That, Jess thought, is why she’s good at this. She’d pushed them all very hard, to the point of breaking, but she knew when to give just a touch of encouragement. And, most of all, she knew when to stop. None of them, not even him, were being carried to the Medica tents, which couldn’t be said for a lot of other squads who weren’t as highly ranked as Glain’s.
Around them, this section of the High Garda training ground was almost deserted; it was reserved for trainee testing. Everyone else had called it a day long ago, since the mess bells had pealed half an hour back, and now that Jess had the chance to think about it, his stomach growled fiercely. He’d burned off the light breakfast hours ago.
He fell into step with Shi Zheng and Tariq, but stopped when Glain said, “Brightwell. A word.”
Others gave him sympathetic looks but didn’t pause; they walked around him as he halted and turned back. Glain was still pacing, and doing it in full sun; she never minded the scorching Alexandrian heat. The sun loved her just as much, and her skin had darkened to a warm, woody brown over the months of exposure. Jess, who’d been in the climate precisely the same amount of time, had managed to achieve only a light coating of translucent tan over layers of memorable burns. “Sir?”
She fixed a stare somewhere over his shoulder, toward the horizon. “Message came in earlier to me from Captain Santi. He says to tell you . . . no.” She suddenly shifted to fix her gaze right on his. “No to what, Jess?”
“Glain—”
“That’s Squad Leader Wathen to you, and no to what?”
“I asked to talk to Wolfe. Sir.”
“Why?”
It was the coward’s way out, but he gave her the second reason he wanted a meeting with their old Scholar Christopher Wolfe, who’d pushed them through a memorable period of hell as postulants. “I wanted to know if he knew anything of the Black Archives.”
She blinked, and her look shifted—still suspicious and dark, but a good deal more concerned. “You told me you thought they were a myth just this morning. You must have asked days ago.”
“I did. For the same reasons you gave. Seemed to me that if the Black Archives existed—and I never said I thought they did—then it might be a place to look into Thomas’s death.” He looked down. “I got a letter from his father, thanking me for being his friend. He asked if I knew exactly how his son died.”
Glain said nothing to that, but after a moment, she nodded. “You didn’t want me looking into the subject because you already were.”
“And they watch us, Glain,” he said. “All of us.” It was burning his tongue to tell her the truth, but he knew, knew how she’d take it. And he was too tired. He wanted to tell her in better circumstances, when the clock wasn’t ticking down. If there was an exercise, she needed her focus more than he did . . . or, at least, that was what he told himself.
“Which brings us to the point: stay away from Wolfe. You know it’s not safe, for him or you.”
“I won’t ask again.”
“Dismissed, then, Brightwell. We’ll talk later.”
He nodded and jogged away to put space between them. Curious that Captain Niccolo Santi had passed the message, and Wolfe hadn’t sent it himself. But, then, their teacher had been a barbed puzzle since the start.
Wolfe was not a kind man or a natural teacher, but he’d tried his best to save his students. That didn’t make him a friend, exactly, but Wolfe would want to know the truth about Thomas, too. Once he did . . . No wonder Captain Santi wants to keep me away from him, Jess thought. Wolfe wouldn’t let it go. No more than Jess could. Or Glain, once he told her. Good that he had a little more time to think. He needed a plan before he set that particular cat among the pigeons, didn’t he?
His back ached, and his head pounded from the heat and exertion. Dinner was as fast as breakfast, fuel he ate without really noting it, and afterward Jess fell into bed for a few short hours—far less than he needed—before dragging himself up. He still had things to do that couldn’t be done in the open.
He showered, changed into civilian clothing, shoveled down food in the common dining hall, and slipped away from the High Garda compound into the embrace of a rich, sea-cooled Alexandrian evening, beneath a blue-black sky scattered with hard stars.
This was work better done in the dark.
EPHEMERA
Excerpt from report from Obscurist Gregory Valdosta to Obscurist Magnus Keria Morning
. . . regarding our new problem child, Morgan Hault, I have seen little improvement and much to worry me. I’d have thought six months of intensive training and supervision here in the Iron Tower would have wrought some changes in her, but she remains stubborn, sly, and dreadfully smart. Only this morning I found that when I put her to work writing out standard representational formulae for changes to the Codex, she instead came up with a system to disguise entries—in effect, to hide them. I gave her a simple task of alchemical preparation of a calix of gold, and instead she seized the opportunity to try combining mercury, vitriol, common salt, and sal ammoniac to create a virulent mixture to melt the thinnest part of her collar. She was unsuccessful, of course, and is being treated for a burn, but the concern is that she came very close to discovering a compound that might work.
I’ve set her to work, supervised, on the boring task of transcribing official messages into the books, but I don’t dare put anyone with her for long. The little criminal can be quite disarming. I realize that giving her access to some of the messages might be dangerous; she still retains her allegiance, as far as I can determine, to Scholar Wolfe and all her fellow students. But, believe me, she’ll do far less damage with pen and paper than with alchemical preparations.
And for the love of Horus, keep her well away from anything to do with translation. I shudder to think how we could hold on to the girl if she was able to translate herself away from here.
She continues her resistance to the rules of the Tower, but I have determined, through the proper charts and analysis, that her ideal time for propagation will come soon. I have not warned her of this. Gods know what she would do to avoid doing her duty.
I know you are sensitive on this subject, Obscurist, so forgive me for my frankness, but I still feel you give the girls too much freedom in this matter, allowing them three refusals before they undergo the compulsory procedure.
She has, of course, already used up all three of these refusals.
Your faithful servant, Gregory
CHAPTER TWO
The Alexandrian black market had two obvious faces. The more public one, known as the shadow market, sold illegal but harmless copies of common Library volumes—punishable, at worst, with fines and short prison stays. It catered to those who wanted a book purely for the criminal thrill of it, even if the book was shoddily transcribed and incomplete, as they often were.