Ink and Bone

He was. His fingers were dark with grease, and he blushed a hot red and left the room. When he came back, his skin was scrupulously clean, and he retrieved a light breakfast before crowding into a seat beside Jess and Khalila. ‘Guten Morgen,’ he said. ‘Will we survive the day?’

‘Depends,’ Jess said. ‘We don’t know what Wolfe’s got for us. What were you working on down there?’ Thomas had established his own space downstairs, in a corner of an old storage room, where he rebuilt things that he rescued from dumps and market stalls. How he found the time was a mystery, given the work Wolfe piled on them, but Thomas insisted it was soothing.

‘Something amazing,’ Thomas said, and the delight in his face had a sly cast to it. ‘I think you will especially like it, Jess. You see, I’ve been thinking about how the Codex functions.’

‘The Codex functions through the Obscurists, and Wolfe made it very clear that the details of just exactly how it functions remain the secrets of Obscurists,’ Khalila said. ‘Thomas, I thought you would know all this by now.’

‘I do! But only imagine if we could make all that u

‘Make what u

‘The Codex. Obscurists. All of it.’

‘U

Thomas’s version of quiet was a hoarse whisper, and Jess didn’t know that it helped much. ‘It’s inefficient, yes? Obscurists are rare. It is an unstable resource, you said that yourself in class. Safer to find another method. What if we could eliminate the need for the Codex?’

‘You’re barking mad,’ Jess said. ‘The Codex is necessary. Always will be.’

‘What if I could show you something else? Something better?’

‘You’d be the bloody Archivist Magister in a day. If it worked.’

‘It will,’ Thomas said, with complete confidence.

‘Then show us.’

‘Not yet. It isn’t finished. But when it is, I will be able to make the Codex obsolete.’

Khalila was still frowning. ‘Thomas, I don’t know about this. It sounds like heresy to me. Be careful, will you? Please?’

‘I am not a Burner!’

‘I said it sounded like—’

Jess’s Codex flashed and hummed. He pulled it free, and all the others buzzed as well.

From Wolfe.

It had an address listed, and nothing more. No instructions other than that, but it was clear what Wolfe wanted from them. Jess drained his coffee, and around him everyone else was doing the same.

‘Come on,’ Glain said. She was the first to the door. ‘It’s a long walk. We’d better hurry.’

The heat beat down from a shimmering molten sun, with no hint of clouds; the ocean breeze didn’t help much, since it came weighted with moisture. Jess was getting used to the climate, but in the half-hour it took to follow Glain’s long, fast strides to the address Wolfe had messaged them, he began to really miss the bone-chilling days of a London winter. The light cotton shirt he wore stuck to his skin in uncomfortable patches, and the crown of his head felt as if someone held a hot metal plate to it. When Thomas took a swig of water, his face brick-red from the exertion and heat, Jess remembered to do the same.

‘Up there,’ Glain said, and indicated a nondescript shop on the street. She paused, and when Dario would have pushed past her, she grabbed his shoulder to pull him to a stop. Unlike the rest of them, she didn’t seem tired, or even overly warm. Jess wasn’t even sure she was sweating. ‘Wait. This seems wrong.’

‘What do you mean, wrong? Wolfe sent for us. He gave us this address. What are you afraid of?’ Dario pushed her hand away and kept walking.

They all followed him. Jess watched Glain, because she positioned herself near the back of the group, and he thought, she’s using us for cover.

She really did sense something. He had no idea what, but it woke a stinging prickle of alarm on the back of his neck.

Dario had almost reached the front of the shop when Guillaume Danton said, ‘Wait!’ Dario came to a halt and looked back, frowning.

Guillaume drew in a sudden, sharp breath, and said, ‘Step back, Dario. Carefully. Now.’

‘Don’t be stupid, there’s nothing …’ Dario looked down, and his voice faded away to nothing.

His leg was just touching a thin, almost invisible, silver wire that stretched across the doorway. Guillaume moved forward and crouched down, face close to the wire. He straightened up. ‘I can’t see where it attaches. It may be an alarm, or something worse. Burners sometimes rig up Greek Fire to fall using this method.’ When they all looked at him, he shrugged. ‘I never said my family didn’t know things.’

Dario took a very careful step back from the wire.

‘We should go back,’ Khalila said.

‘Wolfe gave us the address,’ Thomas said. ‘I think he means for us to go inside.’

Izumi sighed. ‘Why does he insist we do these things? Why can we not just learn – learn how to run a Serapeum for a change? I came to be a Scholar!’

‘Haven’t you paid attention?’ Glain snapped back. ‘That isn’t why we were chosen. If they’d wanted us to be librarians, we wouldn’t be here; we’d be taking training in our home cities and signing one-year contracts for a copper band. If you want to be a Scholar, you have to be better. You have to be able to handle yourself, out in the world.’

Glain was right. Absolutely right. Jess knew Thomas was right, too; retreat from this would mean a black mark. Wolfe wanted them inside.

‘We have to go,’ Jess said. ‘You know we do.’

‘By all means, go,’ Danton said, and backed away. ‘I’ll be waiting out here. Better failure than funeral.’

‘Coward,’ Portero said. Danton raised his eyebrows and folded his arms with no evidence of caring. ‘Fine, stay here. I’ll take the lead.’

‘Wait,’ Jess said. ‘Not through the front. There’s another way.’

That got all their attention, and Dario said, ‘How do you know?’

‘Because there’s always another way.’ He hadn’t lived his entire childhood ru

Jess spotted the alleyway only when he was almost past it; it was hardly wider than his shoulders, and the walls converged into an optical illusion that was hard to distinguish unless you were looking for it. He kept his eyes open as he moved that way, but there were no tripwires below, no traps dangling above. The alley led around to the back of the shop, and he backed up and gestured for the others. They followed him to the small courtyard in the back.

The shop’s door was shut. ‘Now what?’ Khalila asked. She was, for once, out of her depth. This wasn’t a problem that would be solved by anything in her experience.

Glain turned to Jess. ‘Locked. Can you open it?’

‘Yes. Probably.’

She searched around and helped him locate pieces of wire, which he stripped and bent to the necessary angles. It was a simple lock. His da would have been disappointed in how long it took him to crack it, but the others seemed suitably impressed. When he started to open it, Glain caught hold of the latch and shook her head. ‘Step back,’ she said. ‘Everybody. Back and to the sides.’

She was right. Glain kicked the door open with a sudden, violent movement and darted off to the right, and a glass bottle that had been balanced inside crashed down on the stone floor inside. The chemical reek of it hit Jess an instant before he saw a single, vividly green flame flare up. Greek Fire, but the bottle had been almost empty. It wouldn’t have killed anyone, but it would have left a scar.

Glain swept the glass fragments aside with her boot and stepped inside … and froze.

‘What is it?’ Jess asked.

She let out a fast, huffing breath, and stalked into the room to glare at Scholar Wolfe, who was sitting in a chair, calmly enjoying a hot cup of tea. ‘Slow, but acceptable,’ he said. ‘Glain, well done.’