'We're still in France?'
'Yes. We're stopped in a park not far from Cahors. When I sent the message, they said it wouldn't be long.'
'Too long,' Wolfe said. 'We're sealed into this compartment, but we're still vulnerable. They can set off Greek Fire beneath this car, and we'll roast. We stand a better chance outside.'
Santi nodded. 'We've enough small and heavy arms to go around. Best to do it now before the search gets this far. My troops go first and secure the ground, the rest of you follow. Maps show that we have about a hundred-metre run to the forest for cover.'
'It works better with a diversion,' Glain said. She'd leant forward, and despite the blood and sweat on her face, she didn't seem at all vague.
'We have alchemical smoke, but we'll have to make it count,' Santi said. 'Since you brought it up, that will be your job, Wathen. Glass tube at your right, on the wall. On my signal, jump out, break the tube in half and drop it. Don't breathe it in. Can you do that? I will be covering you.'
'Yes sir, Captain.'
Glain stood up, but as she did, a sudden strange shudder ran through the train. Not the engines, Jess thought. It felt like something had exploded, but towards the front of the train.
The train attendant, Gretel, checked her Codex, which must have held information about the train. 'The engine is burning,' she said. 'And the lounge. Greek Fire, I think.' She looked pale now, and shaky, and she grabbed for Thomas's hand. 'It's spreading to the dining car.'
'We need to go,' Wolfe said.
After the dining car would be the first bedroom car. Jess's room.
He didn't think. He just stood and headed for the door.
It took a moment for Wolfe to notice, and then Jess heard him bark out, 'Postulant! Where are you going?'
He got as far as the door and reached for the handle. It burnt him. He gritted his teeth and grabbed it again. He couldn't hold on. The tube running around the door was hissing like a poisonous snake, bubbling with some liquid.
'Brightwell!' Wolfe pushed him back and held him against the wall. 'Jess. What are you doing?'
Jess could smell the acrid stench again, the same as in St Pancras when the Burner had died. The same as in the ancient Serapeum chamber in Alexandria. The dining car is burning.
'I left her,' he said. 'She's still there, waiting for a chance to run. I have to get her out.'
Wolfe's eyes widened, and he took a step closer. His fists clenched hard in Jess's shirt. 'Are you telling me Morgan is alive? She didn't jump?'
'I have to get her. Open the door!'
Wolfe hesitated for only an instant before he turned and shouted back, 'Nic, go! Get them out!' He slammed his wrist on the seal of the door and said, 'Stay behind me. And don't breathe the smoke.'
Wolfe locked the door again from the outside, and moved quickly down the hall, checking each room as he went. The train seemed eerily peaceful now. Jess touched the sides of the car, and it felt hot, as if it had been in the sun for hours. As they neared the next compartment's door, he could hear what sounded like hissing.
'The fire's spreading,' Wolfe said. 'Our attackers might already have withdrawn. When I open this, the smoke will spread.' Toxic, he remembered the ghost of a London Garda saying to him, holding him down on the tracks at St Pancras. 'Hold your breath as long as you can.'
The door slid aside, and a thick, greenish fog reached for them, wisping and whirling. The hissing was louder, now almost a roar, and when Jess tried to brace himself on the compartment wall inside, it singed his fingers. The smoke stung his eyes and blinded him with tears, and it was hard to remember how many doors there were. Which one he needed.
Wolfe was a dim shadow on his left. He found his door and slammed it open, and broke into uncontrollable coughing. 'Morgan!' he shouted. 'Morgan--' He couldn't see her. There was smoke here too, a thick, reeking darkness. He scrambled over fallen bedclothes and felt on the bed, all the way to the corner. Then the floor. He yanked open the small bathroom door.
Morgan was on the floor. He picked her up, and she lay limp in his arms. His lungs were screaming for air, shuddering for it, and he had to breathe, but when he did it was like breathing in flames. Jesse coughed and gagged and struggled to find some clear air in the miasma. I can't leave her, he thought. She was heavy in his arms, and he needed air, but he couldn't leave her.
Somehow, he was kneeling on the floor, with Morgan cradled against him. He didn't know if she was even breathing. The fire was a roar now, and it seemed to him as though the metal of the far wall was soft and sagging in. A silvery tear ran down, and caught bright-green fire.
Someone grabbed his head from behind, and before he could resist, he felt a suffocating pressure over his face, and then a sudden cold rush of air. He breathed, coughed, breathed again sweet, clean air. Someone had put a mask on his face. It clicked and hissed and glowed with a soft amber light, but all he saw was a thick, blinding cloud of greyish-green smoke beyond the glass.
He could breathe. God, he could breathe.
'Go!' That was Wolfe's voice. 'Go!'
Jess struggled up to his feet. He felt sick and dizzy, and the floor beneath him seemed soft and muddy. He got Morgan into the corridor. One direction was blocked by an eerie, dripping curtain of green flame, melting and burning everything it touched. He went the other way, step after step, breath after breath, and his head began to clear.
Wolfe, he thought, and turned. Wolfe was behind him, but he was failing, and as Jess watched, he slid weakly down the wall, and stopped moving. He had no mask. How he'd made it so far, Jess couldn't imagine, but his strength was gone.
Jess put Morgan down and ran back. He gasped in as deep a breath as he could from the mask, then ripped it loose and pressed it to Wolfe's face. He grabbed him under the arms and dragged.
The rest of it came in flashes, like a dream ... a weirdly beautiful eddy of green smoke, drifting past his face. The shock from the handle of the baggage car door. Holding Wolfe's wrist to the seal.
Dragging Morgan, then Wolfe, across the threshold and sealing the door against the roar and smoke and flame.
I can rest now, he thought. Just a little. It's all right if I rest. His lungs felt thick and heavy, and he couldn't seem to clear them.
He tried to close his eyes, but there was shouting, and Captain Santi's face. Glain, bloody and firing a gun. Someone was pulling him along by an arm. Then he was on his feet, running after Captain Santi, who had Morgan in his arms.
He was running, and the world suddenly turned white.
There was an indescribably huge noise, a wave of heat, and as he spun Jess saw the Alexandrian Express bloom into a poisonous flower of metal and fire. He was flung backward hard enough to stun him, but as he opened his eyes again he saw the huge bloom of flame and smoke rising up towards the black sky. Twisted metal sped overhead; some embedded itself in tree trunks. Smaller trees had been torn to shreds, and some toppled in eerie silence. The whole world went almost silent, with a high, thin ringing on top.
Jess managed to push himself up on an elbow, and by the confusing flicker of the fire, he saw Morgan beside him. He reached over to stroke a hand through her hair, then turned away to cough and retch. Everything came out green.
Someone stumbled over him, a blond giant half-carrying a girl with a cut on her head ... it was Thomas, and the girl was Glain, he was starting to put it back together now. Thomas sat Glain down against an undamaged tree root and went to roll Wolfe and Santi over on their backs. Santi was moving weakly, and tried to push himself up. Dario was there. Khalila.
Wolfe lay where he'd fallen, very still.
Jess crawled up to his knees. His hearing cracked and popped, and he thought that might have been the fire, but he couldn't be sure. Nothing seemed to match up to what he was seeing, and even that didn't make much sense at the moment. His lungs were still burning, and his eyes blurred every time he blinked. His head ached.
With the help of a tree trunk, he got to his feet, and found himself
staring at a piece of thick metal as big as his arm that had buried itself edge-on in the wood. It was still smoking and black on the edges. Jess took a step and almost went down. Someone caught him, he couldn't see who it was until his helper had moved past him - one of Santi's soldiers.
As the group slowly re-formed around Wolfe's still body, the man opened his eyes suddenly, blinked, and raised his head to look at the inferno of the train. Then his chest rose and fell a few times before he accepted Santi's offered hand to help him to his feet. He bent over to retch up green bile.
Alive. Jess couldn't believe it. He felt a sudden rush of giddiness, and then something else, something acidic boiling in his stomach, and he stumbled into the firelit darkness to bend over and cough more of the poison out of his lungs. Too dark to see if he'd thrown up blood. All too possible, considering the stains on his shirt and the disconnected, weirdly elastic feeling in his body.
He was still on his knees when the Burners found him, put a knife to his throat, and dragged him off into the darkness.
They didn't take him far. He could still see the carnival glow of the burning train through the trees, hear the groans and snaps and hisses as it fell to pieces.
He was too weak to fight, and truthfully, too tired. His lungs burnt, and he ached in every muscle. When they finally let him fall, he was strangely grateful.
Dragging him even this far seemed a lot of trouble, if they were going to kill him.
'Which one are you?'
Jess tried to focus. There were three men, two of them standing behind him; one was a burly man in a thick slouch coat who smelt of stale sweat and vinegar, and the other was older, shorter, wearing a knitted cap. He'd tried to remember their faces, on the unlikely chance that he survived.
The third man, the one who'd spoken, he couldn't see very well, until the man crouched down and looked him right in the face. Even then, it was hard to bring him into focus; the smoke had left Jess's eyes blurred and watery, and it took a lot of blinking to make out details.
He had a moment of confusion, because it seemed like he knew this man ... and then he didn't. The man had thinning, light-blond hair, and a familiar line to his nose.
Then Jess made out the light grey of the man's eyes, and put it together. 'Jess Brightwell,' he said. His voice sounded thick and hoarse, and he coughed. 'I knew your son. Guillaume Danton.'
'Brightwell. He said you were quick,' the man said. 'My son liked you. You and the Arab girl, what was her name? Khalila. He said you were the best. He wanted to save you.'
'Save us,' Jess repeated. 'Save us from what?'
'From yourselves. From selling your soul to the devil.'
Jess sighed. 'If you're going to try to convert me to Burner ways, just kill me and get it over with,' he said. 'We'd both be happier.'
'I won't waste my breath. You have to learn how to listen before you will hear.'
'They'll be looking for me. Is this all you have left? Three of you? Didn't go the way you planned, did it?'
Danton reached over and took a handful of Jess's hair. It hurt when he yanked and forced Jess's chin higher. 'I want you to tell me who killed my son.'
Jess swallowed hard. 'He died in an accident. Nobody killed him. It just happened.'
'Just happened. Of all of you who went through this Obscurist machine, only my son died. That doesn't just happen.'
Jess didn't answer. The hold on his hair was going from painful to brutal. 'Tell me what happened. Every detail.'
'Guillaume went after Captain Santi, first one of the students. He volunteered to go first. We'd seen how bad it was, and none of the rest of us wanted to do it. I didn't want to. Your son was better. He didn't hesitate.'
'Did he suffer?' Jess didn't answer, and Danton shook his head like a rag doll. 'Answer me! Did my son suffer?'
'Yes,' he said. 'But it was over fast.'
'Did he scream?'
'No,' Jess said. He vividly remembered Guillaume's shrieks, those horrible bone-deep cries, but he wasn't going to say it. Not to his father. 'He was brave.' The hold on his hair suddenly released, and Danton sat back on his haunches. His eyes were wide and glittering. 'I liked him, your son. I thought he was clever, and quiet, and smart.'
'Did you see his body?'
'He looked peaceful.'
'How do you know what happened to him? You said he went first. Someone could have killed him the moment he arrived.'
'They were working to save him.' Jess's throat seemed worse now, more hoarse, more painful, and he realised that it was the weight of sadness. He hadn't really had time to think about Guillaume's death. About how useless it had been. Strange time to really feel that, when so much else had happened. It seemed like so long ago. 'Nobody killed him. He just died. And I'm sorry.'
'Sorry,' Danton echoed. 'He was murdered. Guillaume would have exposed their secrets if he'd lived, and they couldn't let him. Better to kill him quietly, in an accident. You all believe the Library's lies so easily. How they are good and kind and lead us all by the hand into the future.' He shook his head and stared into the fire. 'They turned four million people out of Paris to starve - those they didn't kill outright.'
'You've killed.'
'You think I've got blood on my hands? The Library's halls run thick with it. Read your history.'
'Read yours,' Jess said. 'Libraries burnt. Scholars slaughtered.'
'Ah, you know so much. I know things too, boy. I know about the Black Archives. About the interdicts. Perhaps you should ask more questions before you choose your side, then.'
'I have,' Jess said. 'It's not yours. Never going to be. This didn't go the way you planned, did it?'
'Greek Fire is a powerful thing. Sometimes, it has a mind of its own. We didn't intend to burn the train so quickly. We intended you to have time to leave.'
'So you could shoot us.'
'Wolfe and his men. Not students. I wouldn't have your blood on my hands.'
Jess was angry now, and sick of all of it. All the blood and death and self-justification. 'You blew it up! You could have killed us all!'
Danton watched him with an odd expression on his face for a moment, and then shook his head. 'We didn't set the bomb,' he said. 'Someone told us where you would be,' Danton said. 'A message that came from inside the Library. Our own men died when the train exploded. That was meant for you. Scholar Wolfe, and his promising young students, all gone.' He made a little opening flower motion with one hand, and Jess remembered the train peeling open, the white light of it. It hadn't been Greek Fire. He knew what that looked like. 'A bit surprising, given Wolfe's family connections.'
He had a bad feeling that Danton had just told him the truth.
'Monsieur,' said one of them at Jess's back. 'They're looking. We should go. Quickly.'
'Yes,' Danton agreed, and stood up.
Jess started to relax, and then he felt the cold pressure of a gun at the back of his head. He flinched, then held himself still, staring straight ahead.
'Non,' Danton said. 'Too loud.'
'Ah,' said the man behind him. 'I have a knife. Quick and quiet.'
Danton looked at Jess intently. 'Are you going to beg?'
'Your son wouldn't,' Jess said. 'I won't either.'
He couldn't tell whether or not they'd just kill him anyway, not at all, until Danton gave a sharp jerk of his head to the man standing behind him, and the three simply ... melted away. Gone into the woods they probably knew better than anyone.
He could hear the shouts of the searchers now. His name, ringing through the trees.
Time to get up, Jess thought, and managed to stand, somehow. Someone must have actually missed me.
He had to go back, anyway. He had to ask Wolfe why the Library had blown up their train.
EPHEMERA
Text of a handwritten note from the head of the Burner faction in London to Danton in Toulouse:
Received your news on the action outside of Toulouse. Destruction of the train serves as a symbolic victory, if
nothing else.
It's too bad Wolfe slipped away. Now that we know of the man's family connections, he would be a valuable hostage.
Condolences on the death of your son. He would have been a great asset in the struggle.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jess walked a while before he fell in the ditch on a bed of surprisingly soft fallen leaves. He stayed where he was for a while, until the rain started to fall. It was a soft, gentle mist, but he knew it would freeze him icy as the night's chill took hold, so he grimly wrestled himself up to his knees, and walked until he ran into the line of High Garda searching for him. Once they spotted him, they reached him at a run. Somehow, he'd been expecting something else to happen to snatch it all away.
The High Garda men handed him off to Medica staff. He was flat on his back in a camp bed with his shirt off and a surgeon poking his stomach when Wolfe threw back the flap on the tent.
'Sterile area,' the surgeon barked, and Wolfe stopped a few feet away. 'Talk from there.'
He cast her a look, but didn't argue. 'What happened?'
'Burners,' Jess said. 'Took me off for a talk. One of them was Guillaume Danton's father. He wanted to know why his son was dead.'
Wolfe's expression hardly even flickered. 'What did you tell him?'
'I told him what I saw.'
'And what did he tell you?'
'Someone told him where to find us.'
'Enough talking,' his doctor said. 'Scholar, the wound in his side was aggravated by the force of the explosion. His stitches tore.'
'Will he live?'
'Oh, yes. A few days' rest should put him in good order.'
'I'm fine. Tell--' Morgan, he almost said. 'Tell the others that I'm all right.' He didn't want to mention Morgan. Maybe she'd already slipped off in the darkness, found a way to her freedom. He told himself, again, that he wanted that for her.
'Your fellow postulants have been informed. It was all we could do to keep Schreiber from tearing around the woods after you when you disappeared.'
'Wolfe,' the surgeon said. 'Go lie down. I haven't cleared you to get up, and you know it. You've seen the boy. He's breathing and his lungs are almost clear. Now leave.'
Wolfe gave her another piercing look that had absolutely no effect, and left. He tried - and almost succeeded, Jess thought - in making it look that it was his own idea. 'He's hurt?' Jess asked, once he was gone.