" He regarded Jess for a moment and sat back, pushing his hair from his eyes. "You've gone soft here in the heart of luxury. You've forgotten that everything has a cost."

  Jess shut his eyes for a moment. The hard jolt of caffeine in his bloodstream had started a dull headache, and he felt his blood pulsing in his neck. The sickly sweet taste of the coffee fueled a roiling in his stomach that had less to do with the drink than with his own disgust. "She loves you. Even I can see that. Don't you feel anything for her?"

  His brother's face, a mirror of his own, was as hard and unforgiving as the face of an automaton. "She's a means to an end, Jess. The sooner you learn to shed your sentimentality, the better off you'll be. Now. You didn't come here to check on me--I know you better than that. Why did you? And don't tell me Father sent you." He looked, just for a moment, less cynical. Almost concerned. "Jess? You look . . . troubled."

  I'm taking on a battle I know I can't win. I felt trapped and desperate, and I thought my brother would tell me everything would be all right. I wanted to feel . . . safe. Just for a while.

  But he should have known better. The Brightwells weren't a family. They were a business--first, last, always.

  "It doesn't matter," he told his brother, and made for the door. "Never mind."

  EPHEMERA

  From a personal journal by Brendan Brightwell, written in family code. Burned in Alexandria on departure.

  I know how this will sound, but Jess--my brother--and I, we've never been right. It's as if we compete for the same breaths even out of the womb, and he's always been just a little bigger, a little stronger, a little older. I've always run just a half step behind in his shadow, and God knows there have been times when I hated him just for existing. Like he's stolen something from me.

  So how can that excuse what I'm doing to Neksa? I don't know. Maybe because Jess has to be the hero, I have to be the villain. The dark to his light. Or maybe I'm just trying, for once, to prove that I'm better at something than he is, even if that something is cruelty. Leaves a bloody taste in my mouth and ashes in my stomach every time I think what could happen--no, will happen--to Neksa if all this comes off. She's just a key to a lock, is all. That's what I keep telling myself. Access to the Archivist himself--isn't that worth any cost, any price? In one stroke, I'll eclipse my brother, earn my father's undying respect, become a legend in our black-market world. People will fear and respect me.

  Surely it's everything I've ever wanted.

  And yet I'm sitting awake tonight, writing this down, because I lied to Jess, and he believed me. I told him I didn't care about Neksa, and, God help me, that was the biggest lie of my life. She's not just a key, not just a tool, not just another woman I can push away. She's . . . I don't know. Everything.

  I never meant to fall in love with any girl, much less a good, true Library girl who trusts me not to hurt her. I've spent months telling myself that I'm just biding my time, building her trust until it's time to use her as I see fit, but tonight, looking into my twin's eyes, I realized that the only person I've really been lying to is myself.

  I can't do this. I can't hurt Neksa. I love her too much to do that, and now that I've faced it, seen the full extent of my failure here in Alexandria, I have to go home and beg my father for forgiveness. I have to leave Neksa and never look back, because I'll do her far greater harm if I stay with her.

  I blame Jess for making me finally see it.

  Well, I have to blame someone. Can't blame myself, can I?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Three more days passed. Their compatriots received commissions and were folded into High Garda companies, but no word of any future for Glain and Jess. It was worrying for a day, and quietly terrifying after that. Glain constantly asked what it could mean, and Jess had no answers, only fears he refused to speak aloud and tried to bury under other concerns. Surely, Glain would find a good home in one of the elite companies.

  He was not so confident of his own prospects.

  While they waited, the two of them were rarely out of each other's company. To fill the time, they researched the Library's secret prisons and met with Dario and Khalila to discuss their findings.

  The problem was, proof was thin on the ground. Thomas might be in one of three different places where secret prisons were strongly rumored to be hidden: Rome, Paris, Moscow. If Jess had to place a bet, he'd have put his money on Paris--the country of France was, after all, a Library territory, fully owned after the rebellion against the Library that failed in the late 1700s. What few of the French people were allowed to live in Paris were required by law to perform in the historical reenactments--the rebellion, the Library's conquest, the executions. It was a perfect place, in Jess's opinion, to hide prisoners. Who'd dare to even go look?

  Trouble was, every new location led to impassioned speculation but no definitive answers to tip the scales toward one of the choices.

  "Well," Glain said over strong coffee in their usual cafe, "we can't go looking for him blind. We need more information than we have. Much more. Somehow we have to find it."

  "I agree," Jess said, and to his surprise, Dario was saying the same thing at the same time. They exchanged looks, and Jess let Dario continue.

  "We need someone with more access than we can have. What about Morgan?"

  "What about her?" Jess shot back, suddenly on his guard.

  "She can access hi
dden information, can't she? It's the whole reason they're called Obscurists."

  "I can't contact Morgan. I have to wait for her to write to me."

  "And she hasn't? Maybe your charm's finally wearing off," Dario observed. "Maybe she's found some lucky man to fill her days inside the Iron Tower."

  Jess's hand tightened on his fork, and for a brief, bloody moment he imagined that--or worse, that she hadn't found someone else, that someone else had been found for her. He didn't want to talk about that. At all. "Morgan can't help us," he snapped. "Move on, Dario."

  "I have, actually. I think we should involve someone else who can--"

  "No," Khalila said. Her tone sounded flat and a little angry. "Dario. We discussed this. You can't involve anyone else inside the Library!"

  "And anyone outside it is of no use--Jess has proved that. All his fancy criminal connections can't get us what we need, and every day, every day we wait, Thomas suffers." Dario glared at Khalila, a thing Jess had never seen him do, and Khalila held the stare firmly. She might be a quiet girl, but shy? No. She didn't back away from a fight. "It's three cities--we've narrowed it to that. We just need confirmation. If it's someone we can trust--"

  Sickly, Jess thought of his brother and Neksa. He could ask Brendan to use Neksa to verify the information. If she really did work for the Archivist, she might not have to do anything but look in a book and say yes or no. Easy. But that would make him complicit in ruining the girl, and that . . . that was a bridge he couldn't cross.

  He didn't have to, because Dario said, "I didn't wait to get your approval. I told Scholar Prakesh everything we know about Thomas. I asked for her help."

  There was a breathless silence, and Khalila's eyes widened. She tried to speak, failed, and finally managed to say, "You what?"

  "Without asking us?" Glain jumped in.

  "I'm tired of waiting for someone to drop an answer into our laps," Dario said. His cheeks had an angry red tinge now, and he met Jess's eyes. "Well? Aren't you going to join the outrage?"

  "No," Jess said. "You know Scholar Prakesh; I don't. I know she's highly placed and very well respected. She'll be hard for the Archivist to dismiss and harder to make disappear. It might well be the best choice we have."

  Glain kicked him under the table for breaking ranks, but the fact was, Dario was right. Except for that one guilty thought about Neksa, which Jess knew he had to hold as a last resort, he'd pulled every lever available to him.

  "I don't like this," Khalila said. "What if she's discovered? She's a Scholar, not a spy!"

  "She's been close friends with the Archivist since he was a postulant, and she was once the Artifex's lover," Dario said, and refilled his coffee cup from the small pot on the table. At Jess's gesture, he filled his cup, too. "She knows the Library in and out. Even better, she knows the people we need to investigate. Who better to find out what we need to know?"

  "She's an old woman, and you put her at risk," Khalila insisted. "What if something happens to her? Our duty is to--"

  "Our duty is to our friend," Jess said. "If you don't believe that, Khalila--"

  "I never said that! Of course I want to save him!"

  "Doesn't sound like it. Are you having doubts?" Glain gave her a stony look and sat back in her chair. "Thinking of your own future inside the Library, are you?"

  Khalila stood up, color high in her own cheeks now, and yanked her silken Scholar's robe on over her long dress. "I'm thinking that you have put an innocent old woman at risk. I'll be late for prayers. And I'd better say a prayer for all of us." She walked away quickly in the direction of the neighborhood's mosque, and though Dario leaned back in his chair and watched her, he didn't rise to escort her.

  Jess started to get up, and Dario said, "Let her go." His face was set and unreadable. "She'll feel better after she prays."

  "Well, wouldn't we all?" Glain said. "So there's no point in protesting--you've already done this without us. Right?"

  "Right," Dario said. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He was still watching Khalila as she moved down the street, and Jess could sense the desire in him to follow. "Scholar Prakesh is careful and she's good. She's willing to help. There's no reason not to accept that. We've done our best and gotten as far as we can on our own, haven't we? Sooner or later, we have to admit we need assistance. You idiots weren't going to do it. Someone had to."

  He isn't wrong, Jess thought, but he still had a terrible, sick feeling. This was moving beyond their control, quickly. Too many people, too many emotions. But if it gets Thomas back . . .

  "Next time you want to run off on your own, count to ten and come talk to me," Glain said. "You're a hothead, Dario. At least let someone else give you a chance to convince you it's not a good idea."

  "I did," he said, still staring after Khalila. "She didn't." When Jess checked over his shoulder, he saw that the girl had disappeared around the corner.

  Glain drank her coffee without another word, threw money on the table, and nodded to Jess. He stood up with her. "We'd best get back," he told Dario. "You'll be all right?"

  Dario gave them a bright, entirely shallow smile. "Aren't I always?"

  When Jess looked back at the end of the street, he saw Dario still sitting at the table, toying with his coffee cup, staring off toward the corner where Khalila had disappeared.

  Just one day later, Jess read the terrible news in the Alexandrian Times. He always kept a copy of the thin sheet in his quarters and checked it twice a day for the updated news as the articles changed and were written in fresh. It was the evening edition that carried the bold headline PROMINENT SCHOLAR DEAD IN CARRIAGE ACCIDENT. The hand-drawn illustration showed an old woman in Scholar's robes stepping off the curb in front of a steam carriage, utterly unaware of the death hurtling toward her.

  Scholar Prakesh was dead. He read the news over twice, letting the details sink in slowly; she had been walking to the Lighthouse late in the evening and evidently had not seen the carriage approaching before she stepped out into its path. She couldn't have heard it coming, Jess realized, since she was deaf. But she's walked this city all her life, he thought. She'd know by instinct to constantly check around her. He felt a horrible, sinking sense of guilt and anger. This hadn't been a random street accident; Scholar Prakesh had been out asking questions, trying to help them.

  He carried the paper with him on the way to Glain's room, but she wasn't there. Not in the common rooms or the gymnasium or the Serapeum or the target range. He sent her a Codex message and got no reply.

  So he set out for the Lighthouse.

  Scholar Prakesh's office lights were on, and Jess pressed the button that would have alerted someone inside, but there was no answer. He knocked. Still nothing. When he tried the door handle, it opened, and he stepped inside. Prakesh's office was just as he remembered: a warm combination of clutter and organization. Her handwritten notes were still on the chalkboards that lined the room.

  He walked to the left, to Dario's office.

  Dario sat behind the desk. He had a glass in front of him full of a dark red liquid, and a bottle beside it. He looked up when Jess appeared in the doorway, lifted the glass, and downed half of it in a gulp. "Sit down," he said. "Join me." He put out another glass from a desk drawer and unsteadily poured it full. Jess took it and sniffed. Not wine. It had an interesting herbal, fruity smell. "It's Pacharan, from Spain. Gift from my father."

  "What is it?"

  "Alcoholic," Dario said. "Come on. We're drinking to my vast stupidity. Where's Glain? Surely she wouldn't miss the chance to rub it in."

  Jess said nothing. He sipped the liquid. Strong, all right, with a deceptively fruity taste. Dario had been crying; that was clear from the red, swollen state of his eyes. He'd also had a fit of temper. Papers littered the floor, no doubt brushed off the desk to make room for the drink.

  "I was wrong," Dario said. "Say it."

  "You took a chance," Jess replied. "We've all taken them. I'm sorry it came out this way. She was--"

/>   "She was brilliant. Brilliant." Dario's voice broke, and tears beaded in his eyes. He tried to blink them away, but they broke free and he had to angrily wipe them away. "She liked me. She trusted me. I got her killed."

  "It might have been an accident," Jess said, but it sounded hollow even to his own ears.

  Dario tossed off the rest of his drink and refilled the glass. "Shut up and drink."

  It took some time, but Jess finished what he'd been served, and before he was halfway through he was feeling the effects. Dario had two glasses to his one, and no doubt more before that. He tried to pour another out for Jess, but Jess quickly pulled the glass back. "That's enough," he said, and reached over to stopper the bottle. "You've had enough, believe me."

  "It wasn't an accident," Dario blurted, and drained the last of his drink. "She never walked in front of a carriage in her life. It was murder, and it was because of what I did. Her blood is on my hands--don't try to tell me anything else."

  Jess didn't. He let silence set for a moment, then said, "We all knew this would cost lives. Ours, our friends', maybe our families'. Going against the Archivist is a blood sport."

  "He killed a Scholar," Dario said. It was almost a whisper, and his voice shook and nearly broke again. "Me cago en todos los santos, he killed one of the best of us, and for what? To hide his dirty secrets? No. Khalila's right. This has to stop."

  "I never said to give up." Khalila's voice came from behind Jess in the open doorway. "I never will. Dario, I'm so sorry." The gentle sadness in her voice made Jess take in a breath, and as he turned his head, she moved past him, around the desk to open her arms. Dario lunged up and into them, and put his head on her shoulder to cry in quiet, wrenching sobs. It lasted only a moment, and he murmured a quiet apology as he pulled back.

  She kissed him. It was a sweet, gentle kiss, and Jess found himself looking away to give them some privacy. She stepped away first and took in a slow breath as Dario sank down again in the chair. "What have you been drinking? I think I might be intoxicated on the fumes."