That didn’t even get a look, and that made nerves prick painfully along his back. Thomas had better be in fine shape and good spirits, or someone—Willinger Beck, by preference—was going to pay for it in blood.
The walls that towered around Philadelphia looked as patchwork as its buildings, but something must be extraordinary about them; the Library had Greek fire and other terrible weapons of war, and it would take an Obscurist’s reinforcements to build something to stand firm against the constant assault. The Burners must have had at least one once, and a gifted one at that. Thomas is right, Jess thought. They’ll take Morgan because they need her. So much she could do for them. Let them try. She was brighter than he was and had run from capture for most of her life. She hadn’t allowed the Library to keep her long. The Burners wouldn’t have any better luck.
“Move it,” his guard grumbled, and shoved him between the shoulder blades. Jess kept his balance and shot the man a humorless grin.
“I can run,” he said. “If you want to make it a footrace.”
For answer, the guard put a hand on his gun.
“Understandable that you’d say no. Truthfully, you’re in no shape to run against my old, sainted grandmother.”
“Shut up, booklover.”
It was still funny to hear that as an insult.
Jess set himself to memorizing everything within view—the position of trees, buildings, streets. He’d need to get a closer look at the walls to find any hidden doors. There had to be doors known only to the smugglers and the city’s guards. Jess didn’t think they’d remain hidden for long if a decent thief—and he was a quite good one—got a chance to take a dedicated look around.
They marched him straight to city hall, the only remaining building of any elegance. It wasn’t immune to the war; he could see places where the granite had been melted and deformed, where walls had been smashed and cobbled back together. But it held a kind of rigid, gritty nobility, especially today, with a clear, breakable blue sky arching over it. The tower, impossibly enough, was still intact. A remnant of a better time.
“So what’s behind this?” Jess asked. “Come on. It isn’t like I can’t find out for myself with a look out a window.”
“Fields,” said one of them. Interesting. The people of Philadelphia grew enough, then, that they tried not to rely solely on the good graces of the smugglers. That was understandable.
It also made them more vulnerable, but Jess doubted they realized it.
Inside city hall, Jess marched into antique grandeur. This place had originally been built as a Serapeum of the Great Library, and it still had the Library’s trademark elegance stamped on it in the tall pillars, the inlaid marble floor, and the dazzling design of the place.
What it didn’t have were books. No shelves, no Codex, no statues of Scholars. The inlaid design in the center of the hall they passed had a far less intricate design than the rest of it, and he thought it had once been the Library’s seal, broken up and redesigned by local craftsmen. The symbol that they walked over now was an open volume with flames leaping up from curling, burning pages. Sickeningly appropriate.
They climbed stairs, circling around to the third level and then down a long hall warmed with dark wood trim and old portraits of American notables. A large, well-done painting near the end depicted one of the battles that had raged for the city . . . a heroic army of Burners rebelling against the Library’s troops while eerie green flames of Greek fire consumed trees and buildings around them. Chilling and thrilling at once.
He avoided looking too closely at the companion illustration of the victory, which showed books being piled on the steps of this building and set alight. It made him want to take a knife to it. Burning books for religion or politics was all the same to him: evil.
One of the guards knocked, a muffled voice said, “Enter,” and the guards eased the heavy door open at the end of the hall. One of them pushed Jess forward, as if he needed the instruction, but they didn’t follow him inside.
“Shut the door behind you; there’s a draft,” said the man who sat behind the desk: Willinger Beck, as smug and self-satisfied as ever. Jess obliged, more because he wanted to block the guards than from any desire to please this man.
He ignored Beck, because Thomas sat off to the side in a comfortably plush old chair that almost was large enough to seem proportional to his frame. Thomas looked up and met Jess’s gaze and nodded slightly. I’m all right. Jess wasn’t sure that was true, but he knew what his friend intended to convey. And truthfully, being out of the cell probably was better than whatever threats Beck had to hand in this place.
The office didn’t look particularly intimidating. It did look self-congratulatory, compared to the ruined poverty of the rest of the town.
It was filled with gleaming wood, sleek, comfortable couches and chairs, and a desk large enough to double as a dining table for eight, except that it had papers piled atop it. There were shelves in this room, and books, too . . . every one an original, not a single Blank among them. Some had the gilt and flash of rare volumes; Jess recognized a few at a glance that he’d personally read, held, or run across London for his father. The majority, though, had the shabby, handmade look of local production.
What made Jess’s stomach turn sour, though, were the books—almost a hundred of them—stacked near Thomas. He recognized those volumes, and the packs and bags that lay discarded in the corner that had held them. They were the books he and the others had rescued from Alexandria, from the Black Archives. Forbidden books, full of dangerous ideas and inventions and knowledge.
Thomas, he realized, was currently reading one of them.
“Ah,” Beck said, and rose from his desk to come over to a chair near Thomas. “Come, sit. We have things to discuss, you and I.”
“I’m fine here,” Jess said. He wanted to stay on his feet and mobile. He’d already begun analyzing ways out of the room—the broad windows looked like the best exit. Chuck one of the handy, heavy sculptures through the glass, and oh, the possibilities. His main worry was in getting Thomas to follow him out. One thing at a time. I could kill Beck on the way.
“I said sit down,” Beck said, and all the false good humor was gone now, which was an improvement. Jess responded by leaning against the wall, between two paintings he hadn’t even glanced at, and crossing his arms. The silent standoff went on for almost half a minute before Beck pretended Jess hadn’t just forced his hand, and turned to Thomas. “You said he would be cooperative.”
“He will be,” Thomas said, unruffled, “once you tell him why he’s here.”
Beck didn’t like this, Jess realized. He didn’t like that Thomas, despite all sense and appearances, held power right now. He certainly didn’t like having to pretend to be civil. Good, Jess thought, imagining those books going up in ash toward the sky. “Well, this sounds interesting,” Jess said. “Go on.”