Annotation in the hand of the Archivist Magister:
It is unfortunate that Scholar Gutenberg has fallen prey to this unthinkable heresy. He fails to realise the danger of what he proposes. Without the Library's steady guidance, this device would allow the uncontrollable spread not only of knowledge, but folly. Imagine a world in which anyone, anywhere, could create and distribute their own words, however ignorant or flawed! And we have often seen dangerous progress that was only just checked in time to prevent more chaos.
The machine is to be destroyed, of course, and all such research interdicted. Sadly, it becomes obvious that Scholar Gutenberg cannot be trusted. We must silence him, and put this lethal heresy out of our minds.
I realise that Gutenberg is a great loss, but we cannot be weak if the Library is to resist this invasive, persistent disease of progress.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
The first clue Jess had that his hiding place had been discovered came in the form of a hard, open-handed slap to the back of his head. He was engrossed in reading, and he'd failed to hear any telltale creak of boards behind him.
His first instinct was, of course, to save the book, and he protectively curled over the delicate pages even as he slid out of his chair and freed his right hand to draw a knife ... but it wasn't necessary.
'Brother,' he said. He didn't take his hand off the weapon.
Brendan was laughing, but it was a bitter sound. 'I knew I'd find you here,' he said. 'You need some new hiding holes, Jess. No telling when Da will sniff you out of this one. What are you buried in this time?' They no longer looked quite so identical, now that they were older. Brendan wore his hair in a shaggy mess, which half-concealed another scar he'd got during a run, but they'd grown at the same pace, so their eyes were on a level. Jess glared right back.
'Inventio Fortunata. The account of a monk from Oxford who sailed to the Arctic and back hundreds of years ago. And Da won't find this place unless you tell him about it.'
'Sounds boring.' Brendan raised one eyebrow. It was a trick all his own, one Jess hadn't been able to master, so Brendan used it all the time, just to be irritating. 'So make it worth my while not to sell you out.' Brendan was already as ruthless a deal-maker as their father, and that was no compliment. Jess dug in his pockets and came up with a sovereign, which Brendan took with evident satisfaction. 'Agreed.' He walked the coin back and forth in an expert ripple over his knuckles.
'Damn you, Scraps. I was reading.' Jess only called his brother Scraps when he was really annoyed, because it was a bit of a cruel name: Brendan was the younger by a few seconds, and had been born dangerously small. A leftover, an afterthought.
Scraps.
If Brendan minded the use of that once-loathed nickname, he hid it well. He just shrugged. 'Like Da always says, we deal the stuff, we shouldn't use it. Waste of time, what you get up to.'
'As opposed to what you do? Drinking and gambling?'
Brendan tossed a wet copy of the London Times on the floor between them. Jess carefully put down Inventio Fortunata to take up the flimsy news-sheet. He wiped the beads of water from the page. The top story had an artist's illustration of a face he recognised - older, but he'd never forget the bastard's leering grin. Or the blackened teeth, chewing up priceless words written by a genius thousands of years before.
Brendan said, 'Remember him? Six years late, but someone finally got your old ink-licker. Mysterious circumstances, according to the official story.'
'What's the real story?'
'Someone slipped a knife between his ribs as he was coming out of his club, so not as mysterious as all that. They're hushing it up. They'll blame it on the Burners, eventually, if they admit it at all. Don't need a reason to blame Burners.'
Jess looked up at his brother and almost asked, Did you do it?, but in truth, he really didn't want to know the answer. 'You came all this way to show me?'
Brendan shrugged. 'Thought it might cheer your day. I know it always bothered you, him not getting his due.'
The paper was the morning edition, and it must have just turned evening, because as Jess handed it back, the newspaper erased itself, and filled line by line with new words. The ink-licker stayed front-page news, which probably would have pleased the vile, old creature.
Brendan rolled the sheet up and slipped it in his pocket. He was making quite a puddle on the floor, and Jess tossed him a dirty towel he kept for wiping his own boots. Brendan sneered and tossed it back. 'Well?' he asked. 'You coming home?'
'In a while.'
'Da wants a word.'
Of course he did. Their father didn't like Jess's disappearances, especially since he'd hoped to train him up to inherit the family business. Problem was, Jess had no real love for it. He knew the smuggling trade, but Brendan was more eager, and a better choice to take on Callum Brightwell's mantle. Hiding himself away gave Jess freedom, and it also gave Scraps a chance that younger sons didn't usually get.
Not that he'd ever admit, to Brendan or to anyone, that he was doing it as much for his brother as himself.
'Stuff him. I'll be home when I want to be home.' Jess sank down in the chair again. It was a dusty old thing, discarded from some rich banker's house, and he'd dragged it half a mile to this half-collapsed manor off Warren Street. Too much of a wreck for buyers, and too flash an area for squatters. It was a good place to hide out, with no one to bother him.
Especially sour, then, that Brendan had found him, because, despite the sovereign, Jess would need to find himself a new reading room. He didn't trust his brother not to drop hints ... for his own good, of course. That meant dragging the chair with him. Again.
Brendan hadn't moved. He was still dripping freely on the old boards. His eyes were steady and fixed now, and there was no humour in him. 'Da said now, Jess. Shift it.'
There was no arguing when Brendan took that particular tone; it would come to a fight, no holds barred, and Jess didn't particularly want to lose. He always did lose, because deep in his guts, he didn't want to hurt his brother.
Brendan never seemed to have the same limits.
Jess carefully wrapped the fragile book in waterproof layers, then put it into a smuggling harness. He stripped off his loose shirt and fastened the buckles himself with the ease of long acquaintance, only half-thinking about it, then put on the shirt and a vest carefully fitted to conceal the secrets beneath. No longer the ragamuffin cutter he'd once been: his shirt was linen now, and the vest well sewn with silk embroideries. He added a thick leather coat, something to keep the rain off, and tossed a second coat at his brother, who fielded it without a word of thanks.
Then the two of them, sixteen years old and mirror images, yet worlds apart, set off together across the city.
Brendan peeled off as soon as they arrived at the family town house; he ran upstairs, past a startled housemaid who shouted at him about muddying the carpets. Jess tidied himself in the foyer, handed his wet coat to the parlour maid, and made sure his boots were clean before he stepped off onto the polished wood floor.
His mother was coming out of the formal parlour, though the visiting hours were long past. She gave him a quick head-to-toe assessment. He must have been dressed to her satisfaction, because she glided over and delivered a dry kiss on his cheek. She was a neat, pretty woman approaching middle age, with streaks of silver at her temples barely visible in her ash-blond hair. She smelt like light lavender and woodsmoke. The dark-blue dress she wore today suited her.
'I wish you wouldn't vex your father so much,' she told him, and put her hand lightly on his arm. 'He's in one of his moods again. Do try to be civil, for my sake.'
'I will,' he said, which was an empty promise, but then so was her show of concern. He and his mother weren't close and never had been, really. In this, as in so much else in his life, Jess was alone.
He left her standing there, already engrossed in adjusting a fresh arrangement of daisies and roses, and walked down the hall to his father's study.
He knocked politely on the closed door, and heard a grunt that meant permission to enter.
Inside, the study was all dark wood, warmed by the fire blazing in the hearth. Prefilled books with the seal of the Library on the spine lined the shelves, colour-coded by subject; his father favoured biographies and histories, and the maroon and blue leather bindings dominated. He'd purchased a dispensation to have a permanent collection in his home, so most of the books would never expire, never fade or go blank again.
There was not a single original hand-copied work in sight. Callum Brightwell gave no hint here that he was anything but a successful importer of goods. He modelled the Far East today, in the form of the red/orange Chinese silk waistcoat he was wearing beneath his jacket.
'Father,' Jess said, and waited for his da to look up and notice him.
It took a few long seconds of Callum's pen moving across the surface of his personal journal before he said, 'Sit, Jess. I'd have a word with you.'
'So Brendan told me.'
Callum laid down his pen and tented his fingers. His desk was a richly carved mahogany thing, with fantastical faces and giant clawed feet that reminded Jess, always, of the Library lions.
Jess took a chair well back from it. His father frowned. He probably thought it was disrespect. Jess would never want to tell him it was bad memories.
'You need to stop this running about,' he said. 'The weather's not fit for loitering about, and besides, I had work for you.'
'Sorry,' Jess said.
'Any idea where my copy of Inventio Fortunata has got off to? I had a client ask for it.'
'No,' Jess lied, though the slight weight of the book beneath his shirt and vest seemed to grow heavier as he did. His father didn't usually care about an individual book, and Jess was always careful to take the ones that weren't on consignment. 'Do you want me to have a look around for it? Probably misfiled.'
'Never mind, I'll sell him something else.' His father pushed his chair back and stood up to pace around the desk. Jess resisted the urge to stand, too. It would seem too wary. He didn't sense danger, but his da was a master at sudden violence. Staying alert was better than signalling weakness. 'It's time for you to start paying your own way, my boy. You're of an age.'
As if he hadn't built up enough credit risking his life his entire childhood. Jess noticed that each step brought his father closer to him, in a roundabout but purposeful way.
'Not going to ask what I'm about, are you? Well played. You're like your brother in that way: both thinkers. Means you're sharp, and that's good. Need a sharp mind out in the cold, cruel world.'
Jess was ready, but even so, his father was faster; he lunged forward, hands gripping the arms of Jess's chair, and loomed over him. For all his sixteen years, all his height and strength, Jess suddenly felt like a gawky ten-year-old again, bracing for a blow.
He willed himself to take it without flinching, but the blow never came. His father just stared at him, close and too personal, and Jess had to steel himself to hold the gaze.
'You don't want the business, that's clear enough,' his father said. 'But then you're not suited to running it, either. You're more like some Scholar. You have ink in your blood, boy, and no help for it. Books will never be just a business to you.'
'I've never failed to do what you asked,' Jess said.
'And I never asked anything of you that I didn't think you could do. If I told you to throw that book you're smuggling under your shirt on the fire, you'd fail me in that, sure enough.'
Jess's hands clenched hard, and he had to work not to shout his answer. 'I'm not a bloody Burner.' He somehow kept it to a calm statement.
'That's my point. Sometimes, in our business, destroying a book to keep from being found out is expedience, not some daft political statement. But you couldn't do it. Not even to save your own skin.' His father shook his head and pushed away. The sudden freedom made Jess feel oddly weak as his da sank back into his desk chair. 'I need to make some use of you. Can't have you sponging off of us like some useless royal for the rest of your life. I spent my coin buying you the best tutors while your brother was earning an honest wage, and I admit, you've done us proud at your studies. But it's time to look to your security.'
It was strange, how the idea of his father's approval made him go hot and cold at the same time. Jess didn't know how to take it, and he didn't know what he was supposed to say. So he said nothing.
'Did you hear me?' Callum Brightwell's voice was unexpectedly soft now, and Jess saw something new in the man's face. He didn't know what it was, but it made him sit back in his chair. 'I'm talking about your future, Jess.'
Jess swallowed a sudden surge of unease. 'What sort of future, if not in the business with you?'
'I've bought you a placement in the Library, provided you make the training.'
'Do me a favour!' His scoffing didn't change his father's expression, not even with a flicker of annoyance. 'You can't be serious. A Brightwell. In the Library.'
'I'm serious, boy. Having a son in Library service could do the clan immense benefit. You go on a few smuggling raids, set a few of those priceless volumes aside, and you'll make us fortunes. You can send us advance word of raids, High Garda strategies, that sort of thing. And you'd have all the books you could ever lay your eyes on, besides.'
'You can't be serious,' Jess said. 'You want me to be your spy?'
'I want you to be our asset - and advocate, maybe, in the dire event the Brightwells should need one. Library rules the world, son. Best to have a seat at that table. Look, you've more spine and cunning than is comfortable for a father. You could do well at many things, but you could do better for your brother inside the Library. Maybe save his life one day.'
Of course, his father would try to play on his heartstrings. 'I'd never pass the entry test.'
'Why do you think I've been paying for those tutors, boy? You'd have to take care to answer only with what any young man your age could learn from the Codex, though. You've got all manner of unlicensed knowledge stuffed in your head. Flaunt it, and they'll do worse to you than send you home disgraced.'
His father really was serious, and Jess's anger faded with that knowledge; he'd never even considered working in Library service. The idea terrified him on one level; he'd never forgotten the trauma of those Library automata, crushing innocents under their paws. But the Library still held everything he'd ever wanted, too. All the knowledge in the world, right at his fingertips.
When he didn't answer, though, his father sighed, and his voice took on an edge of impatience. 'Call it a business deal, boy; it gets you what you crave, and it lends us advantage. Give it an honest go. Fair warning: should you go and give it up, or fail, you'll get nothing else from this family from this day on. Not a penny.'
'And what if I stay here?'
'Then I still can't be feeding and clothing a useless lout who's got no loyalty and no usefulness, now, can I? You'll work for us, or be on the streets that much sooner.'
His father looked hard and unforgiving, and there wasn't any doubt that he meant what he said. Library test, training, and maybe service, or out on his own at the age of sixteen, scraping a living any way he could on the streets. Jess had seen how that served other young men. He didn't want it.
'You're a low kind of man,' Jess said. 'But I've always known that, Da.'
Callum smiled. His eyes were like cold, dry pebbles. 'Is that agreement I hear?'
'Did you really give me a choice?'
His father came forward and dug in his fingers hard enough into Jess's shoulder to leave bruises. 'No, son,' he said. 'That's why I'm good at my business. See you become just as good at yours.'
Buying a placement to Library training was expensive. Most families couldn't afford to dream of something like that; it was a privilege for the filthy rich and the noble. The Brightwells were rich enough, but even so, it was a staggering sum to come up with.
Jess couldn't help the thought that his future had been purchased by Aristo
tle's ancient text, chewed up in that dark carriage when he was ten - another thing he didn't dare put in his personal journal, though he did fill pages with careful, tightly inked script about what it felt like, being put under such pressure to succeed. About how much he both loved and resented the opportunity.
His father paid the fee, and then it was up to Jess. The first step, and in many ways the hardest, was to report to the London Serapeum for the entry test. He'd avoided the place since the day with the lions, and didn't look forward to coming there again. To Jess's relief, he was driven by steam carriage to the public entrance on the west side. There were still a few of the statues, but they were positioned up on pedestals, so he wouldn't have to come eye to eye with them.
He felt safer until he noticed the automaton of Queen Anne, staring down with blank eyes on those trudging up the steps. She held the royal orb in her left hand, and in her right, a golden sceptre pointed down at the heads of those who passed below her pedestal.
She looked eerily human. He had the disquieting feeling that, like the lions, she stood in silent, merciless judgment, and for a giddy moment he imagined her eyes flaring blood-red, and that sceptre slamming down onto his head. Unfit for service.
But she didn't move as he hurried past with the rest of the Library's aspiring postulants.
The test was given in the Public Reading Room's choir stall, and a Scholar robed in black with a silver band on her wrist handed out thin sheets to each of them as they sat down. There were, Jess estimated, about fifty sitting for the test. Most looked terrified, though whether they feared failure or success was open to debate. Failure, most like. They were all richly dressed, and no doubt their futures were riding on their performance. Today's wealthy second son is tomorrow's penniless lout, his father had always said.
The test page on Jess's desk began to fill with text. It was in old Library script, designed to be attractive and ornate, and reading it was half the battle ... but he'd seen and deciphered text far more difficult for fun. The opening questions, while designed to test the limits of a postulant's knowledge, were laughably easy.
He took too much comfort in that, because when the next section came it was much harder, and before long, he began to worry and sweat in earnest. The Alchemical and Mechanical sections tested him to the limits, and he wasn't so certain he did as well on the Medica portion as he'd intended. So much for thinking he would glide through without challenge.