He was in sixth place in the class rank, and sixth place would be impossible to hang on to without standing out in some way.
‘Sit,’ Wolfe said, and nodded to a simple wooden desk and chair in the middle of the room, with a box on top of the desk. ‘Do you understand the theory of Translation?’
‘Yes sir. It is an offshoot of mirroring, but instead of just creating a copy of a thing, you actually move the thing from one place to another.’
‘Simplistic, but accurate. Part of the job of a librarian is that as you locate an original work, whether that is just a personal journal surrendered on the death of the owner, or recovered materials, it must be added to the Library’s collection. I assume you understand how this happens.’
This, then, was the test. ‘In theory. I’ve never done it.’
‘You will do it now,’ Wolfe said. ‘Open the box.’
Jess stood up and folded back the leaves. Inside, there was a stack of volumes – twenty or more. Originals. The smell of them was hauntingly familiar. He took the first one from the stack, then looked at Wolfe, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded.
Wolfe raised his dark eyebrows. ‘Don’t wait for me, postulant. You said you knew the process. Try the desk drawer.’
Jess opened the drawer, and inside found a jumble of clips. Simple things, spring-hinged, with the Library symbol embossed on a seal at the top. They looked no different than anything a clerk might use to fasten some papers. Mundane.
He took a clip and put it beside the book, but his mind went blank. I put the clip on next? Or …
‘I’m waiting, Brightwell.’
He was missing something, and it flashed into his mind in the same second. He removed his Codex from his pocket and put it on the desk, opened it, and … again, hesitated. Was it the clip first? Or Codex? Or … Stop thinking so much, Jess told himself. You know the steps, Wolfe’s quizzed you on it enough. Just do it.
He picked up the clip and slid it carefully down onto the front cover of the book, then opened the book to the interior to find the title. Once he had that, he checked the Codex. The title was already listed. He picked the book up and tapped the seal on the clip to his postulant’s bracelet, and a dim light woke inside the seal. It started to glow.
‘You may want to sit back,’ Wolfe said. Jess did. He was still holding the book, watching the glow brighten. There was a feeling inside his head, a kind of strange light static. ‘You may also want to place the book on the table, unless you want to lose a hand.’
Jess quickly put it down. The glow brightened, and brightened … and then flashed red. He felt a suction of air, a strange pop that sounded more in his head than in the room, and the desk was bare.
The book was gone.
‘Congratulations,’ Wolfe said. ‘You have successfully sent a book to Archive. Now do it again. Faster.’
He did. This time, he didn’t hesitate. It was a smooth process: clip, Codex, desk, pop, gone.
Wolfe said nothing. Jess reached back in the box and did three more in quick succession, one after another. The last title wasn’t in the Codex, so he took the time to take out his stylus and carefully enter the title and author on an empty page before sending it on.
‘Stop,’ Wolfe said, when Jess reached for yet another book in the box. He was frowning. ‘I think that’s enough.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, and stood up. He felt strangely dizzy for a moment, but braced himself and got his balance. His stomach growled.
‘What you feel now is the energy the Obscurist’s alchemical transfer takes from you. The tags work on the same principle as the Codex; they exist both here and in the Archive, and through manipulation of the essence of the object, an Obscurist’s process can physically move it from one place to another. You’re simply providing fuel.’ Wolfe continued to study him with an intensity Jess found unnerving.
‘Am I dismissed, sir?’
‘Yes,’ Wolfe said. ‘Send in Danton next. No discussion of this with anyone.’
‘Yes, Scholar.’
That, Jess thought, was one of the simplest things he’d been asked to do so far, and it cheered him that he’d found something that made Wolfe look at him with real interest. He wrote it down in his journal that evening: I think I might have finally found my place now.
And he was, of course, wrong.
The next morning, when the Codex instructions came, Jess still had no individual study. It felt deeply unfair, especially since he was one of only four who didn’t.
‘It doesn’t really help,’ Thomas told him later, when they were all back in the common room at the end of the day. ‘Individual study only makes me know how little I understand. And it seems no matter how much we know, Wolfe will always know more.’ He was trying to cheer Jess up, which was kind of him, but it wasn’t going to work. Jess was in a completely dark mood. ‘It only allows us more opportunities for failure, ja? So perhaps you are better off. We will be lucky if any of us survive to get a placement.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Dario said from where he sat near the fire. ‘I intend to wear the gold and become Historia Magnus one day. If you feel that way, Schreiber, you should save yourself humiliation and slink home to the land of … cabbages, isn’t it?’
Thomas, busy with a clock that he’d disassembled and laid out for inspection, ignored him. His big hands worked with delicate precision as he sorted and cleaned the tiny cogs. Dario was playing dice with one of his cronies, Hallem, while the other, Portero, looked on.
Jess, despite his foul mood, had agreed to a strategy game of red and white stones with Khalila. He’d learnt not to challenge her at chess, at which she excelled, but she’d not mastered the game of Go quite so readily. He was able to hold his own, which helped his mood a little. The rest of their classmates were clumped in groups around the room. Some studied, looking pinched and worried; some buried their fears in games, or dozed in the somewhat worn armchairs. He wondered what Dario was up to. He didn’t like the calculating look in his roommate’s eyes.
‘You’re not paying attention,’ Khalila chided him, and he focused back on the game board. Indeed, he hadn’t been, and she’d almost succeeded in trapping him. He made his countermoves, and almost laughed when her expression turned thunderously dark. Had she been Glain’s size and temperament, he’d have been right cautious, but on Khalila, thwarted ambition looked about as intimidating as a puppy’s snarl. ‘I shouldn’t have played fair and warned you, I suppose.’
‘Not if you plan to win,’ he said.
‘I do like winning.’ She smiled, the fit of pique gone in an instant, and Jess realised why Dario was staring his way. Dario did not like it when Khalila smiled at someone else. Jealous, Jess thought. That could be useful. Dario had few weak points, other than his tendency to believe everyone was inferior to him. Khalila could be a sore spot.
Jess was ashamed of that in the next heartbeat, and concentrated hard on the board in front of him. In six moves, he’d driven her into a corner, and Khalila declared defeat with good grace. ‘Next time we play chess,’ she said.
‘Don’t play to your strengths,’ Jess told her. ‘Strengthen your weaknesses.’