“Ah,” Ibrahim said softly. “Now we come to it, I believe. What you want. It is not your father who asks. He’d never let you trade away such an important, valuable volume. He’s gotten along well enough without such information, despite the best efforts of the London Garda. No, I think it is you who needs it so badly.”
Jess didn’t answer that. He felt sweat break out hotly on the back of his neck, but he hoped his face remained unreadable. After a moment, he said, “One of two copies left in the world. I’m offering it in a fair exchange. It’s a prince’s ransom.”
Ibrahim shared a look with his daughter. Anit said, “It is a good price, is it not?”
“It is,” Ibrahim agreed. “But that isn’t the point. The point is that young Brightwell here is trading against his family’s interests, for personal reasons. Tell me, does it have to do with the book you spent so much time and geneih tracking down, and bought only yesterday, perhaps? The one about the prisoners of the Archivist?”
This was dangerous. Very dangerous. Jess said nothing. Ibrahim sat back against the cushions and rested his chin on one hand. He wore a ruby ring on one finger, and it looked like a drop of fresh blood. “I want no involvement in Library affairs,” he continued. “Nor in the private crusade of a brash young man. This is not our trade.”
“I’m asking for information, and that is your trade,” Jess shot back. “Do we have a deal or not?”
Ibrahim continued to stare at him with those unsettling dark eyes for so long Jess felt words bubbling up and trying to escape—angry words. He swallowed them down and waited. Finally, the man stirred, rose to his feet, and looked at his daughter, who still sat quietly watching. “Anit. I leave it to you.”
“What?” Jess shot to his feet, but Red Ibrahim was already going, heading for the doorway that led to the interior of the house. For a hot moment, Jess thought about chasing after him, but he also knew a man like that didn’t survive by being careless. If he’d turned his back, there were plenty of knives ready to protect him.
“Sit,” Anit said, and there was an unexpected layer of steel to her voice. “Sit down, Jess.” Young and tender she might be, but she was something else, too. Hard in a way that he had never seen before—not unless he saw it in the mirror. She put her hand to a chain around her neck, one that held a ring dangling from it—a large carved ring, with an Egyptian hieroglyph of a bird.
He stared after her father as the man closed the door, but he sank onto the cushions again. “What’s he training you in tonight? How to refuse to help and still keep the Brightwells as allies?”
“He meant what he said. It is my decision. He has left it to me.” Jess moved his gaze to her, and found her nearly as unreadable as her father, but there was a little lift at the corners of her mouth. Amusement. “I imagine you’re thinking what a cruel fate it is, being left to the whims of a mere girl.”
“Something like that.”
She played idly with the ring on the chain. “We are survivors, Jess,” she said. “You and I. We come from the same dark places. If you think I don’t understand you . . . But tell me: why didn’t you go to your brother for this instead? Surely it would have been simpler and cheaper?”
“Brendan?” Jess felt his brows lower in a frown. “He’s not in Alexandria. He’s gone. Back to London.”
“No,” Anit said. “You should perhaps keep better track of your twin. I don’t wish to offend you, but he can be a nasty piece of work.”
“Sounds like my brother, all right. Why is he still here?”
She lifted both palms. “Ask him. I’ll tell you where he stays.”
“And you’d like to be rid of him, is that it?”
“One Brightwell in Alexandria is more than sufficient. We would rather that be you.” She lowered her hands to her lap and cocked her head, with a real smile dancing on her lips now. “I had two brothers myself. I know how difficult they can be.”
Jess cleared his throat. “So what’s your decision? Your father left it up to you.”
“He did.” She studied him for a long moment, then said, “Will you swear you will never betray where you got this information?”
“I swear on—what would you like me to swear on?”
“The soul of your firstborn.” She outright grinned this time. “It’s traditional.”
“The rate I’m going, it may be an empty promise. All right. I swear on the soul of my firstborn that I won’t tell anyone where I got this information. Not my friends, not my family. I’ll never betray the house of Red Ibrahim.”
“I believe you,” she said. “And if you break that oath, Egyptian curses are cruel, Jess. And quick. Remember that.” She rose to her feet and headed for the door.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“To get the book you asked for,” she said.
“I didn’t bring—”
“I trust you,” Anit said. “If I didn’t, you’d be dead already.”
It wasn’t a long wait, which surprised him; they must have kept this incredibly dangerous information here, in their home. His father would have been scandalized. The Brightwell business was always kept completely separate from the Brightwell residence, though Jess had sneaked in plenty of illegal books in his time—to read, not trade.
She was back in only moments, casually carrying a little leather-bound volume. It looked worn and plain, obviously someone’s personal notebook. As he took the volume from her, his fingers felt a rougher patch on the leather, and when he looked closer, there were dark stains soaked into it. Blood.
He opened it to look at the contents, stared, and then raised his gaze to hers. “It’s in code.”
“Of course,” she said. “And I will give you the cipher to read it when you bring me the payment you promised. I said I trusted you. I’m not a complete fool.” She hesitated for a moment. “Jess, I said I had two brothers.”
He was busy flipping pages, trying to see a pattern in the cipher—a useless effort, of course, but better than giving in to frustration. “Are you threatening to set them on me if I don’t deliver? I will.”
“I had two brothers,” Anit said, and put her hand to the chain around her neck and the engraved ring that hung there. “They’re dead. The reason they are dead is the book you are holding in your hands.” The ring, Jess realized, was sized for larger fingers. A young man’s fingers.
It stopped him cold, along with the realization that the dark stains on the cover could have been her brother’s blood. He looked up and into her eyes. They were as unreadable as her father’s.