'Open it.'
'Perhaps you should go back to your cabin--'
'Open it!' When she didn't, he grabbed for her wrist, pulled her forward, and put her hand on the compartment door.
The red warning light continued to flash. Gretel pulled free.
'I can't,' she said. 'Only the highest-ranking person on the train can open it now. Scholar Wolfe.'
Jess wanted to hit her, but that wouldn't do any good either, and so he hit the door again. Hard. The material looked like wood, but it felt like steel.
'Jess!' Thomas grabbed his arms and held him back. 'Stop! What's wrong with you?'
'Morgan,' Jess panted. 'Morgan's in there. She's--'
The red light stopped pulsing, and the door's handle turned.
Wolfe and Santi stepped through. One look at their faces, and Jess knew.
Santi was holding a thin, gold figure of eight of wire, sealed in the middle. Jess stared at it until his eyes ached.
'She managed to open one of the doors,' Wolfe said quietly. 'She left this behind.'
'She jumped?' Khalila's voice sounded puzzled, as if she couldn't work it out. 'But how could she survive at this speed? We're going so ... so fast ...'
Jess heard the change in her voice, the sudden tremor, as it hit her. Hit them all.
'I'm sorry,' Wolfe said again.
'You're sorry.' Glain's voice sounded icy with contempt. 'Again.'
Jess didn't turn to look, but he heard her walk away and slam her cabin door. Khalila had turned away, and Jess thought that she'd found comfort, again, in Dario's arms.
Thomas tried to talk to him. Jess just pushed past him.
Reset the board and keep playing.
He wanted to laugh at himself for being so stupid. He wanted to scream until his throat bled.
As he opened the door of his cabin, he heard Wolfe tell Santi, 'Make sure he's all right. He'll take it better from you.'
Wolfe was wrong about that. Jess wouldn't take it from anyone. He'd had enough of these people. All of them.
Before Santi could get to him, he stepped inside and shut the door, then locked it.
It was dark inside, but he didn't want lights. He wanted the black. The silence. He remembered where the bed was, on his left, and walked over to sink down on it.
'Jess.'
It was barely a whisper, and for a second he thought it was in his head. That he'd gone that mad, that he was imagining her voice now.
'Jess.'
Something inside him went very, very still. He wasn't imagining it. He couldn't be. 'Morgan?'
'I tried to make them think I jumped,' she whispered. She was sitting on the bed, curled up in the corner. He could feel the warmth of her now. Smell the lavender of the soap she'd used in the shower. 'Did it work?'
The relief came in a rush, and hard on the heels of it, the grim understanding. She'd used him. She'd led a trail for him, hinted at ending it all, pointed him at Wolfe to deliver the message. 'Oh yes. Worked a treat. They think you're a smear of blood on the tracks. So did I.'
'Jess--'
'How'd you get the restraints off?'
'It took some time, but I figured out how to get into the formula,' she said. 'The door wasn't hard, once I knew how to do that.'
'And then you hid in the one place you knew I wouldn't come looking for you. You needed me to be desperate so Wolfe would believe it. You wanted me to think you were dead.'
'Jess!'
'It's all right,' he said. He knew she'd believe him, because he was a very good liar. 'You can stay here. Once we're all off the train, you can find some way off. Just keep running. You must be good at it by now.' He swallowed hard, and said exactly what had hurt him the most. 'You used me.'
'Jess!'
He stopped. He sat in silence, in the dark, and listened to her breath. It sounded fast, raw, and wounded. When her hand touched him, he flinched, as if she'd burnt him. He shut his eyes, like a scared child in the dark, trying to shut her out, but he already knew he couldn't do it, no matter how much he wanted.
It had hurt so much when he'd thought she was gone, and so much more when she realised how she'd played him for a fool.
But he wanted her to touch him so badly his whole body ached for it. Stupid, stupid, because he shouldn't feel that way. She'd done the same thing to him every other person he'd begun to care about in his life had done: used him for their own purposes. His da, running him on the streets. His brother, using him as cover. He'd had to trade a book to his cousin for his life. Even Wolfe had only really wanted him for his family connections.
Somehow, he hadn't expected it from her. Should have, though. He should hate her. He should want to walk away. Why can't I walk away from her?
Her fingers touched his cheek, and traced warmth on his skin. Behind his eyes, gold flashes sparked and flared and spun, and he felt his heart running fast, like an animal trying to escape.
'I'm sorry for doing that to you,' she whispered, and she was so close now he felt her breath on his neck. 'I'm so sorry.'
When she kissed him, it felt like an endless, weightless fall. Her lips warmed and softened and parted, and he got lost in the taste of her mouth, darkly spicy and sweet. His blood was thundering through his veins, and all he wanted, all he needed was to touch more of her.
It was so dark, and so bright, and he knew it was wrong.
Somehow, he pulled back from the drowning sensation of her mouth, and sat back. He felt her start to reach out for him, but her fingers fell away as they brushed his shirt.
'I'm sorry,' she said again, and he could tell that she was crying now, a broken sound. 'I had to, Jess. Please don't blame me for it. I want to - I want to stay, but I can't go back. I can't be locked away. You can't want that for me.'
He didn't. God help him.
'You can stay,' he said. 'I won't tell them.'
He didn't speak again. He stripped off his boots and stretched out on his bed, fully clothed. He left room for her. After a long moment, she carefully laid herself down on her side behind him, feverishly warm but not touching him at all until she reached out and put a hand on his arm.
'Thank you,' she whispered.
He said nothing. He didn't sleep for a long time, long after he heard her breathing change, slow, relax. Long after her body shifted and pressed against his.
Then, finally, he shut his eyes and let himself drift away.
It was still ink-dark, and Morgan was curled against him, when he opened his eyes and tested himself. This might be a dream. Just one of those dreams that make things so much worse when you wake up and find out she's dead and this was all just your mind playing tricks.
But his side ached like he'd drenched it in Greek Fire, and that, more than anything else, convinced him that he hadn't just dreamt it. He'd moved in his sleep, and was now on his back. Morgan's hair had spilt heavy over his chest, and he breathed in the scent of it. His hand stroked slowly down her arm, and he felt her wake up. It felt comfortable ... strange, but comfortable.
And a hateful little voice whispered deep inside that she'd set him to trick Wolfe, and she was doing the same thing now. Making him believe something that couldn't be true. Making him believe she cared. Doesn't matter, he told that part of him. If she doesn't end up with a collar on her neck, locked in a tower, it doesn't matter how much she lies to me. It's all that matters. She should be free, whatever it costs.
He felt a sudden odd lurch run through the metal around them. Then another one.
Morgan raised her head. 'Something's wrong,' she said. 'Did you feel--'
The train screamed, and everything began to slide.
A red light flashed on, off, on, and in the light Jess saw that things were moving inside the cabin, moving as if gravity had stopped. Every flash of the light, the things were in a different spot, but he couldn't really feel the motion any more.
And then, it was nothing but motion. He was weightless, tumbling off the bed and slamming into the wall, and he had to bite
back a scream as pain sheeted through him. Morgan fell next to him, and braced herself with outstretched arms above his head to keep from sliding into him as the train continued to shriek.
Not the train. The brakes, Jess realised. A scream of burning metals that were never meant to burn together like this, at this speed. The train lurched, let go, lurched again. He could hear shouts from other rooms now.
With one more massive jolt, the train squealed to a halt, and he coughed as he caught a breath of acrid smoke. Something was burning underneath.
He turned his head to look for Morgan, but it had gone dark again, and he couldn't see her, but her warmth was still beside him. He could hear her gasp for breath, and cough on it. 'Are you all right?'
'Yes,' she said. 'We stopped.'
The Alexandrian Express never stopped.
One of the glows flickered on above the bed, and for the first time, Jess saw her. She looked frantic and grim.
'Why did we stop?' Morgan handed him the heavy, still-bloodstained boots he'd worn in Oxford.
'No idea.' He jammed his feet into them. Her shoes were in the corner. She was just snapping the catches shut when the train jerked hard, again, and it was good that he was sitting on the edge of the bed now and braced, because it might have thrown him even more violently than before. Morgan slid forward, and he grabbed her around the waist to brace her. She sent him a quick, all-too-fleeting smile. 'Stay here. Stay out of sight. They still think you're dead, so whatever you do, don't let them see you.'
She leant her forehead against his for an instant. 'Take care of yourself, Jess. Please. Please.'
He knew she was telling him goodbye. This was her chance. Her chance to disappear into the dark outside this train, to find a safe haven somewhere far away where the Library would never find her.
He wanted to go with her. It was a nice dream, and he let himself have it for the length of the kiss that followed, fierce and sweet and promising things that he knew would never be.
Kisses could lie as well as words.
He turned the light off again on his way out the door.
EPHEMERA
Ciphered message sent via Codex. Sender and recipient both erased in a manner that indicates tampering from within the Library.
The Alexandrian Express departs soon from London. Wolfe is on board. Take him alive and he will answer all your questions.
Handwritten message from the Artifex Magnus to the Archivist, sealed and sent to the Black Archive. Marked for immediate disposal.
All the pieces are in place. Wolfe is on the train; you were right that he would try to protect the girl. It's a pity about her. We could have used another powerful Obscurist, but she was clearly going to be hard to make useful. All that's left is to blame the Burners.
They've been told where to find the prize, and they will be in place. With any luck, they will all be destroyed.
I hope you know what you're doing, crossing the Obscurist Magnus in this; it's not just the girl she's losing, after all. She might never forgive you. Or me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
If the Alexandrian Express hadn't been the best, most advanced piece of machinery in the world, built to carry no less than the Archivist Magister, they likely would have all been dead. Jess had said it himself: nothing but a smear of blood on the tracks. As it was, the train looked oddly twisted out of shape, and he could feel the engines labouring unsteadily under the corridor floor. Jess looked out the windows as he stepped out of his room, but it was dead of night outside, and nothing visible but hills and trees.
Dario emerged at almost the same moment. He had put on his boots and pants, but he'd never got to his shirt. It made him look even more piratical, as did the gun in his hand.
'Burners?' Dario asked. Jess shook his head, because he didn't know, although it was a decent guess. 'Where's your gun?'
'I turned over my pack. It should be in the rear of the train with the rest.'
'Good thing for you I kept a gun, then,' Dario said, and grinned. He seemed to love this, which made Jess want to hit him very hard. 'Come on, let's make sure the others are all right.'
A door opened on Jess's left. It was Khalila, who'd either taken the time to put on her headscarf or hadn't yet removed it. She seemed calm and unhurt, and like Dario, she held a gun. Was I the only one not to stay armed? Jess thought.
Thomas, who came pelting through the doors that separated the cars, looked rumpled and unkempt; he was also unarmed, which made Jess feel a little less foolish. 'All okay?' he asked. They nodded. 'Glain has hit her head. Wolfe is seeing to her, but he told me to take you all to the lounge. Gretel says it is the most secure place.'
That seemed simple enough, until Dario turned to head that direction, and the door in front of him opened to reveal a stranger - no Library uniform, and the man was armed with a gun of his own.
'Stop!' Dario shouted. The other one - the Burner, Jess assumed - did, but only for an instant. He lunged forward, low and fast, and Dario's shot went wild.
Khalila's did not. She braced herself, aimed, and hit the Burner with one shot, right in the chest. The sound was shockingly loud in the enclosed space, loud enough to set up a ringing in Jess's deadened ears like bells.
Khalila calmly walked over to the man she'd shot and crouched down to press her fingers to his neck. 'Dead,' she said. She slid his gun over to Jess, and he picked it up. His ears were still ringing, but he could make out what she said. 'He won't be the only one.'
'Is he a Burner?' Dario asked.
'I don't know. But he meant to kill us.'
Jess checked the doorway to the next carriage. Beyond the door, the dining room seemed empty, though darkened, and Jess took the lead forward. Chairs and tables were broken and scattered, white tablecloths slumped in tangles, crystal broken and crunching underfoot. Jess was glad he'd had the foresight to put on his boots. Something moved ahead, and Jess stopped, planted his feet, and aimed. It was just a shadow, and then he blinked, and saw it was Gretel, the train attendant. Bloody, and injured. He lowered the weapon and moved to her to help her up, and silently passed her back to Dario, who took charge of her.
There was no one else in the dining hall. He checked the exterior door; it was unlocked. 'Gretel,' Jess said. 'How do I lock this?'
'You can't,' she said. 'Someone sabotaged the outer locks. That girl. The one who jumped.'
Morgan. But she couldn't have known about this, could she? Not about an attack. She'd only wanted to make Wolfe think she'd died. She wouldn't risk their deaths like this.
He didn't believe it. Wouldn't.
'I'll keep watch,' Khalila said. 'Go.'
'What about the train driver?' Dario asked. 'Should we find him?'
'There is no driver,' Gretel said, and swiped at the blood dripping from a cut on her forehead. 'We don't need one.'
'High Garda?'
'No, they were not assigned this time. Only when the Archivist is travelling.'
'I am less impressed with this train now,' Dario said. 'Given that we will probably all die on it.'
'Dario,' Khalila said. 'Shut up.'
'Yes, desert flower.' His voice became serious. 'Will you be all right here?'
'I will be fine,' she said. 'You missed, remember. I didn't.'
'You might want to give her that one,' Jess said. 'Come on, Dario.'
The two of them went to the next door. The lounge was still closed. Jess leant against the wall for a second, listening to the fast hammer of his pulse battling against the booming hiss in his ears, and then looked quickly through the cracked door to see the inside of the lounge.
It was full of rough-looking men, all armed.
'They're coming,' Jess said. Dario rolled one of the heavy, tilted tables up to block the door and fired through the glass at the men on the other side.
'Other way,' Khalila said. 'To the back. We need to find Wolfe and Santi.'
'What do they want?' Dario asked. 'They can't be here for us. We don't matter!'
'I
t's the Archivist's train,' Khalila said. 'At a guess, they want him. They will be very upset to find he isn't here.'
Once they were through, Jess didn't know how to lock the carriage door to the dining car, but he did the next best thing; he destroyed the controls with a shot after closing it, and then ducked into Dario's room and wrenched a piece of metal from the top of the wall, which he jammed tight in the gap of the door's track. That would slow them down.
They went quickly through the silent bedroom carriages. Jess's door was still shut. He moved on past more cabins marked with their assigned inhabitants. Santi's remaining soldiers had been bunked two to a room, which Jess supposed came as no real surprise; they were used to sleeping rougher than mere students, especially those who'd been wounded.
He passed Wolfe's door, still closed. And Santi's open.
Wolfe and Santi. Still surprising.
Ahead was the compartment that still had the bloody imprints of Jess's knuckles on it. The compartment where Wolfe had locked him out. As he came closer, it opened.
Scholar Wolfe stood there. 'Inside,' he said. 'Move.'
Once the three of them were in, Wolfe touched his gold band to the symbol on the inside of the door. The lock clicked shut with a thick hiss and hum.
'Keep going!' Wolfe said. 'Get to the baggage room at the rear. Thomas, find yourself a weapon when you arrive. The rest of you, extra points for preparation.'
'Is there an exit?' Jess asked.
Wolfe's gaze didn't turn from the locked door as he motioned them on towards the back of the train. 'Yes,' he said. 'But whether or not we can use it will depend on the situation. Go, I said!'
Santi and his soldiers were gathered in the back with Glain. She was sitting up, her head wrapped in a bloodstained white bandage, and she looked sick enough to drop. Concussion, Jess assumed. Probably not a broken skull or she'd have been on the floor instead of sitting with a pistol in her hands.
'All here?' Santi asked, and answered his own question as he quickly scanned faces and checked them off his mental list. 'Burners destroyed the track ahead, and judging from the last lurch the train took, they fired the tracks after we passed. We're trapped here. Library troops have been sent from the nearest available base with a commander I can trust. Toulouse.'