Ink and Bone

Yeva came forward and unlocked the irons. Beneath them, Morgan’s wrists were red and abraded. She slowly lowered her hands to her sides and with a visible effort blinked away the tears gathered in her eyes and took a slow, calm breath.

‘Good,’ the Obscurist said. ‘The worst is over now. You’ll be well cared for. Your work will be for the betterment of the Library, and all of mankind. It’s a great honour.’

‘I’m a slave,’ Morgan said.

In answer, the Obscurist touched a fingertip to her own collar. It had the feel of a ritual motion, somehow. ‘We are all slaves to our duty. Is that not so, Scholar Wolfe?’ The Obscurist suddenly turned to face him, and Jess, and her dark eyes seemed as dead as a corpse’s. ‘You, of all people, should know how deep our duty goes.’

‘To the bone,’ Wolfe said softly. He didn’t move for a moment, but the tension hissed between the two of them. Something dark there, Jess thought. Dangerous. ‘With your permission, my students would like to say farewell.’

Jess realised then that there were others assembled around the two of them now. Dario. Khalila. Thomas. Glain. He’d never seen them look so still, or so unexpectedly grim. They’d changed. So had he, he realised. Wolfe seemed to have changed, but Jess was starting to realise that he’d just seen him wrong all along.

‘Perhaps we owe them that.’ She crossed her arms and stepped back. The gigantic open ground where the troops had now formed into precisely uniform lines by their carriages had gone quiet now … so quiet that Jess could hear the hum from the glows that surrounded the stone field.

Glain was the first to step forward, and she offered Morgan an outstretched hand. Morgan took it, and they shook. ‘Pob lwc, Morgan Hault. It was good to know you.’

‘And you,’ Morgan said. ‘Thank you, Glain.’

Khalila simply hugged her, clung silently for a moment, and then stepped away with her head lowered. Dario kissed Morgan’s hand with all his usual charm.

Thomas stepped forward and, after an awkward, uncomfortable pause, reached into his pocket and drew out a small mechanical bird. The Obscurist’s guards tensed, but she raised a hand to calm them as Thomas wound the clockwork and placed it on Morgan’s palm. The tiny thing hopped, whirred, chirped, and sang, and Morgan cradled it with tears glittering in her eyes until the spring uncoiled, and it went silent.

Thomas dropped his voice to a near whisper. ‘I made it without a cage.’

She pulled him close and kissed his cheek.

And then it was just Jess.

He came within two steps of her, then closed the distance to one.

He put his arms around her. She felt stiff against him for a moment, then relaxed, and to his relief, he felt her embrace him in return – gently at first, and then as if she never wanted to let him go.

Her lips were very close to his ear, and he felt a shiver when her breath brushed over his skin. Then she said, ‘I’ll never forgive you.’

His throat dried up, and he swallowed. Tasted dust. So all he managed to say, in the end, was ‘Please find a way.’ He meant that in all its possible interpretations. Find a way to forgive. Find a way to live. Find a way to be free.

Find a way back to me.

The collar around her neck gave off warmth like a living thing. He avoided touching it as he moved his hands up, brushed her silky hair back from her face, and tilted her head back.

Their lips met. Just the once. It was sweet and brief and gentle, and then someone had taken his arm and was pulling him back. He knew by the black shadow’s shape at the corner of his eye that it was Wolfe.

‘Stop,’ Wolfe said in his ear, and shook him, hard. ‘You make it worse.’

Wolfe was right, because he’d shaken Morgan’s hard-won composure, and tears broke free to run down her cheeks before she quickly blotted them away with the sleeve of her tunic.

The Obscurist studied him, Morgan, Wolfe, and the rest for a few seconds, and then said, ‘Artifex. I expect you’ll attend to … this.’ She nodded to her guards. ‘We’re finished here. Help our new Obscurist to the carriage.’

The sound of High Garda captains dismissing their soldiers echoed over the stones, a rising chorus of commands. The Obscurist entered the carriage. Then Morgan, followed by the guards.

The carriage steamed away with her in near silence, and Jess let out a breath he didn’t know he’d held as it receded in the distance. The Iron Tower was just a dark shadow out there, but the Alexandrian Serapeum stood out brilliantly, washed by colourful lights on all sides.

He blinked when Khalila took his arm, and realised that the High Garda troops were dispersing around them for the comfort of barracks, or homes. Santi had joined Wolfe.

And the Artifex stood watching them all. ‘Quite a spectacle,’ he said. ‘Touching. I’m moved by your collective loyalty to a girl you hardly even know.’

‘Fu

The Artifex knew it, and he smiled widely and coldly at them all. ‘Wolfe. You lost the Archivist’s train. He’s very … peeved.’

‘He has another,’ Wolfe said. ‘And he got what he wanted, didn’t he? I mean the books, of course. All those rare, valuable volumes, saved for the Codex.’

‘Battlefield operations really are your truest calling. Dangerous, though. So easy to be lost on a mission like that.’ The smile wasn’t reflected in the Artifex’s eyes in the slightest. ‘I’ll expect your reports on the students tonight.’

The old man walked away without awaiting an answer from Wolfe, who didn’t seem inclined to give one, either.

‘Bastard,’ Santi said, conversationally, who was standing behind Wolfe now. He’d waited until the Archivist was well out of range to say it. ‘Come on, all of you. Drinks, and then back to Ptolemy House for a good night’s rest.’

‘You think we can rest?’ Thomas sighed. ‘How can we rest if we don’t know what’s coming?’

‘I’ll relieve you of that burden,’ Wolfe said. He almost sounded normal, but it was just off enough that Jess heard the discord. ‘I’ll expect you all at dawn in the Reading Room at the Serapeum. Your scrolls will be ready.’

‘That’s damn well tomorrow,’ Santi said. ‘And tonight, I’m alive and off duty, and I intend to drink myself into some very bad judgment. Chris?’

Wolfe’s gaze met his, and held. ‘I wouldn’t want you to do that alone.’

‘No,’ Santi said, and matched his slow, wicked smile. ‘I don’t expect you would.’

They found a spot inside the very large, very complicated High Garda compound, which was a short walk from the stone court where they’d parked the convoy carriers. It was an eye-opening experience.

Jess had never quite imagined so many vices being served under one roof. Drink, of course, that was expected. But a significant portion was devoted to the smoking of hookahs and other sorts of tobaccos and weeds, and the smell of it was thick and oddly enticing. Still another section held raised beds and chairs, and artists who tattooed intricate symbols on the bare arms, chests, and other body parts of men and women who seemed to enjoy the pain, or at least endure it in stoic silence.

‘We should do that,’ Dario said, and nodded towards the tattooists. ‘One for each of us.’

‘It’s forbidden,’ Khalila said. ‘Unless it’s he

‘And I wouldn’t want to see a single thing mar your perfect skin, flower,’ Dario said. ‘But maybe the rest of us—’

‘There is not enough wine in the world to make me get matching tattoos with you, Dario,’ Glain said, and followed Wolfe towards a table in the area of the bar.

It went on from there.

Thomas was the first to disappear; Jess hadn’t even noticed his departure, just looked up to find Thomas’s seat empty and others still pouring fresh glasses. That led him to finally break free of the celebration, and head home.