“No,” Santi said.
Wolfe’s voice stayed warm. Almost kind. “I know you are trying to protect me, but, Nic, I see all this every night in dreams. You can’t protect me from memories.”
Santi finally gave up. The anger and frustration radiated off him like waves of heat. He wanted to act, and Jess understood that; he’d felt the same for the past months, knowing about this tantalizing book, hearing of its list of prisoners and executions. He’d intended only to punish himself by finding out exactly how Thomas had died, but instead . . . instead he’d found hope. And hope hurt.
Jess held out the book, and Wolfe took it. They were all silent a moment while he flipped the pages. Jess found himself watching the man’s face, waiting to see him react, but he might have been perusing some dusty academic work instead of reading about his own darkest hours. When he was done, he closed the book and sat back with a sigh.
“I suppose I should begin with what Glain doesn’t know,” Wolfe said. “Three years ago, I invented and built a device—something that threatened the entire foundations of the Library, though I didn’t see it at the time. My device was destroyed, and I was charged with heresy. My work was erased. I was made to disappear, too.” He glanced at Santi, who was still staring hard at the floor. “Nic was a fool and risked himself trying to find me. He nearly died himself in the attempt. At any rate, I was finally released, under the condition that I never again publish or pursue any lines of research that the Library deems dangerous. I live on sufferance.”
Jess knew all this; he’d learned it from Santi and Wolfe when Thomas had disappeared. He’d never breathed a word of it to the others, and it jolted him that Wolfe was speaking of it now.
“But you got out!” Glain said. “That means there’s hope for Thomas.”
Wolfe was already shaking his head. “My mother is the Obscurist Magnus, and her influence and power meant that the Archivist couldn’t execute me out of hand, no matter how badly he wanted to. Even so, I didn’t just get out, though I was a man of high standing, of many accomplishments, with honors and friends. Thomas was just a student. A postulant.” Wolfe paused a moment, and Jess thought he was censoring himself about what to tell them. “If Thomas is still alive, it’s because the Archivist recognizes his worth to the Library. That means they’ll keep him until his will and spirit are thoroughly broken, and then they’ll put him to work in some secret corner. Eventually. It won’t be a life, but he will still be breathing.”
That was a horrible thought, but it was one Jess had already experienced. Thomas wouldn’t simply be held. It would be far worse than that. He didn’t want to imagine how much worse, but he could see from the lightless look in Wolfe’s eyes that the Scholar remembered. There was something not quite right in that stare, and Jess shivered. Maybe Santi had been right: maybe involving Wolfe in this was a mistake.
But we need him, Jess thought. For the first time since he’d held that book and read the account of Thomas’s arrest and questioning, he felt less alone. Less helpless. He knew Glain wouldn’t let it go; despite Santi’s reluctance, the captain wouldn’t, either.
And with Wolfe’s guidance, Thomas’s fate seemed more and more like something they could change. Together. He’d never once, since realizing Thomas still lived, thought about leaving him where he was, to whatever mercy the Library might have.
Thomas was his friend. And he would find him. It was as simple, and dangerous, as that.
Glain, in the silence, turned to Santi. “Captain. Do you really think Thomas is dead? Or are you more afraid that Jess is right and it sends us all down a dangerous path?”
That was a pointed and perfect question, and Jess had to give Glain credit: she was much more clearheaded about this than he could be. For him, it was a raw, personal wound; he’d loved Thomas like a brother, and he still felt responsible, in no small part, for what had happened to him.
Santi chose his words carefully—too carefully, maybe. “I don’t want Christopher dragged back under this threshing machine. The book could be faked. They might be waiting to draw us in. There’s every reason to believe Thomas is dead, and almost none to believe he’s alive.”
“Almost none,” Glain repeated, still in that calm, quiet voice. “Which means there is, in fact, some. Do you really think we wouldn’t want to know that? That we wouldn’t want to find out?”
“It may get us all killed,” Santi said. “Think what you’re doing.”
Jess exchanged a look with Glain. A long one. And in it, he could see they were perfectly in agreement. “We have thought about it. We need to rescue Thomas,” he said.
“No matter what it costs,” Glain said. “We don’t abandon our own.”
Santi and Wolfe exchanged a look. Wolfe inclined his head a little to the side, with a strange, crooked smile. “You see? They’re as bad as we are.”
“Worse,” Santi sighed. He rose and unlocked Wolfe’s restraints, and packed the flexible cuffs back into the holder on his belt. “They haven’t even got a proper sense of fear. But that will come.”
Hadn’t got a proper sense of fear? They’d survived the bloodbath of Wolfe’s choosing of his postulants to the Library; they’d survived Oxford. They’d just this morning survived ambush, attack, and the death of one of their own, even if he’d been a traitor to them. They definitely knew fear. Jess just didn’t intend to let it stop them. “So, where did they hold you when they were questioning you?” he asked Wolfe.
Wolfe sighed. “That, you see, is the problem. I don’t remember. Can’t. Believe me, I’ve tried. I can see pieces, but not . . . not anything significant. And I will admit, it’s not a memory I’m eager to relive in detail.”
“Even for Thomas?”
Wolfe looked away. “I’ll do what I can,” he said. “But you’d best try to find another way to get the information you need.”
“Do it carefully,” Santi said. “Unless you want it to be buried along with you.”
Jess spent the rest of the evening locked in his room with Anit’s little coded book about the automata. It wasn’t much, he realized: hastily written notes, likely a simple memory aid for someone in the Artifex division of the Library who’d worked on the design or repair of the machines. Some of it was utterly incomprehensible to him, even when he’d translated it from the code. Much of it would take an engineer of Thomas’s caliber to understand.
There was a notation of some kind of script that had to be changed when orders were altered, but it was a passing mention that noted the change could only be done with the help of an Obscurist. Interesting. Not helpful.
The one golden fact that he picked from the volume was that there was a way to turn an automaton off. In hindsight, it was obvious; anyone who had to work on these devices would need to shut them off for safety. But somehow, Jess had always thought of automata as having a sinister, independent, immortal life of their own. In the end, they were mechanical marvels . . . but still mechanical.