by Rachel Caine
Everything interested Khalila, which was one of the lovely things about her. "I'm glad you find it rewarding."
"Oh, I do. The basilica is amazing, isn't it? So much history. Rome's roots go deep."
"The feet of its moldy old gods may go deep, but I still prefer Alexandria," Dario said, without looking up. "Rome's too damp for me, and too chilly this time of year. Like living in a tunnel. Khalila, we have work to do. I'm sure Jess needs to . . . patrol. Clean his gun. Something equally important."
Khalila turned on him to give him a sharp look. "Dario. He's our friend."
"He's High Garda. Not our level, dear lady, if he ever was," Dario replied. "Let the scrubber be about his business. You're under no obligation to be nice."
Troll suddenly stepped up to Jess's side, then moved past him to lean over Dario's shoulder. "Did you have something to say about your feelings toward the High Garda, Scholar?"
Dario looked up, and his natural arrogance came out in a smirk that Jess wanted to punch. "The High Garda has its place," he said, and looked pointedly at Troll's boots. "That place is not here, blocking my light."
"Perhaps you should allow my assistants to proceed with their tasks," the Artifex said, and sat back. He picked up his coffee once more. "You're dismissed, both of you. Thank you for your service."
Troll snapped a salute that wasn't at all necessary--the Artifex wasn't generally entitled to salutes--and strode away. Jess followed, minus the honor; he wasn't about to give the man more credit than he was due, even if it was interpreted as an insult.
"Unbelievable," Troll said. "Did you hear that? 'Thank you for your service'--as if he cared. He didn't even reprimand that arrogant puppy Scholar. You came through postulant class with Santiago? Impressive. I'd have thrown the smug bastard off a bridge halfway through the first day."
"I'd have helped," Jess said. "He's smart, though. Worse, he's clever."
"The other one seemed nice enough."
"Khalila Seif is the smartest person in this room."
"A good friend to have, then. Not to mention attractive," Troll said. "You wouldn't mind if I struck up a conversation?"
"I wouldn't. Dario might."
"I was afraid of that. Too bad. Killing him would wipe out my good conduct today."
"Don't hold back on my account," Jess said, but his mind was elsewhere. That display from Santiago had been classic, but it had also been out of place; the young Spaniard hadn't given him that particularly sour reception since their first days with Wolfe. They weren't exactly the best of friends, but they weren't enemies. Or, at least, they hadn't been when last they'd spoken.
Either something had changed for Dario or Dario was trying to tell him something. Dario and Khalila, working together. Had they planned to be here? No, surely not, or Khalila would have found time to warn him. The Artifex made it sound as if they'd asked to be added to his staff, but somehow, Jess doubted that; they'd applied, certainly, but he'd heard nothing of either being accepted. They'd been given no choice, and no time to tell anyone.
Rome's roots go so deep, Khalila had said, and veiled it in a cloud of compliments. Dario had added his own clues: The feet of its moldy old gods. And tunnel.
Maybe, just maybe, they were trying to tell him they'd found something. A way into the prison.
Jess sat down at the squad's crowded table, but he hardly saw their faces or heard the chatter. His thoughts were far away, locked on possibilities. On an insane and desperate possibility.
We're all here now except for Wolfe and Morgan, he thought. Thomas's rescue was almost within their reach. If Khalila and Dario really had discovered a way in, that was all they needed--an advantage. Get Thomas, get out, disappear.
Glain was staring at him from across the table, clearly worried. She waited for a few moments, smiling and talking to others, and then moved to a seat next to him when one became vacant. She bent close and said, "I saw. Khalila and Dario."
"I think they may have information that can help with Thomas--"
"Jess. We're all here because he wants us here," Glain whispered. "The Artifex can't touch Wolfe directly because of his mother, but us? Getting rid of us will isolate Wolfe. Destroy him."
She was right. He'd been looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
This wasn't a chance for them to rescue a friend.
It was a threat to kill them all.
The rest of Santi's company arrived by ship the next morning. As early arrivals, Blue Squad got their pick of spots in the barracks built on the secured side of the basilica--which was, Jess realized, far larger than he'd ever imagined. An enormous building on a truly monumental scale, though only two stories in height. It took nearly an hour to walk from one end to the other, and that was at a brisk pace. A solid two hours, then, to travel both floors end to end.
Not even Egypt built on such a scale.
Most of the Library's side of the basilica was a warren of offices and laboratories, with long, straight halls running the length of the structure. Jess began a map while he waited for the lights to dim and his squad mates to fall asleep. He planned to slip away once it was quiet and the snoring started, but the comfort of the bunk and the stress of the long days before pulled him down fast.
He woke up hard at the touch of a hand on his arm and found himself reaching for a knife with the speed of the criminal he'd once been . . . But he stopped when the scent of the girl crouched next to his bunk hit him. A light cinnamon perfume with a hint of dark amber. He connected that to Khalila even before her whisper said, "Quietly. Come."
Jess slipped out of his bunk, pulled on a pair of uniform trousers and a loose black shirt, put his boots on without bothering to tie them, and followed the drifting sweep of her dress through the shadows to the hallway. She hardly made a sound, and for a strong moment he wondered if he was wrong; maybe this wasn't Khalila. Maybe it was a vengeful Roman ghost whispering down the hallway, leading him to some terrible death.
She looked back at him with an impatient raise of her eyebrows, and he had to grin. Not a ghost. Though a terrible death is still on the table, some dour part of him said. He tried to ignore it.
Khalila led him down the hall to a closed door, which she opened with a key. It led to a small, enclosed atrium, open to the night sky, crowded with clipped hedges and a spreading olive tree. In the center of the tiny garden, a graceful statue of a winged woman balanced on one foot with her drapes flowing in an invisible wind and a hand holding up a laurel wreath--Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. Not an automaton, thankfully.
In the shadow of Victoria sat Dario, Captain Santi, and Glain. A pitifully small crew, Jess thought, to go to war with the Library.
"I'm sorry about earlier," Khalila said, and gave Jess a quick embrace. "We had to be careful."
"Of course you did." He nodded to Dario. "I'd say it was an impressive display of arrogance you put on, but--"
Dario laughed, stood, and gave him an embrace as well--a quick one, with a heavy slap on his back that stung hard enough to remove any sentimentality from it. "But it comes naturally, of course."
"Did the Artifex force you to come, or was it your own idea to ride along?"
Dario and Khalila exchanged a quick look, and she said softly, "Something of both, I'm afraid. We did apply to be on his staff, you remember. But he rejected us as applicants."
"Until yesterday," Dario added. "When suddenly our presence was not just desired, but required."
"He means to kill us here," Glain said. "That's why he brought us all. Death, or we join Thomas in the cells under here. Why else would he do this?"
Santi, Jess noticed, hadn't spoken. His head was bowed, as if he were lost in thought. "Captain?" Jess asked. "Do you agree?"
"I think he means this as a show of strength," he said. "And as intimidation. I don't think he'd quite dare to make all of us vanish at once."
"He couldn't make you disappear. You're too prominent."
"You think too small, Jess. High Garda
soldiers die in combat. A nicely staged Burner attack, some conveniently destroyed bodies, and no one but Christopher will ever doubt the story." His hands, which had been resting on the bench on either side of him, clenched the lip of the marble and tightened, until his knuckles were almost the same pale shade. "We're hostages for Wolfe's good behavior, at best. And through him, his mother's. I don't think this is so much about us or him as it is a power struggle between those two."
Wolfe's mother, the Obscurist Magnus, was a formidable woman, but trapped by her own power. Her influence didn't extend to freeing herself or those locked away with her. At the same time, the Obscurists had a fragile hold over the Library; without them, the essential components--the Codex, the Blanks, even the automata--ceased to operate properly.
The Artifex would use Wolfe to keep her in check--and the rest of them as leverage against Wolfe.
"I suppose you were assigned the honor of escorting the Artifex at the last minute, too," Khalila said to Santi. He nodded. "I'm sorry. I know it's difficult for you."
"I've defended Scholars I loved and Scholars I hated. Just part of the job," he said. "I defend an idea, not an individual."
"None of that matters now," Dario said. "The Artifex sees us as chess pieces he can move as he wishes, and, eventually, he'll knock us off the board one by one, if not all at once. Are we just waiting to be killed?"
Santi said nothing. Did nothing. Jess stayed quiet as he watched him; he could see the man thinking, weighing, calculating odds and tactics. This was Santi's specialty, the art of war. Surprise and defense.
"No," he finally said. "We can't wait. Dario's correct. We're in a position of great weakness--away from home, easily disposed of. I think bringing us here was a demonstration of his power. He can't know we've found out anything."
"We haven't," Khalila murmured. "Not for certain."
"We have," Jess said. He took a deep breath and told them about the information he'd received from Anit. "Thomas is here. He is definitely here. Now."
"Do you trust her?" Khalila asked.
"She wouldn't have any reason to betray me," Jess said. "Our families are old trading partners. Throw me to the lions, and she has the Brightwell clan to deal with after. Her father wouldn't want that."
Santi nodded slowly. He looked up at them, and the anger in his face was chilling. "Then we can't wait. We must get Thomas and get out of here. I'll send word to Christopher to join us, and we'll have to go into hiding, immediately. Jess? Can you arrange that with your family?"
Leave the Library. He saw Khalila and Dario exchange looks. They'd had to know this was coming, but it was all happening--and Jess surely felt it, too--so fast. "Not Khalila," Dario said. "Surely no one would suspect her of anything. She could go back afterward . . ."
Khalila cut him off. "Dario. You don't decide on my behalf. I love the Library. I grew up believing I would spend my life serving it. But that ideal, the one they made us believe, it doesn't exist. I would rather spend my life fighting to change it. I can't continue to pretend to be loyal to it, not if all of you are gone!"
"Maybe that Library, the one we all believed in, maybe that could exist after all," Jess said. "It's not the idea that's bad; it's thousands of years of bad decisions and desperation. We could change that, but we can't do it from Alexandria." He swallowed hard and glanced at Santi before he took the last step. The last risk. "The reason Thomas was taken was that he invented a machine to cheaply and easily reproduce books. If we can get him, if we can build it and start distributing private books, it will change everything."
Glain, Khalila, and Dario all looked blank. "I can call up any book I like from the Codex," Dario said. "What use is something to make them, except to benefit smugglers like . . . well, like you, who can sell them to hoarders?"
"Sounds like a Burner invention," Glain added, frowning.
"It isn't. And you think the Codex is your doorway into the Library? It's a little box they hand you--a curated, careful selection. They tell you what you can read. The Library shows you a fraction of what they have--trust me, I've seen tens of thousands of books go through my family's hands that never appeared on the Codex and never will. If we believe in the existence of the Black Archives, then we must believe that the Library hides what they think is dangerous--and it's old and conservative, and it believes anything can be misused."
Khalila stared at him, but her mind was flying; he could almost see the thoughts and connections colliding. "That explains a lot," she said. "There are holes in the progress being made, the science, if you look hard enough. And I have been gently warned away from certain questions. It explains everything if that research disappears into the Black Archives."
"That's why Thomas is so dangerous. His invention inks print on paper, using precut letters. No alchemy, no Obscurists. It prints an entire page at a time. You can make your own books and no one--especially not the Library censors--can stop you from making more, spreading ideas, changing minds."
He watched them think through that, and was impressed, again, by how quick Khalila was to grasp the implications. Pallor settled over her face. "It would destroy the Library's power," she said. "If everyone could print and keep their own . . ."
"Then the Library can't choose what we learn, can't decide which science can and can't be pursued, and can't place books above human lives, because books wouldn't be irreplaceable," he said. "Books could be reproduced in the hundreds of copies. Even in the thousands. Everyone could have them. It changes everything about what they do, from that one simple idea."
She looked sick. "But, Jess . . . I don't know what the world looks like once that's done. Do you?"
"No," he admitted. "But if the Library overcomes its fears and uses that invention first, it can still be a force for good. It's been fighting the Burners for centuries, but Burners could be silenced simply by giving them what they want--the chance to freely own books without criminal penalties. Thomas's press allows for that. It sets the Obscurists free from the Iron Tower, too; they would go back to being Scholars, not slaves, because the whole basis of the Library wouldn't rest on them. The world . . . The world might be better in so many ways. If the Library agrees to change. But it won't, if the Archivist has anything to say about it."
"This is . . . Jess, this doesn't just challenge the Library. It changes the entire world. What gives us the right to make that choice?" Dario asked.
"Nothing," Jess admitted. "Except someone has to. The Library's leaders made the choice for us again and again and again. It's time someone else had a try."
Santi had watched the discussion silently, with bleak, calm eyes. Finally, he said, "I don't think less of any of you if you want to take your chances with the Artifex. He's a powerful man, and behind him stands the Archivist, who makes the Artifex look as friendly as a pet. If you decide to rescue Thomas, if you even help rescue him, you forfeit everything you've worked toward. I won't lie about that. They will do anything to keep this invention secret. They have already killed, and will kill again."
"I'm in," Glain said. "I'm a fighter at heart. I'll fight for what the Library should be."
"It's the only logical way the Library itself can survive." Khalila nodded. "I value the future. That means I must do it or live a lie. Dario?"
He looked sorely tempted to back away, but the young man sighed, shook his head, and said, "All right. But if you get me killed, I'll never let any of you rest. My ghost will be very persistent."
Jess looked at Santi. "You know where I stand. And yes. My family can hide us." He didn't know that, but he knew that he would make it happen somehow. No matter what it cost him. His father was cold, but he was not completely cruel. Promise him anything, anything at all. Promise him Thomas's press. Just get him on our side.
"This is all well and good, but we still don't know how to get to Thomas," Glain said. Khalila, in answer, dug in a satchel that she wore over her shoulder and pulled out loose sheets of paper that she passed to Glain, Jess, and Santi.
&n
bsp; "I may not be able to get you in, but I can help with the exit from the prison. You remember what we said to you before?"
"Something about the old gods having deep roots in Rome?"
She moved next to Jess and tapped a spot on the drawing. It was a carefully inked diagram of the Forum, and each of the buildings and statues within the precincts. "Here," she said, and pointed. "Below Jupiter's throne--"
"These are ancient tunnels," Santi said, and looked up. "How did you find this?"
Khalila nodded at Dario with a little smile. He raised his eyebrows. "I didn't," he said. "It wasn't me. It was Scholar Prakesh; she left the information for me before she was killed. Both the records and the tunnels are ancient and very obscure, dating from early Roman religious practices. Unused for a thousand years, at least, but one thing about the Romans--"
"They built things to last," Santi finished. "You know how to access them?"
"I found references. I think I could figure it out." Dario grinned humorlessly at Jess. "Or our resident criminal could. The tunnels are a warren below, but from all the best information I could find, they connect to a sewer that is just below the prison. Not a working sewer, mind you--I'm not that dedicated. Its position in the Forum gives us a chance to melt into a crowd."
This was, Jess thought, a fair and interesting idea, but he put little faith in millennia-old records without a firsthand scouting expedition. That might be difficult, since anyone tinkering with an ancient statue of a god in the middle of the Forum might be noticed.
They wouldn't notice at night, he thought. And not if I'm wearing a High Garda uniform. If I'm seen, I could just say that I noticed suspicious activity and went to check it.
"The prison itself has human guards, and three automata on patrol within," Santi said. "Sphinxes and a Spartan. I'm not worried about the Garda. The automata . . ."
The automata were another matter altogether, and they all knew it. Glain had seen the ones surrounding Jess on the steps. They were already alert to him, ready to pounce in an instant. One wrong move and they would all be dead.
"We won't solve that tonight. We've already been out too long," Santi said. "Go back before someone discovers you're missing. Especially you two." He nodded at Dario and Khalila.