‘Well, it’s like kissing one’s sister,’ Dario said ‘If you have the bad taste to do it, you don’t talk about it.’
Khalila laughed and reached for the tea sitting on the table beside her. ‘I’m not afraid to talk about it. There’s a flourishing black trade near the docks, I hear. I’ve heard a few names.’
Jess deeply hoped that she was exaggerating. Khalila was mostly honest, but sometimes her stories stretched too far. ‘You’d better stay well away from those people.’ For my sake, he added silently. Those were his contacts, after all. He’d been given a list of names and addresses before his father had sent him off on the train, and he still recited them nightly before he went to sleep.
‘I am a woman of many parts,’ she said. ‘And one of them is the ability to look to the future. Should I become a Scholar like Wolfe, I will need such resources, won’t I?’
‘Rough company,’ Dario said. ‘Unsuitable for an innocent flower like you.’
‘You sound like my uncle. One can be innocent and not be ignorant, after all.’ It was, Jess thought, nearly impossible to hate her, even when she sounded so smug. ‘I’m warning you: at least try to memorise the Archivists. It’s just the kind of thing Wolfe will keep asking.’
‘We are trying,’ Jess said. His eyes burnt, and he couldn’t stop a yawn. It spread to the rest of them crowded in the common room, and he got muttered curses for it. ‘We’re just not as good at it as you, Khalila. You should probably get used to hearing that.’
‘Did I give you permission to use my first name?’ she asked, but it was a mild sort of tease, not offence.
‘Forgive me, Postulant Seif,’ Jess said, and bowed as low as he could without really putting an effort in. ‘Your unworthy servant.’
‘Finally,’ Dario muttered. He’d claimed the most comfortable chair, and had a strong little group of followers fanned out around him. ‘The scrubber knows his place at last.’
Jess looked up, and met his roommate’s eyes. Dario’s were challenging and bitter, and his smile matched. No jokes there. And no quarter.
‘Oh, I do know my place, Dario,’ he said. ‘It’s ahead of yours. What was your test score again?’
That woke hushed laughter from some of the others, and a smile from Khalila. Dario seemed to let it drop.
But of course, he didn’t.
Jess slept like the dead, when he had the chance, and that proved to be a mistake. When he woke the next morning, after a bare three hours of rest, the bells were clanging in the dark, and Dario’s bed was already empty. He’d missed his chance at the shower, again.
When he opened his chest to grab fresh clothes, it was empty.
The shock echoed up from his toes, hit the top of his skull, and shot back down again. He was no longer sleepy. You bastard. He thought about kicking in the bathroom door and dragging Dario wet and naked out to kick his arrogant arse, but that seemed too easy.
Dario had a lock on his chest, and clearly, he’d foreseen the need to fasten it, but Jess had come from a family of smugglers, with a dash of thieving thrown in. He knew how to pick locks, and this one wasn’t even much of a challenge.
Dario’s silken shirt felt good against his skin. Definitely a step up from his own wardrobe. He took the other boy’s trousers, which were a bit long, and tucked them into his own boots. Dario hadn’t bothered to steal those, at least.
Then he took his Codex and strolled down to grab a breakfast of fruit and thick, hot Egyptian coffee in the common room. He was early, but the room had filled with students by the time Dario burst in the door, hair still damp, face flushed. His bitter-black eyes fixed on Jess, and he advanced on him. Fast.
Jess sat at his ease, peeling an orange. ‘Good morning,’ he said. He didn’t try to defend himself, and didn’t stand. Dario reached down and grabbed hold of the shirt, then froze and let go, probably because he remembered that he would be manhandling his own expensive garments.
‘I should have known someone with your gutter manners would be a filthy little thief.’
Jess dropped a piece of peel into his bowl. ‘When my clothes are in my chest, I’ll give these back,’ he said. ‘Until then, I’ll assume you mean to share.’
Dario cursed at him in fluent, liquid Spanish, and reached for a sharp knife on the breakfast table. Jess got there first and slapped it down with a clatter.
‘Think,’ he said, and leant forward. ‘Which one of us knows how to use this better, little prince, you, or the one with gutter manners? And which one of us is more likely to be sent home packing after the crying’s done?’
Khalila eased up and put a gentle hand on Dario’s arm. ‘Dario,’ she said. ‘Please. We have struggle enough to survive already. Fighting among ourselves is foolish.’
Dario turned his head and glared at her. ‘Are you calling me a fool?’
‘Yes,’ she said, very calmly. ‘Now stop.’
He blinked, and there was a twitch of a frown on his high, smooth forehead, and then the smooth noble facade came down. He gave her an elaborate bow. ‘For you, desert flower, anything.’
Khalila gave him an unreadable look, picked up a bread roll, and carried it to the farthest corner of the room, where she pointedly opened her blank to read.
Jess took his hand off the knife and went back to freeing his orange from its thick prison. He wanted to goad Dario, but he knew it wouldn’t be wise; he could see Thomas silently beseeching him not to push his luck, and of course, Thomas was right.
The day’s session with Wolfe was in the classroom – a normal enough place, with narrow windows, desks, chairs, and a large, flat, blank sheet mounted on the wall for Wolfe’s use, should he need it. He didn’t. It was five hours of relentless questioning, which ranged from history to geography (Jess had failed to memorise the locations of all of the daughter libraries, but the weight of that question had crushed three other students) and on to the proper usage of a Codex to conduct advanced research.
They were all exhausted and fearing the reappearance of the lottery tiles when Khalila suddenly said, ‘Are you going to teach us about the Iron Tower, Scholar Wolfe?’
It put a stop to everything for a few seconds, and then Wolfe slowly turned towards her. His expression put chills through Jess; he couldn’t imagine how it felt to be on the direct receiving end of it. ‘Excuse me?’
‘The Iron Tower?’ She said it with slightly less confidence this time. There was a darkness in the way Wolfe was looking at her, and a calculation, as if he was trying to decide what she meant by the question.
‘If you wish to learn about the Iron Tower, so be it. Tell me what you know about it, Postulant Schreiber.’
It was an unexpected lash of a question, but it didn’t seem to bother Thomas at all. In fact, he seemed delighted to answer. ‘It was built by engineers from Artifex in the year 1789, to the specifications of the Obscurist Magnus at that time. It was made from a rare type of iron which, quite remarkably, does not rust – the Iron Pillar in Delhi is made from the same, and the process has been under study for—’
‘Fascinating, I am certain.’ Wolfe cut him off, in an utterly bored voice. ‘I was referring to those who reside inside the tower, however extraordinary the exterior might be.’