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‘Just happened. Of all of you who went through this Obscurist machine, only my son died. That doesn’t just happen.’
Jess didn’t answer. The hold on his hair was going from painful to brutal. ‘Tell me what happened. Every detail.’
‘Guillaume went after Captain Santi, first one of the students. He volunteered to go first. We’d seen how bad it was, and none of the rest of us wanted to do it. I didn’t want to. Your son was better. He didn’t hesitate.’
‘Did he suffer?’ Jess didn’t answer, and Danton shook his head like a rag doll. ‘Answer me! Did my son suffer?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But it was over fast.’
‘Did he scream?’
‘No,’ Jess said. He vividly remembered Guillaume’s shrieks, those horrible bone-deep cries, but he wasn’t going to say it. Not to his father. ‘He was brave.’ The hold on his hair suddenly released, and Danton sat back on his haunches. His eyes were wide and glittering. ‘I liked him, your son. I thought he was clever, and quiet, and smart.’
‘Did you see his body?’
‘He looked peaceful.’
‘How do you know what happened to him? You said he went first. Someone could have killed him the moment he arrived.’
‘They were working to save him.’ Jess’s throat seemed worse now, more hoarse, more painful, and he realised that it was the weight of sadness. He hadn’t really had time to think about Guillaume’s death. About how useless it had been. Strange time to really feel that, when so much else had happened. It seemed like so long ago. ‘Nobody killed him. He just died. And I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry,’ Danton echoed. ‘He was murdered. Guillaume would have exposed their secrets if he’d lived, and they couldn’t let him. Better to kill him quietly, in an accident. You all believe the Library’s lies so easily. How they are good and kind and lead us all by the hand into the future.’ He shook his head and stared into the fire. ‘They turned four million people out of Paris to starve – those they didn’t kill outright.’
‘You’ve killed.’
‘You think I’ve got blood on my hands? The Library’s halls run thick with it. Read your history.’
‘Read yours,’ Jess said. ‘Libraries burnt. Scholars slaughtered.’
‘Ah, you know so much. I know things too, boy. I know about the Black Archives. About the interdicts. Perhaps you should ask more questions before you choose your side, then.’
‘I have,’ Jess said. ‘It’s not yours. Never going to be. This didn’t go the way you pla
‘Greek Fire is a powerful thing. Sometimes, it has a mind of its own. We didn’t intend to burn the train so quickly. We intended you to have time to leave.’
‘So you could shoot us.’
‘Wolfe and his men. Not students. I wouldn’t have your blood on my hands.’
Jess was angry now, and sick of all of it. All the blood and death and self-justification. ‘You blew it up! You could have killed us all!’
Danton watched him with an odd expression on his face for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘We didn’t set the bomb,’ he said. ‘Someone told us where you would be,’ Danton said. ‘A message that came from inside the Library. Our own men died when the train exploded. That was meant for you. Scholar Wolfe, and his promising young students, all gone.’ He made a little opening flower motion with one hand, and Jess remembered the train peeling open, the white light of it. It hadn’t been Greek Fire. He knew what that looked like. ‘A bit surprising, given Wolfe’s family co
He had a bad feeling that Danton had just told him the truth.
‘Monsieur,’ said one of them at Jess’s back. ‘They’re looking. We should go. Quickly.’
‘Yes,’ Danton agreed, and stood up.
Jess started to relax, and then he felt the cold pressure of a gun at the back of his head. He flinched, then held himself still, staring straight ahead.
‘Non,’ Danton said. ‘Too loud.’
‘Ah,’ said the man behind him. ‘I have a knife. Quick and quiet.’
Danton looked at Jess intently. ‘Are you going to beg?’
‘Your son wouldn’t,’ Jess said. ‘I won’t either.’
He couldn’t tell whether or not they’d just kill him anyway, not at all, until Danton gave a sharp jerk of his head to the man standing behind him, and the three simply … melted away. Gone into the woods they probably knew better than anyone.
He could hear the shouts of the searchers now. His name, ringing through the trees.
Time to get up, Jess thought, and managed to stand, somehow. Someone must have actually missed me.
He had to go back, anyway. He had to ask Wolfe why the Library had blown up their train.
EPHEMERA
Text of a handwritten note from the head of the Burner faction in London to Danton in Toulouse:
Received your news on the action outside of Toulouse. Destruction of the train serves as a symbolic victory, if nothing else.
It’s too bad Wolfe slipped away. Now that we know of the man’s family co
Condolences on the death of your son. He would have been a great asset in the struggle.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jess walked a while before he fell in the ditch on a bed of surprisingly soft fallen leaves. He stayed where he was for a while, until the rain started to fall. It was a soft, gentle mist, but he knew it would freeze him icy as the night’s chill took hold, so he grimly wrestled himself up to his knees, and walked until he ran into the line of High Garda searching for him. Once they spotted him, they reached him at a run. Somehow, he’d been expecting something else to happen to snatch it all away.
The High Garda men handed him off to Medica staff. He was flat on his back in a camp bed with his shirt off and a surgeon poking his stomach when Wolfe threw back the flap on the tent.
‘Sterile area,’ the surgeon barked, and Wolfe stopped a few feet away. ‘Talk from there.’
He cast her a look, but didn’t argue. ‘What happened?’
‘Burners,’ Jess said. ‘Took me off for a talk. One of them was Guillaume Danton’s father. He wanted to know why his son was dead.’
Wolfe’s expression hardly even flickered. ‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him what I saw.’
‘And what did he tell you?’
‘Someone told him where to find us.’
‘Enough talking,’ his doctor said. ‘Scholar, the wound in his side was aggravated by the force of the explosion. His stitches tore.’
‘Will he live?’
‘Oh, yes. A few days’ rest should put him in good order.’
‘I’m fine. Tell—’ Morgan, he almost said. ‘Tell the others that I’m all right.’ He didn’t want to mention Morgan. Maybe she’d already slipped off in the darkness, found a way to her freedom. He told himself, again, that he wanted that for her.
‘Your fellow postulants have been informed. It was all we could do to keep Schreiber from tearing around the woods after you when you disappeared.’
‘Wolfe,’ the surgeon said. ‘Go lie down. I haven’t cleared you to get up, and you know it. You’ve seen the boy. He’s breathing and his lungs are almost clear. Now leave.’
Wolfe gave her another piercing look that had absolutely no effect, and left. He tried – and almost succeeded, Jess thought – in making it look that it was his own idea. ‘He’s hurt?’ Jess asked, once he was gone.
‘Of course he’s hurt,’ his doctor said. ‘He and Santi both have concussion and internal bruising. Can’t keep them down, the fools. The others are all fine. Minor cuts and bruises. Miraculous, considering the shrapnel tossed about.’
‘There was a girl. Morgan. She’s all right?’
‘Mmm. Breathed in a lot of fumes from the fire, but she’s recovering. No worse off than you.’
‘What about the Burners?’
‘What about them?’
‘Did any of them survive?’
‘Not the ones we found. They’re in pieces.’