Ash and Quill Read online

  He woke with a start when he heard voices, the dream still vivid and vibrating in his muscles. The sun was well up, and the sky a cloudy teal blue beyond the window bars. No one had arrived to wake them, Jess realized, and there was nothing to eat. His stomach was growling. He also had an urgent need for the toilet. Bucket. Well, he'd made do with worse, and he rose and made use of the thing.

  "Wathen, what in Heron's name are you doing?" That was Wolfe's sharp, annoyed voice, and Jess buttoned up and angled a look over at the cell Glain shared with Khalila. Glain was, bafflingly enough, doing a handstand in the middle of her cell. Perfect balance, as steady as a rock. "Practicing to become Philadelphia's court jester?"

  Glain put her legs down in a smooth, perfectly coordinated move that Jess could in no way have duplicated, stood up straight, and stretched. "It feels good," she said. "Blood to the brain. Helps me think."

  "Did you see anything useful from that position?" Dario asked.

  "Did you, from lying on your oh-so-uncomfortable mattress, lazybones?"

  The young man shrugged, which was a feat considering he was casually leaning a shoulder against the bars and had his arms crossed. "What do you want me to say? It's a cell. There's nothing in here."

  "Dario, you're hopeless," Wolfe said. "Jess. Tell him how he's wrong."

  "Strip the netting under the mattresses. Braid it together, tie it to the window bars, and twist. The torque will unseat at least one of the bars pretty easily. You can use it for a tool, sharpen it up as a weapon . . ."

  "The mattresses are flammable enough to make a decent amount of smoke," Morgan added. "We'd need to be careful to keep it to a distraction. The air circulation isn't very good. Easy to breathe in too much if it gets thick."

  Khalila held up her head scarf and unfolded it with a snap of her hand. "If I weight the two ends with pieces of stone, this makes a perfectly good weapon."

  Dario said, "Fine. You're all much better at dirty fighting and jail survival than I am. But as the Scholar so wisely said, we need to think three moves ahead. Let's assume that we're out of the cells, we've saved our lives from the Burners, we've found a way out of the city. What then? I think we need a way to communicate with whatever allies we have left out there. I don't suppose you've got that answer tucked up your sleeve."

  Jess said, "If they're getting supplies, they must have a smuggling tunnel."

  "Explain," Wolfe said sharply. "Because I'm not allowing you to run blindly out into unknown territory. We must--"

  "They're coming," Santi interrupted him.

  Jess heard footsteps then, and the scrape of the lock turning to the outer door, and was on his feet and at the bars so quickly he might have been spring-loaded. Thomas, by contrast, didn't even move a muscle from where he sat on the edge of his cot--though it was an icy calm that Jess thought hard-won.

  The door gaped open, and three men came in--different ones this time, but with a brawny look that said they were ready for trouble. Khalila, across the way, unhurriedly tied her scarf in place and tucked the edges in to hold it. How she could stay so perfectly clean in these conditions, Jess had no idea, but she wouldn't have looked out of place in her own Library office, despite all they'd been through. Made him feel somewhat better.

  Morgan, on the other hand, looked more like he felt--pale, tired, her hair tangled and badly in need of combing. He wanted to do that for her, run his fingers gently through that riot of silk and curls. Had they come for her? He was afraid that Thomas had been right--Morgan's abilities were a valuable, vanishingly rare resource that the Burners would lock a collar around as sure as the Library had done.

  But they didn't stop at Morgan's cell, which was a temporary relief that vanished as they stopped at Jess and Thomas's barred door and pointed at Thomas. "You there. Come with us." The clipped tone of the guard's accent made the command sound that much more unfriendly. He had pale skin and straw blond hair cropped to a shimmer around his skull, and he'd been in more than one fight; noses didn't get that distorted from just one punch.

  Jess was caught wrong-footed, and it took him a second to realize what it might mean. He turned to look at Thomas, and one glance at the other young man's set face was enough.

  "He's not going anywhere alone," Jess said.

  "Back up, boy."

  "Never happen. You want him, you take us both."

  The guard laughed. "You mean go through you? Not a problem."

  Jess was afraid that assessment was correct. He could fight; his High Garda training had made him efficient, fast, and deadly, and he was confident he could make them bleed. But there were three of them, and he couldn't count on Thomas, who wavered between sudden bursts of violence and crippling fear at the strangest of times. Thomas would probably fight for others. Jess wasn't sure he'd fight to save himself.

  Jess was afraid, but it was a fear he was familiar with, after all the High Garda drills and the horror he'd already survived. An old friend, this kind of fear. Almost a strength.

  "If you make us put you down, you'll go hard," the Burner said. He grinned and revealed an array of jagged teeth as battered and broken as his nose. "Your choice."

  "Gentlemen," Santi said, from the next cell over, and leaned against the bars of the cell he shared with Wolfe. His tone was charming, which meant he was ready to do awful things. "If you want answers, come and get someone who has command rank."

  "Oh, we'll get to you," the man said. He smacked a heavy wooden club in his palm and moved down to look in at Santi. "We'll ask real loud, if you keep it up, booklover."

  "It's funny you think that's an insult. Whereas, I'd rather talk about the misshapen state of your face. Just how many fights did you lose? I think a much greater number than those you won. Are you sure you brought enough friends?"

  The man slammed his club against the bars of Santi's cell, which was a mistake; instead of moving back, Santi must have been ready, and he wrapped his fingers around the club and yanked the man's whole arm inside his cell. The man yelped in pain. Jess couldn't see much, but he heard the clatter of the club as it fell, and Santi must have retrieved it first, because he slammed it against the cell bars, which rang like a struck bell.

  All three of the men on the other side flinched.

  "Now we can talk," Santi said.

  It almost worked, but unfortunately, the tough in charge was smarter than Jess gave him credit for . . . and he backed off, drew a large, crudely forged gun, and pointed it not at Santi, but square at Jess. "Throw it out, Captain," he said. "Now. We don't need all of you; you know that."

  The man cocked the weapon as he spoke. Jess forced a smile. "It's a bluff, Captain," he said. He'd gone cold inside, but he wasn't about to show it. His family had trained him first and well to fight like a cornered rat when there wasn't anywhere to run. "He's not going to shoot. His master would have his hide."

  "Oh, I don't think so. We can afford to lose one or two. Especially those of you wearing Library uniforms. No worth in your hides except to toss you over the wall at our enemies."

  Jess watched the man's finger whiten on the trigger--and then quickly pull away as the club Santi had been holding hit the floor, bounced, and rolled to bump against the man's boot. "All right," Santi said. "Pax."

  "Smart choice." The tough lowered the hammer on the pistol--not Library issue, an American-produced slug-throwing device that undoubtedly would have blown a gruesomely large hole straight through Jess's chest--and put it in a leather holster at his side. "Now, let's start over. You. The big one. Like I said, you're coming with us."

  Jess opened his mouth, but Thomas put a hand on his shoulder and moved him--not unkindly, but firmly--out of the way as he stepped up. He silently turned his back to the bars, which puzzled Jess until he realized it was to allow the men to reach in and snap ratcheted metal shackles around his wrists. He'd obviously been through this process before, many times, while in Library custody.

  Thomas nodded to Jess, blue eyes clear and calm. "I'll be fine," he said, w
hich was a rotten lie.

  Jess tried to think of something to say, and as the key turned, the door opened, and Thomas stepped out, he finally did. "Thomas. In bocca al lupo." It was the phrase that the High Garda used to wish one another luck traveling through the Translation portals, a process that was painful and terrifying and dangerous in equal measure, and it seemed right now. In the mouth of the wolf.

  "Crepi il lupo," Thomas responded as Jess's cell was locked tight, and then he was gone, prodded down the hall and to the outer door and away. Kill the wolf.

  It slammed and locked behind him.

  Jess let out a deeply felt English expletive and knelt to examine the lock as he dug the picks out of their hiding place, deep in the cotton ticking of his mattress.

  "Jess?" Wolfe was watching him with a frown. "Don't."

  "I'm not leaving him on his own!"

  Wolfe made a sound that managed to be completely disgusted. "You'll be shot two steps out the door. Think. I know you're somewhat capable. Thomas has survived far worse than they'll ever do to him here, and he knows his business. He's going to sell Willinger Beck the idea of the press. He's safe enough right now. Beck doesn't want blood."

  "Unlike me," Santi said. "I'm not averse to spilling some."

  "Nic."

  "Jess is right. We need to keep an eye on Thomas."

  "We wait," Wolfe said again. "I've waited in worse places."

  He had. Wolfe had suffered everything Thomas had in Library prisons . . . and for far longer. If anyone had things to fear, it was Christopher Wolfe, who was, at the best of times, bitterly fragile. It took some familiarity to see it; he was masterful at putting on a front. But everyone had a breaking point. Wolfe had passed his, shattered, and somehow painfully patchworked himself back together.

  "We wait," Wolfe said. It sounded firm enough, but there was a hollow sound to his voice. "Until we know more. That's all we can do."

  The wait passed in grueling silence, but Wolfe was right. In a little over three hours, which Jess torturously calculated by the movement of the shadow of the bars on the cell floor, the men were back unlocking Jess's cell door. "You," the ugly one said. "Come on. You're wanted."

  "Seen the reward posters, have you?" he said, and managed a cocky grin, mostly for Morgan's benefit, because she was watching him with a worried frown. "Back soon," he told her, and she nodded.

  "In bocca al lupo," she murmured, and the others repeated it, like a prayer. That nearly knocked the grin off him. Nearly.

  "Crepi il lupo," he said. "Morgan. If I don't come back--"

  "Walk," his guard said, and planted a hand in the center of his back to shove him onward. He stumbled, twisted his knee, and fell hard with his hands grasping the bars of Morgan's cell. "Oh, for the love of God--get up, you clumsy fool!"

  Jess hadn't had a chance to throw a signal, but that didn't matter. Morgan's quick fingers retrieved the lockpicks he'd been holding out stuck between two knuckles, and her touch skimmed light as breath over his skin. That almost stole his breath, and he looked up into her face.

  Into a quick, broken smile.

  He'd wanted her to have them, in case he didn't come back, and she understood that without a word being said. He wanted to say a great deal more to her and was parting his lips to try when he was yanked upright again, and his head slammed hard into unyielding iron to teach him better balance. It didn't have that effect. His knees went weak, and he nearly fell again, this time not on purpose. While he was down, they added manacles to his wrists.

  "Hey, scrubber." He looked up at the sound of Dario Santiago's voice and saw the Spaniard staring at him through the bars of the next cell. Dario didn't look like the pampered, arrogant dandy anymore; he looked like a pirate, with an evil gleam in those dark eyes. "Don't embarrass us. Come back alive. Fetch Thomas while you're at it, eh?" He transferred the look to the guard dragging on Jess's wrists. "You, Burner, feel free to not come back at all. I see you again, friend . . ." He made a lazy little throat-cutting gesture.

  "Lovely," Wolfe said sourly from the far end of the hall. "Leave it to you to make new friends, Santiago." He raised his voice a little. "Brightwell. He's right. Bring yourselves back safe."

  Dear God. Wolfe is worried about us? We are in real trouble.

  A hand shoved hard between his shoulder blades pushed Jess on, and the outer door gaped wide on a square of sunlight so bright it seemed like running face-first into a solid object. It dazed for a few seconds, then comforted as the guards locked up the door behind him and marched him away.

  Pay attention, he told himself, and blinked his prison-adapted eyes back into focus. The building, which so far was devoted solely to their care, was a long, low, unprepossessing block set to one side of a wide public square full of grass and spreading trees that had the shimmering early colors of fall. The arena where they'd been forced to watch books burn lay on his right, and directly in front, on the other side of the park, rose a four-story building of gray stone and French blue accents, all gingerbreaded with thin windows and arches like raised eyebrows. A single tall tower rose at the back of it, topped with a statue: Benjamin Franklin, who'd been a Scholar in the Library, and then left it for the Burners later in life. Patron saint of the city, so they said. They'd destroyed the old statue of William Penn to elevate their own hero.

  Saint Franklin was doing a crap job of it. The town--village, really--of Philadelphia was half in ruins. The city hall in front of Jess was the only building of any size; the rest of the place was cottages and shops that looked cobbled together, and rightly so, because the Library's ballista bombs regularly shattered entire blocks, and with the city starved for resources by the permanent encampments around it, new building materials must have been hard to come by. So the remaining buildings were made of a dangerous hodgepodge of scrap metal, mismatched brick and stone, and patched lumber that managed to have a style all its own. I might not like them, but they're survivors, Jess had to admit. A hundred years they'd held out, against forces that had made short work of taking over entire countries.

  Philadelphia was the defiant, rebellious example the Burners held up to the world. But Jess had a strong suspicion that it was less the Burners' valiant efforts than the Library's own agenda that kept the place alive. The decision had been made long ago to contain them inside their walls and wait them out. The Archivist had many other considerations, and destroying this place must have been lowest on his list.

  The citizens of the town were as individual as the buildings, and their clothing as patchworked, heavily used, and durable. He saw tribal people walking the streets, shoulder to shoulder with fellows of European, African, and Asian descent. Odd, how varied the makeup of the place was, and how well they all seemed to get along. Common enemies, he supposed. And for Burners, this place had to be as much a draw as Alexandria was for would-be Scholars. He'd fully expected Alexandria to be a richly varied city. Somehow, he hadn't expected the same of the Burners.

  The air smelled faintly of ashes coming from the stadium, with the whip of chill on a breeze that rattled leaves. I wonder what they do for heating, Jess thought. Winters must be brutal. Philadelphia survived on raw pride.

  Raw pride and smugglers. The place had to survive on smugglers bringing in food, fuel, weapons, materials. Slipping past the High Garda would be difficult, but difficult was meat and drink to people like his clan, who'd been thumbing their noses at the Library for longer than the family tree had been kept. And the Brightwells had cousins everywhere--by kind, if not by kin. Someone who smuggled into Philadelphia would have at least a passing amount of loyalty to his family. Had to have.

  The question would be who to trust, and how far. Right now, Jess didn't trust anyone except his own friends and fellows.

  "Where are we going?" he asked the guard, though he was fairly sure he already knew. "Is Thomas all right?"

  That didn't even get a look, and that made nerves prick painfully along his back. Thomas had better be in fine shape and good spirits, or so
meone--Willinger Beck, by preference--was going to pay for it in blood.

  The walls that towered around Philadelphia looked as patchwork as its buildings, but something must be extraordinary about them; the Library had Greek fire and other terrible weapons of war, and it would take an Obscurist's reinforcements to build something to stand firm against the constant assault. The Burners must have had at least one once, and a gifted one at that. Thomas is right, Jess thought. They'll take Morgan because they need her. So much she could do for them. Let them try. She was brighter than he was and had run from capture for most of her life. She hadn't allowed the Library to keep her long. The Burners wouldn't have any better luck.

  "Move it," his guard grumbled, and shoved him between the shoulder blades. Jess kept his balance and shot the man a humorless grin.

  "I can run," he said. "If you want to make it a footrace."

  For answer, the guard put a hand on his gun.

  "Understandable that you'd say no. Truthfully, you're in no shape to run against my old, sainted grandmother."

  "Shut up, booklover."

  It was still funny to hear that as an insult.

  Jess set himself to memorizing everything within view--the position of trees, buildings, streets. He'd need to get a closer look at the walls to find any hidden doors. There had to be doors known only to the smugglers and the city's guards. Jess didn't think they'd remain hidden for long if a decent thief--and he was a quite good one--got a chance to take a dedicated look around.

  They marched him straight to city hall, the only remaining building of any elegance. It wasn't immune to the war; he could see places where the granite had been melted and deformed, where walls had been smashed and cobbled back together. But it held a kind of rigid, gritty nobility, especially today, with a clear, breakable blue sky arching over it. The tower, impossibly enough, was still intact. A remnant of a better time.

  "So what's behind this?" Jess asked. "Come on. It isn't like I can't find out for myself with a look out a window."

  "Fields," said one of them. Interesting. The people of Philadelphia grew enough, then, that they tried not to rely solely on the good graces of the smugglers. That was understandable.