Jess reached over and took the knife. He was nearly as surprised by it as Wolfe, but something had to be done to keep this from turning worse. He offered it to Indira, hilt first, but kept his fingers firmly gripping the flat of the blade when she started to pull it free. “Doctor,” he insisted.
She sighed impatiently and said, “I’ll take you.”
She set off, and Jess, after a look exchanged with Wolfe, ran to catch up. He heard someone behind him and looked back to see that Morgan was following, too. She caught up and jogged along with him. Heat from the fires blew her hair in disorderly curls around her face. “I used the lockpicks,” she blurted out. “When the Greek fire hit, all I could think was to get everyone out. But the pick broke on the outer door and I couldn’t open it.” Her voice trembled, and he felt her body shudder along with it. “I thought we’d die in there, Jess. Is Captain Santi—”
“He’ll be all right,” Jess said, which was a lie, but it seemed to help. “Wait. You broke my picks?”
“Don’t. Don’t try to make me laugh, Jess, I was terrified and you were gone.”
“I know.” He’d never wanted to kiss her so badly as he did in that moment, to put his hands on her face and look into those lovely eyes and make her feel safe again. But there was no time. “You saved their lives.”
“Where are you going?”
“Indira’s leading us to find a doctor for Santi. His arm looks—” Jess shook his head. “I don’t know what kind of barbaric medicine they practice here. I hope it’s enough.”
“It has to be.” She pulled in a breath, and when he shot a glance at her, he saw that the reality of the attack, the devastation around them, was starting to hit home. “My God. Santi warned us when he heard the sirens that we needed to get out. I did my best, Jess, I did, but—”
“You did as well as anyone could.”
She just shook her head at that. “At least I might be able to help the doctor. Obscurists can sometimes add power to medicines, speed healing, prevent infection . . .”
He hated the thought of betraying her power to more people, making her more valuable to Beck and his Burners . . . but there was nothing else to do if they wanted to save Santi now.
They ran with Indira through the smoking wreckage of the Burner town, and he had no idea how to keep any of them safe anymore.
EPHEMERA
Text of a letter from Aurelian, emperor of the Roman World, to Zenobia, queen of the East. Indexed in the Codex.
I command you to surrender upon the terms I propose, which are these—your life shall be spared, so that you spend that life with your friends, where I shall, with the advice of the august Senate of Rome, think fit to place you. Your jewels, silver, gold, and precious things, you must give up to the Roman treasury.
Text of a letter in response from Zenobia, queen of the East, to Aurelian Augustus. Indexed in the Codex.
It is not by the pen but by the sword that the business of war is to be transacted. You forget that my ancestor, the royal Cleopatra, chose death rather than splendid slavery.
Text of a notation from the Archivist Magister Zoran. Indexed in the Codex.
By all means, let these two giants clash. Zenobia, we have heard, has a rare library of hoarded manuscripts, and Rome still hides their rarest and choicest works. Once both empires are on their knees, we will broker peace, at a price.
I intend for the Great Library to become more than mere knowledge.
I intend for it to use both pen and sword.
CHAPTER THREE
Indira spotted the doctor from a distance away. “There,” she said. “The one in the long coat and hat.” She immediately turned and grabbed a passing man—one of hers, Jess assumed, though maybe Indira had the authority to press anyone into service she liked. “Take them to the doctor. Watch them. If they try to escape, shoot them down.”
“Ma’am,” the man said, and gave a rough salute. He was young, only twenty at most, but the look in his eyes was ages older. Indira strode off, shouting at a group pulling apart boards on a burning building nearby. Saving what they could. Their new escort studied Jess, then Morgan, and said, “You’re the booklovers.”
“Guilty,” Morgan said. “Where’s the doctor?”
“There.” The young man pointed, and once he had, it was hard to miss the man. The doctor was a tall American native, with long hair tied in a square braid that trained down his back, and a wide-brimmed hat trimmed with a broad red ribbon. The coat was a faded, tattered patchwork of leather and cloth that somehow retained a hint of a Medica’s robe about it. Beanpole thin, as most Philadelphians were, but he moved with smooth assurance as he parted a knot of people and knelt beside someone lying on the ground.
“Come on,” Jess said, and he and Morgan ran forward. The circle of watchers had closed up, shoulder to shoulder, but he was well used to slipping in where he wasn’t wanted. He hoped their guard wouldn’t take Indira literally and start shooting, but if he did, at least they’d have cover.
Once he’d wormed through to clear space, Jess found himself standing at the feet of a fallen young woman who gasped for breath through lips as blue as the clear, enameled sky overhead. The doctor bent next to her, fingers on her wrist, then on her neck. He pressed his ear to her chest, then snapped his fingers without looking up. He pointed . . . directly at Jess. “In the bag there is a covered pot with a red cord. Get it.”
The bag in question lay right at Jess’s feet, and he bent down and sorted through the contents. Mismatched jars and pots, most chipped and carefully mended. There’s another thing they have to reuse, Jess thought. Things so common we throw them out in other parts of the world. Every scrap is precious here.
The pot with the red cord—though red was a generous description; it was more gray with a hint of orange at the frayed edges—lay near the bottom. Jess took it and held it out for the doctor, who glanced up impatiently. “Well? Open it!”
When Jess did, the smell hit the back of his throat and clung there like an oily parasite, and he coughed and gagged and quickly shoved the pot in the doctor’s direction. The man took it, sniffed without appearing to flinch at all, and then dabbed two fingers into the liquid mess before smearing it under the nose of the woman lying before him. She took in a gasp, then another and another. Each seemed deeper than the one before, and the bluish tint to her skin began to shift to something less dire. “Good,” the doctor said, and thrust the pot back at Jess. “Put the cap on tight; no leaks or you’ll be paying for it.”
Jess nodded and recapped the vile mixture while holding his breath, but somehow, the stench still crawled deep into his nose and mouth before he could secure the top in place with the cord again. By the time he was done, the girl on the ground was sitting up, clinging to the doctor’s hand but breathing well.