Ink and Bone

‘You’re grieving,’ Santi said. ‘We’ve all got scars. Don’t show them here.’

Dario waited a second before saying, ‘Well, if you’re done with the wine and moved on to self-pity, pass the bottle down. That’s half-decent French. Not Rioja, but still. Hate to waste it.’

Glain, of all people, stood up, retrieved the bottle and poured herself a very respectable glass. Then she topped up Dario’s, and passed the bottle down the row. Thomas took a glass. So did Morgan, and then Jess.

Santi helped Wolfe to his feet and said, ‘I expect you to watch your behaviour. Morgan, that tether’s still active. If Wolfe’s not watching, I will be. We had that double-locked by an Obscurist. Don’t even try removing it.’

She nodded and picked at the restraint wound around her wrist. She’d been rubbing on it, Jess saw; there was a faint red mark on her skin around the golden coils. He wondered if she’d tried to take it off again. Probably.

Wolfe’s soldiers – the five of them who were left – sensibly took the rest of the wine. The mess cleared out, but their table stayed while the kitchen staff cleaned and sent them increasingly irritated looks. Jess only sipped at what remained in his glass, since his Medica surgeon stopped to remind him that his liver was needed for the future.

Morgan was the first to leave. ‘It’s late,’ she said, and shook her head when the others chorused a desire for her to stay. ‘No, enjoy yourselves. It’s our last night together.’

Khalila stood with her. ‘I’ll walk with you,’ she said.

Dario bowed them off with exaggerated deference. Jess drained a glass of water, watching Morgan go. Another bottle came around again, but this one was filled with fruit juice. He silently shoved it over to Glain. She filled her cup.

‘I’m going too,’ he said, finally. ‘I’m still getting my strength back.’

‘You are missing out,’ Thomas said, all too cheerfully; his face had gone pink. ‘Dario is off to find another bottle.’

‘Not if I get it first,’ Glain said.

‘I will wrestle you for it,’ Thomas said, and placed his elbow on the table. Glain handily pi

Dario was offering her a game of dice, which was probably far better odds for him, when Jess walked back to his room.

They’d moved him from the medical quarters to something smaller, but it had a comfortable bed, and that was all he cared about. He felt tired, and strangely restless underneath it. Unsettled. Seeing Wolfe come undone, even that much, made him feel that nothing was secure in their strange, new world.

When he stretched out still fully clothed, he heard an unfamiliar crackle of paper, and reached under the thin pillow.

It hid a folded paper note.

I will come at midnight.

She hadn’t signed it, but he knew her handwriting, the bold and elegant sweeps of her pen. She hadn’t sent it by Codex. She knew those messages would be read by someone – if not Wolfe, then someone hidden back in the Iron Tower.

She hadn’t said it explicitly, but he knew she meant to come to say goodbye. That was both sweet and sour at once. He took the note and put it into his personal journal, then took up his pen and let his thoughts run about how he felt. About seeing her. Losing her. About all this coming to an end, and his friends scattering. What had he said to Morgan on the train? Reset the board. Start a new game.

He didn’t know if he could, after this.

Jess turned to his journal for comfort. He’d always filled the pages with his feelings … fear and guilt, in his earliest childhood. Then guilt, anger, and bitterness. His entries since Alexandria had been about pride and achievement, grief and horror, loss and love.

The last few had been about Morgan. Just Morgan.

Writing about it helped, but it didn’t erase the pain completely; he left the journal next to his bed and turned to his blank. He’d loaded it with Inventio Fortunata, line after line of careful script, written in a time when every rounded letter was its own work of art. Tales of adventure and discovery from a man long dead.

A blank isn’t the same. He remembered holding this book, feeling the history of the leather cover someone had ta

But when he read it in the blank, it was just words, and it had no power to carry him away.

Someone knocked on the board outside his tent door, two quiet raps, and he sat up so fast the blank fell to the floor. ‘Come in,’ he said.

It wasn’t midnight yet, and it wasn’t Morgan at his door.

At the sight of Niccolo Santi, Jess grew cautious. This wasn’t the friendly version of the captain; this was the closed, professional soldier.

‘What do you want?’

‘I know that Morgan’s pla

Jess glared. ‘I didn’t tell anyone!’

‘Then how did the bloody Artifex Magnus already know?’

Jess opened his personal journal and flipped it to the middle, where he’d left the pen as a marker. The folded note slid out. He handed it to Santi. ‘Maybe someone else saw this. It was under my pillow.’

‘It’s not enough,’ Santi said. ‘Anyone who saw it would think it was romance, not intrigue.’ His stare moved to the book in Jess’s hand. ‘Did you write it in your journal?’

‘I – yes. I mentioned it.’

‘When did you write it?’

‘An hour ago, when I found the note. It hasn’t left my side. No one read it.’

Santi grabbed the journal from him.

‘What are you doing?’ Jess lunged, but Santi was faster, and kept the journal out of his reach. ‘You can’t!’ No one was allowed to read a personal journal without permission, not until the owner’s death. Even his brother Brendan hadn’t violated that trust.

‘I’m not reading it.’ Santi took out a knife, and that checked Jess’s advance, but Santi wasn’t threatening him. He slit open the inside of the back cover of Jess’s journal and peeled back the paper. Behind the paper was a line of symbols in precise writing, and a splash of something that might have been blood.

Jess knew enough to recognise alchemical symbols when he saw them, but he didn’t understand. Not immediately.

‘Mirrored,’ Santi said. ‘They’ve been reading everything you write. When did you get this book?’

‘I asked for a temporary journal,’ Jess said numbly. ‘I got it in the Welsh camp.’ His mind raced over all the personal and private things he’d written. That was the purpose of a journal, to record a life in all its wounds and bruises, triumphs and sins. It was supposed to be for the future. ‘Who—’ His voice cracked, and he tried again. ‘Who read it?’

‘Either the Artifex, or someone close to him,’ Santi said. ‘Not much time between your entry and the order to stop her.’

Jess’s neck felt stiff and hot, and the pressure in him was turning slowly from shock to rage. Had he written anything about Frederick? About his brother? He couldn’t remember. Jess grabbed the journal back and flipped pages. He hadn’t filled many so far, and as he sca

Thank God, he’d not written a word about Brendan, or his father. But he’d put in too much about Morgan. Worse. He’d written that Wolfe had known about Morgan. That he’d helped her.