When he looked back, Izumi was still there. Face down, sprawled on the marble, buried beneath the weight of her pack. Jess got to her at the same time as Wolfe, and helped loosen the pack straps to get the weight off of the slender young woman while Wolfe stripped off the helmet.
Wolfe turned her over.
Izumi's eyes were open and staring, but ... empty, of everything but a mute horror. Over their heads, a red light began to flash, bathing the whole room in flashes of crimson. A torrent of steam hissed out of valves and pipes in a deafening roar.
The old Obscurist was on his knees as well, but not to help. He was gasping for air, and shaking like an autumn leaf in a storm. His face was the colour of grey mud. He looked like he might drop dead. When Jess reached out to help him, the old man flinched back, as if he expected to be hurt. 'No,' he said. 'Leave me alone. Not my fault. Not my fault.'
Wolfe pressed fingertips to Izumi's neck, then his ear to her chest. 'Help is coming,' he told her. 'You're not alone. Can you hear me, Izumi? Show me you can hear me.' She seemed frozen and unable to move, but her eyes cut towards him, and she blinked. His austere face softened into a relieved, fully warm smile. 'Good girl. You'll be fine.'
She swallowed and managed to whisper something Jess couldn't catch, but Wolfe clearly did. He shook his head. 'Don't,' he said. 'Some can't tolerate it. There's no shame in that.'
The door they'd entered slid open, and a two-man Medica team carried in a stretcher. They loaded Izumi on, and whisked her away before any of them could comprehend what had really happened.
It was left to Jess to say, 'She failed, didn't she?'
Wolfe's smile was gone now, and his face closed and stony. 'There's nothing I can do. The Artifex made it clear that anyone who fails on this journey loses their place,' he said. 'Not her fault.'
'Has anyone ever died?' Portero asked. His voice sounded higher than it normally did, his face two shades off his normal dull bronze.
'Yes,' Wolfe said. Just the bare word. He turned his eyes to Jess. 'Are you ready?'
Jess realised that he was already standing in the centre, beside the fallen helmet. He felt the urge to bolt away. Instead, he raised his gaze to meet Wolfe's and said, 'I'm ready.'
The helmet felt suffocating and heavy as granite as it pressed down on him. It smelt of sweat and burning metal. Think of clouds. He couldn't. He couldn't think of anything but the torment his friends had endured before him.
'Jess.'
He opened his eyes. Morgan had stepped forward, and she was holding out her hand to him.
He took it, and she squeezed his fingers. 'In bocca al lupo.'
He said it back, and then she was gone.
The Obscurist shuffled forward, and pressed those shaking hands down on the helmet. The old man's robes smelt of stale curry, and his breath was rank with it too. He's too old, Jess thought. Maybe it's his fault, what happened to Izumi. Maybe he'll kill me.
He felt something rising around him like a storm of needles, and caught and held his breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, like a child hiding from a monster in the dark.
Somehow, he managed to hold on to the tattered remains of courage as the needles turned in, and began to rip him apart. It was an awful, horror-filled second of utter destruction, and he heard a scream wrenched out of his mouth that he couldn't control. His vision went blood-red, and he felt himself convulse, and then ...
... Then he was falling to his hands and knees on a stone floor, still crying out. Nothing worked. He flailed and rolled onto his back, managed to silence himself, and tried to breathe. Someone grabbed hold of his shoulders and was dragging him away ... Dario? Yes. It was Dario Santiago, gripping him hard enough to leave bruises.
Dario propped Jess's back against a wall and left him there. For the first time, Jess was grateful for the pack weighing him down; it felt soft as a feather bed now, a familiar anchor in a world that seemed to still tremble and dance in front of his eyes.
'Easy,' Khalila was saying to him, and her hands were holding a cup of water in front of his face. 'Drink. You'll feel better in a moment.'
He took the cup, mindlessly; his hands shook so badly that he spilt half of it on his face and down his shirt, but he got enough of it into his mouth to choke down, and as she'd said, it helped. The world steadied slowly into an off-kilter wobble, then finally righted itself.
Thomas arrived while he was still struggling to adapt, and Dario's job evidently was to grab and drag the newcomers, which wasn't an easy job, given the German's bulk. Jess handed the cup back to Khalila, and she filled it from a jug and moved to administer the same kindness to Thomas. She didn't seem to have any problems; she moved with calm grace, and her hand extending the cup was rock steady.
Jess still felt a horrible conviction in the back of his mind that some part of him was missing, lost in that bleeding whirl, though as he ran hands over himself he couldn't feel any wounds.
He was better off by far than some of the others. Dario and Khalila seemed to have done best; Guillaume Danton, first to arrive, was lying still off to the side. A woman dressed in the sand-coloured overcoat of a librarian was tending to him - a Medica specialist, by the red blood-drop symbol on the lapel of her uniform. Guillaume looked icy pale, his face slack.
Jess tried to stand up, failed, tried again, and slid down the wall to where Dario had dragged Thomas. He dropped in place next to his friend. Thomas lost his grip on the cup, which slipped free and dumped water all over Khalila's dress. She calmly refilled it and tried again. This time, Thomas managed a sip, then another. The look in his eyes was appalling, and Jess had to find something else to study for a while. There were things too private to watch.
One by one, the rest came through. Portero vomited and wept, but more of the Medica attendants were arriving, and took firm charge. Portero and Guillaume seemed the worst affected; Glain seemed to hardly even need the water once she'd arrived, and she recovered fast.
Jess hated her for it. He wasn't entirely sure he'd ever recover, in some very deep and visceral way. She seemed to have simply taken it in stride and moved on.
Like Khalila, who hardly seemed to have missed a breath.
'That,' Thomas whispered, 'that was the worst thing I have ever felt.' He seemed truly shaken. Jess slapped him on the shoulder and nodded. 'I am not cut out for this. Not if that is required.'
'It's only for emergencies. And Wolfe says it gets better, with practice.'
'It will never get better, and I will never practise.' Thomas looked around, and spotted the motionless form of Guillaume. A frown line creased his brow and pulled his eyebrows flat. 'Is he all right?'
'Doesn't look like it,' Jess said. 'Here. Drink more.'
Khalila hadn't spoken, but she was quietly waiting for Thomas to finish the cup; he did, handed it back, and she moved on to the next who needed it. Suddenly Jess wondered if her glacial poise really was a sign that she was all right; maybe it was a form of shock as profound as his own, only expressed very differently.
'Mein Gott,' Thomas said. His voice sounded different, flatter, and Jess looked away from Khalila to his friend. He was staring across the room.
The two Medica staff with Danton were standing back, and Captain Santi was making the sign of the cross over the body. As Jess stared, Santi slowly pulled the cover over the boy's face.
'Christ above,' Jess blurted, and crossed himself; it was a long-forgotten habit, but shock drew it out of him. Couldn't be true, could it? That Guillaume was dead?
Dario swore viciously, quietly in Spanish. Morgan, who'd arrived when Jess's attention was elsewhere, was up and moving, and she tried to go to Danton's body, but one of the Medica staff caught her and led her away. She was weeping. Jess wanted to get up and go to her, but he wasn't sure his legs were ready.
In a violent clap of air and movement, Christopher Wolfe arrived. He didn't collapse. He didn't even pause. He strode on, as if he'd simply stepped from one place to another, and walked past Jess and Thomas towards th
e place Niccolo Santi still knelt next to Guillaume's covered body.
Niccolo Santi looked up just in time. He lunged up to halt the Scholar's relentless advance. When Wolfe tried to push past, Santi grabbed hold and held him. 'No,' he said. 'Christopher. No. He's gone.'
Wolfe took in a deep breath, turned away, and used his Codex to send a message. His stylus moved in fast, vicious jerks as he wrote it down. It hummed in answer a moment later, and he put it away and stalked off to a darker corner of the room.
That, Jess thought, was the most emotion he'd ever seen from Wolfe. Or Santi, for that matter. It felt like an earthquake on previously steady ground.
Santi stepped forward in Wolfe's absence. 'Up,' he said. 'We've got to move.'
'What about Guillaume?' Khalila asked.
'He'll be returned as quickly as possible to his family,' Santi said. 'Does anyone want to say a word now for him?'
For a frozen moment, no one moved or spoke, and then Dario Santiago said, 'I didn't like him, but he went through first when I wouldn't. Brave. I think that says enough.'
Santi nodded. He glanced towards Wolfe, who still hadn't moved. 'Outside,' he said. 'Go on.'
Most of them had already gone when Wolfe finally turned and stalked for the door, but Morgan had lingered. She caught Wolfe's sleeve as he passed, and although her whisper was very soft, Jess was close enough to hear it. 'Scholar, I saw it. I tried to tell you, I saw--'
Wolfe turned and gave her a fierce, almost wild stare. 'You couldn't have saved him,' he said. 'Even if you were an Obscurist, which I remind you, you are not. This wasn't your doing.' He yanked his robe free of her hand and pushed on and out the door.
Morgan nodded. She seemed flushed now, and tears sparked in her eyes.
Wolfe was telling her to keep her secret.
But Jess wondered if he was telling her everything.
EPHEMERA
Text of a letter under the name of Scholar Christopher Wolfe to Aristede Danton, father of Guillaume Danton. Not written by him.
It is my sad duty to inform you that your son Guillaume has succumbed to injuries that he suffered during his translation from Alexandria to the front lines of the Oxford expeditionary journey. Such events are rare, and unforeseen, and while Medica experts were immediately at his side, there were no measures to be taken that could prolong his life.
A stone shall be consecrated in his name in the Library's great hall of knowledge, and his name and legacy will live on.
We have included his personal journal, which was up to date to the morning of his passing, in the record of the Library, and the days he lived on this earth will enrich the days of those who come after.
Please accept the Library's condolences upon this sad occasion. A funerary representative from the London Serapeum will accompany your son's remains home.
Message sent the same day in the hand of Scholar Wolfe, addressed to the Artifex Magnus:
This blood is on your hands. Whether it was deliberate or accidental, you caused this to happen. I will not forget it.
A reply from the Artifex to Scholar Wolfe, received the same day:
Don't be a fool. We both know it wasn't an accident. We both know why it was a necessary step.
I hope you will not forget, because accidents can happen. Even to someone you care more about than a Burner spy.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Guillaume's death left Jess feeling oddly empty inside. He watched as the Medica staff wrapped his friend's body in clean white sheets and tied them with careful, traditional knots. From there, they'd convey his body to a sarcophagus, which would be taken to the place of embalming, if Guillaume's religion allowed it. Likely it did, Jess thought, since the boy had probably been a Catholic.
He thought of the practical order of these things to avoid thinking about more painful things - things that Thomas couldn't stop asking, like, 'Do you think he suffered?' or 'Do you think he knew he was dying?' Jess didn't see how he could possibly know those answers, and didn't see how the truth, even if they learnt it, could be any comfort at all.
It didn't help matters that Khalila suddenly broke down in tears. Even Glain seemed emotional. Jess was a little surprised by that. But the real question, Jess thought, is why I feel so little, and they feel so much. Maybe it was his upbringing. Maybe it was all the death he'd seen, in the smuggling trade.
Or maybe he was just trying to keep it all locked in a small, dark box until he could face what he felt. It was the same bargain he'd made when he'd been nine, and his brother Liam had gone to the gallows. He'd focus on the things that needed doing, for as long as he could.
Dario didn't weep, either. He and Jess had that in common. As Guillaume's body was carried out of the Translation Chamber, Dario leant his shoulders against the wall next to Jess and said, 'If any of us had to die, it might be best it was him. Burner ancestors from a rebel country. They'd never have let him stay.'
It was a concise, cold, brutally truthful statement, and he said it low enough that only Jess heard. Jess nodded. 'Given all that, it must have been incredibly hard for him to win a place here in the first place. Have some respect.'
'I do,' Dario said. 'I also have clear eyes. He had secrets. So do you.'
They were, Jess thought, more alike than either of them wanted to admit. He'd never realised that about himself before; he'd always thought of himself as a good person, at his core. But sitting next to Dario, hearing familiar tones and words out of a different mouth, he was forced to reconsider.
'I do have secrets. I secretly think you're a bastard,' he said to Dario, though without much heat. 'Shove off. I'm thinking.'
'Well, that would take all your concentration,' Dario agreed, and moved off to put his arm around Khalila. Jess watched as her body relaxed into his, and he realised he wasn't surprised that the two of them were drawing together. Not after what he'd seen in the Translation Chamber. She'd trusted the boy. Why she would was a mystery to him, but there was no doubt that some barrier had fallen between them.
Jess's gaze went to Morgan. They'd all recovered more or less quickly, though Jess was cursed with a hitching pain in his ribs and what felt like a wrenched knee - not bad enough to hobble him, just enough to make him hurt a bit. He'd walk it off, though. He'd had worse.
But it kept him from catching up to Morgan.
As he grabbed his pack and swung the weight onto his shoulders, Thomas joined him. The German already had his pack strapped securely, but he still had a hurt, lost look in his face. 'We're just going to leave Guillaume?' he asked. 'Just like that? No ... service?'
'We're heading into a war zone, Thomas. Can't stop for services.'
'Still, it seems--'
'Come on.'
Jess knew he sounded impatient, but he couldn't control that; Thomas's grief rubbed like sandpaper, and made him want to lash out.
Thomas gave him a sad-eyed look, but followed as Jess made his way towards the door. Morgan was following close behind Wolfe. Khalila was still escorted by Dario, though as they emerged from the Translation Chamber into a wide brick hallway, she broke away from him and took a quicker pace, chin raised. Independent once more.
Wolfe led their party - only seven, now - into the Aylesbury reading room. Like the Alexandrian version, it was filled with shelves and tables, though Aylesbury needed a large, roaring furnace, where Alexandria rarely felt the cold so deeply. Jess hadn't thought about it until now, but the familiar English damp and chill was starting to close around him. He'd worn light clothing for the merciless heat he'd grown accustomed to, and now he was starting to feel the lack of wool.
This room had a different smell, too. Paper and ink, yes, and dust, but a faint trace of mildew, too. And the sharp oak scent of the fireplace, whose warmth didn't penetrate far into the space. Old ashes. Old sweat.
This place hadn't been built as a Library building; it must have been converted from a church, at some point, and still had the feeling of one. The shelves in the room looked oddly spaced, bolted in
to replace sacred statues or shrines. The Library hadn't built new here, just repurposed.
'Everyone fit to travel?' Wolfe asked them, when they were assembled around him. One by one, they nodded. 'Open your packs. In them, you'll find two things I want you to wear. One is a bronze temporary bracelet; it conveys on you the rights of a full librarian for the duration of this trip. The second item is a Library coat. You will all put them on and wear them unless I tell you to remove them. I want no claims from the English or Welsh that they mistook us for combatants.'
Jess muscled his pack off again and dug inside and yes, near the top was a metal clasp bracelet - bronze - embossed with the Library symbol. Unlike regular Library bracelets, it could be removed; the symbols that librarians wore had to be cut away at the termination of their contracts.
The bronze was the lowest of the levels. At the end of a bronze contract, a Library employee would either move up, stay on, or move out. It isn't a real one, he told himself. Just temporary.
He removed his postulant version and fastened the new one, and felt a chill when he looked down at his wrist. I'm one of them now. He'd wanted it, and still did, but that didn't change the unease of a lifetime of running from that symbol, and fearing it. From knowing that the Library would relentlessly continue to pursue smugglers, and would cheerfully hang him, his father, his brother, even his mother.
When he donned the dull gold of the overcoat, he felt even more distanced from his past. The material weighed very little, though he was grateful for another layer to hold in the heat.
He looked like one of them now. Completely.
When they'd all properly fitted themselves out, Wolfe looked them over, made some adjustments here and there, and nodded. 'You're ready,' he said. 'Do what I tell you. Obey the soldiers when they give you an order, and you'll come through.'
That sounded suspiciously like concern, and that, more than anything else, made Jess start to worry about what was coming next.
Outside in the large, walled forecourt of the Serapeum, stood a full squad of Library High Garda ... about eighty of them. Men and women alike, laughing, talking, sitting, standing, playing cards and dice and other games he didn't immediately recognise. A relaxed atmosphere, except that they all wore the formal black of the High Garda, and had heavy arms ready at hand. Santi was with them, talking to one of the others and reviewing a map laid out between them.