Ink and Bone

There was no one else in the dining hall. He checked the exterior door; it was unlocked. ‘Gretel,’ Jess said. ‘How do I lock this?’

‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘Someone sabotaged the outer locks. That girl. The one who jumped.’

Morgan. But she couldn’t have known about this, could she? Not about an attack. She’d only wanted to make Wolfe think she’d died. She wouldn’t risk their deaths like this.

He didn’t believe it. Wouldn’t.

‘I’ll keep watch,’ Khalila said. ‘Go.’

‘What about the train driver?’ Dario asked. ‘Should we find him?’

‘There is no driver,’ Gretel said, and swiped at the blood dripping from a cut on her forehead. ‘We don’t need one.’

‘High Garda?’

‘No, they were not assigned this time. Only when the Archivist is travelling.’

‘I am less impressed with this train now,’ Dario said. ‘Given that we will probably all die on it.’

‘Dario,’ Khalila said. ‘Shut up.’

‘Yes, desert flower.’ His voice became serious. ‘Will you be all right here?’

‘I will be fine,’ she said. ‘You missed, remember. I didn’t.’

‘You might want to give her that one,’ Jess said. ‘Come on, Dario.’

The two of them went to the next door. The lounge was still closed. Jess leant against the wall for a second, listening to the fast hammer of his pulse battling against the booming hiss in his ears, and then looked quickly through the cracked door to see the inside of the lounge.

It was full of rough-looking men, all armed.

‘They’re coming,’ Jess said. Dario rolled one of the heavy, tilted tables up to block the door and fired through the glass at the men on the other side.

‘Other way,’ Khalila said. ‘To the back. We need to find Wolfe and Santi.’

‘What do they want?’ Dario asked. ‘They can’t be here for us. We don’t matter!’

‘It’s the Archivist’s train,’ Khalila said. ‘At a guess, they want him. They will be very upset to find he isn’t here.’

Once they were through, Jess didn’t know how to lock the carriage door to the dining car, but he did the next best thing; he destroyed the controls with a shot after closing it, and then ducked into Dario’s room and wrenched a piece of metal from the top of the wall, which he jammed tight in the gap of the door’s track. That would slow them down.

They went quickly through the silent bedroom carriages. Jess’s door was still shut. He moved on past more cabins marked with their assigned inhabitants. Santi’s remaining soldiers had been bunked two to a room, which Jess supposed came as no real surprise; they were used to sleeping rougher than mere students, especially those who’d been wounded.

He passed Wolfe’s door, still closed. And Santi’s open.

Wolfe and Santi. Still surprising.

Ahead was the compartment that still had the bloody imprints of Jess’s knuckles on it. The compartment where Wolfe had locked him out. As he came closer, it opened.

Scholar Wolfe stood there. ‘Inside,’ he said. ‘Move.’

Once the three of them were in, Wolfe touched his gold band to the symbol on the inside of the door. The lock clicked shut with a thick hiss and hum.

‘Keep going!’ Wolfe said. ‘Get to the baggage room at the rear. Thomas, find yourself a weapon when you arrive. The rest of you, extra points for preparation.’

‘Is there an exit?’ Jess asked.

Wolfe’s gaze didn’t turn from the locked door as he motioned them on towards the back of the train. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But whether or not we can use it will depend on the situation. Go, I said!’

Santi and his soldiers were gathered in the back with Glain. She was sitting up, her head wrapped in a bloodstained white bandage, and she looked sick enough to drop. Concussion, Jess assumed. Probably not a broken skull or she’d have been on the floor instead of sitting with a pistol in her hands.

‘All here?’ Santi asked, and answered his own question as he quickly sca

‘We’re still in France?’

‘Yes. We’re stopped in a park not far from Cahors. When I sent the message, they said it wouldn’t be long.’

‘Too long,’ Wolfe said. ‘We’re sealed into this compartment, but we’re still vulnerable. They can set off Greek Fire beneath this car, and we’ll roast. We stand a better chance outside.’

Santi nodded. ‘We’ve enough small and heavy arms to go around. Best to do it now before the search gets this far. My troops go first and secure the ground, the rest of you follow. Maps show that we have about a hundred-metre run to the forest for cover.’

‘It works better with a diversion,’ Glain said. She’d leant forward, and despite the blood and sweat on her face, she didn’t seem at all vague.

‘We have alchemical smoke, but we’ll have to make it count,’ Santi said. ‘Since you brought it up, that will be your job, Wathen. Glass tube at your right, on the wall. On my signal, jump out, break the tube in half and drop it. Don’t breathe it in. Can you do that? I will be covering you.’

‘Yes sir, Captain.’

Glain stood up, but as she did, a sudden strange shudder ran through the train. Not the engines, Jess thought. It felt like something had exploded, but towards the front of the train.

The train attendant, Gretel, checked her Codex, which must have held information about the train. ‘The engine is burning,’ she said. ‘And the lounge. Greek Fire, I think.’ She looked pale now, and shaky, and she grabbed for Thomas’s hand. ‘It’s spreading to the dining car.’

‘We need to go,’ Wolfe said.

After the dining car would be the first bedroom car. Jess’s room.

He didn’t think. He just stood and headed for the door.

It took a moment for Wolfe to notice, and then Jess heard him bark out, ‘Postulant! Where are you going?’

He got as far as the door and reached for the handle. It burnt him. He gritted his teeth and grabbed it again. He couldn’t hold on. The tube ru

‘Brightwell!’ Wolfe pushed him back and held him against the wall. ‘Jess. What are you doing?’

Jess could smell the acrid stench again, the same as in St Pancras when the Burner had died. The same as in the ancient Serapeum chamber in Alexandria. The dining car is burning.

‘I left her,’ he said. ‘She’s still there, waiting for a chance to run. I have to get her out.’

Wolfe’s eyes widened, and he took a step closer. His fists clenched hard in Jess’s shirt. ‘Are you telling me Morgan is alive? She didn’t jump?’

‘I have to get her. Open the door!’

Wolfe hesitated for only an instant before he turned and shouted back, ‘Nic, go! Get them out!’ He slammed his wrist on the seal of the door and said, ‘Stay behind me. And don’t breathe the smoke.’

Wolfe locked the door again from the outside, and moved quickly down the hall, checking each room as he went. The train seemed eerily peaceful now. Jess touched the sides of the car, and it felt hot, as if it had been in the sun for hours. As they neared the next compartment’s door, he could hear what sounded like hissing.

‘The fire’s spreading,’ Wolfe said. ‘Our attackers might already have withdrawn. When I open this, the smoke will spread.’ Toxic, he remembered the ghost of a London Garda saying to him, holding him down on the tracks at St Pancras. ‘Hold your breath as long as you can.’

The door slid aside, and a thick, greenish fog reached for them, wisping and whirling. The hissing was louder, now almost a roar, and when Jess tried to brace himself on the compartment wall inside, it singed his fingers. The smoke stung his eyes and blinded him with tears, and it was hard to remember how many doors there were. Which one he needed.