"I can understand heat, but how do you cool air down? Ice?"
"Chemicals," Thomas said. "There are some that freeze things. I suppose blowing air over a mixture of them might do the trick. I never thought of it before." He seemed thoughtful, distracted by the question. That was good. He even seemed strong enough to take the stairs alone, though with Santi's watchful support at the ready.
The cool air wasn't the only marvel. The lights were made of clear glass globes with glowing centers that seemed like trapped starlight. And they were everywhere . . . hanging from chains overhead, powering lamps sitting on tables. When he reached out to touch the nearest lit glass, it scorched his fingers as if he'd put them in an open flame. He felt like an idiot.
"It's powered by electricity," Morgan said. "The heat's a by-product."
"I didn't think electricity could be used for illumination! I thought it was just a party trick, of no real useful application."
"One of a great many things we've been taught that isn't true," she said. "Don't be fooled by all the wonders. It's a pretty prison. Still a prison."
Gregory was already proceeding down another round of stairs ahead of them, and they had to hurry to catch up. Khalila seemed as fascinated as Jess with what they were seeing, though far less willing to risk skin in experimentation. She dropped back to chat with Thomas, and they had an animated conversation about the wonders of the square lifting device, quite like a small room on tracks, that rose and fell, carrying people from one floor of the tower to another. Electrical as well, Jess gathered from the densely technical discussion. Jess was used to the ever-present sound of steam pumps; it had been the constant heartbeat of London, and even in Alexandria the hiss of them was never far away. But here . . . here the power they used gave it an eerie, calm silence.
They arrived at a floor near the middle of the tower, and Gregory led them through a closed door. A central hallway ran straight through, bisecting the circle, and on each side of it lay more closed doors. "There," he said. "One for everyone. Choose your own; they're all equally well appointed, with full baths and fine beds. You've even got a window in each, though I would recommend against trying to open them. Or break them."
"Are we to be locked in?" Santi asked.
"Certainly not. You're free to come and go as you like. Explore the Tower. Just don't try to leave." His gaze swept over them and fixed on Jess. "We have sphinx guards downstairs. Ours do not turn off. Nor are they susceptible to rewritten scripts. Their behavior is etched into their metal bones." He checked an elaborately gilded clock that graced an alcove in the center of the hall, between two of the rooms. "Dinner will be downstairs in an hour. Morgan can show you the way. There are bells in your rooms. Pull them if you require anything. Someone will be on duty no matter the hour." Gregory smiled, and for the first time he looked less than friendly. It was not a pleasant change. "Morgan. After dinner, I will expect you back in your own room."
She nodded, but said nothing. They watched as the Obscurist left and made his way down the stairs, and waited until he was gone before Jess walked to the door they'd entered and shut it. There was no lock to keep Gregory out. He wasn't overly surprised.
"Morgan?" Wolfe was looking at the girl now, turning her to face him. "I know Gregory. I know what he does. Do you want to talk to me?"
"No," she said. "You can't help me, can you?"
He seemed to consider that for a moment. "We'll see about that. Nic? Do you have a preference for a room?"
"One that isn't inside this damned tower?" Santi chose a door at random and swung it open. Stopped and seemed to reconsider. "Or . . . I suppose I might grow accustomed." The room, Jess realized as he craned to look, was enormous and luxurious, and the bed looked more lushly comfortable than anything he'd ever seen. Surely even kings didn't sleep that well.
Jess opened the door across the hall. It was a mirror image, just as rich. The fabrics were muted golds and crimsons, and the floor was covered with a carpet so soft it felt like stepping on pillows.
Morgan said, "The rooms are all fine. He wasn't lying about that."
He turned and found that she was already inside and closing the door behind her.
Alone. Alone. It suddenly hit him like a fist to the gut that he had Morgan to himself and their friends would, perhaps, understand enough to leave them their privacy.
But probably not.
There were no locks on the doors. That was going to bother him a great deal, he realized. He searched for some way to jam his door shut, but found nothing.
When he turned back, Morgan silently came into his arms. She didn't speak, so he didn't, either, afraid to break this fragile truce between them. And then she began to cry.
He held her closer, wrapped in a protective hug. Her grief was a storm, and it sounded agonizing and hopeless to him, and went on until he worried she might be lost in it. "Hey. Hey. You're safe, understand? Morgan!"
"No," she said, and grabbed the inner edge of the gold collar around her neck. She pulled at it with sudden viciousness, and he winced as he saw it bite into her skin. "I'm trapped here, don't you see it? Of course you don't. All you can see are the pretty flowers and the beautiful rooms, but that's just paint over something rotten. I'd rather die than lose my will and be one of them, Jess. I'm not afraid of dying!"
She meant it, and it stunned him. He kept holding her, not sure how thin the ice was he was standing on. "Do you want to tell me what scares you so badly?"
"They--" She seemed to want to answer, but he could feel the frustration, too. As if she couldn't find the words. "I don't think you'd understand."
"Try."
"They give us examinations," she said then, and he felt her shudder from the memory. "Chart our monthly cycles. And when they think we are ready to conceive, they . . ."
His throat felt dry now and hot with anger. She was right: this was unfamiliar territory to him. He'd not grown up with sisters, and his mother had always been a distant visitor in his life. He had no real reference for these things. "They match you?"
"Yes." She looked up at him. "When I ran away to see you, I avoided the day they'd marked out for me to be matched. But, Jess, I won't be able to avoid that again now."
"Then you can fight!" he told her. "You've never been afraid to fight!"
"I've seen what happens when you fight. My friend . . ." She took in a deep breath, held it, and let it out. "I'm sorry, Jess. I didn't mean to . . . I'm just so angry. And frightened."
"I won't let anything happen to you," he said, which was a foolish thing to say, and from the look she gave him--half-grateful and half-pitying--she knew it.
"Don't," she said, and put her hand on his cheek. "Don't. Just say you'll be here for me now."
"I will. I am."
"Then kiss me."
He did, and tasted tears and sweetness on her lips. It was a long, gentle kiss, and not entirely innocent of passion.
Morgan suddenly broke the kiss and put her forehead against his. The moment snapped him back to reality and it physically hurt inside, like something stabbing deep. She leaned back and her eyes met his and held, and it hurt worse. He didn't move. They had a history of this, of finding each other and being torn apart by words or deeds, and he didn't want it to happen. Not now. Not tonight.
He rested his fingertips on her Obscurist's collar, this awful, beautiful thing, and it felt warm as blood to the touch; heat from her body or some kind of process within the gold, he didn't know. "Morgan," he said. "You don't have to make this choice. It's not me or the Iron Tower. You don't have to--to pretend to love me to make me help you get out of here."
"Is that what you think about me? That I'm paying you off?" She was angry. Hot spots of color darkened her cheeks, and now she pulled away from him completely and stood up with her hands clenched at her sides. "That I'm selling myself to you? I thought you understood me, Jess. I thought you understood how I felt!"
He held up both hands in a plea for peace. "I meant only that it doesn't ha
ve to end with you settling for something you don't really want. Even if I want it."
"You're an idiot!" She grabbed a pillow from the bed and flung it at him.
He caught it. "Apparently!"
"I'm not going to sleep with you just to get out of being matched in the Tower, if that's what you're thinking!"
There was a ringing moment of silence after that, and he stared into her suddenly wide eyes.
"Would that work?" he asked her. "If you did, would it--"
"Get out!" she yelled at him, and picked up another pillow.
"Morgan, it's my room--"
"Out!"
He was too angry, too hurt, too full of stupid pride, to argue with her.
And he slammed the door behind him on the way out and went to Thomas's room.
Thomas was standing in his doorway, and with one look at Jess, stepped back and let him inside.
"I propose chess," he said. "There's a board in the room."
That was nearly as perfect an answer to his problems as Jess could imagine.
EPHEMERA
From the personal journal of Morgan Hault I've done everything wrong. Everything. It's all coming apart. It's all my fault. I thought I could make everyone safe, and I thought that Jess . . . that we could patch our differences and find each other again. Even if most of that separation was from me, because I was afraid to be hurt again.
But he doesn't understand me at all. And I hurt Sybilla. I left her behind when I'd promised to help her, too. I ran without even thinking about what that would mean for her. I ran to Jess, and then I didn't dare get close to him, and now . . . now everything is in ruins.
I'll be trapped here. Maybe I should accept what fate writes down for me. Maybe Dominic will be a kind partner to me. Maybe one day I'll be as contented and bland as Rosa, and believe every lie shoveled into my face.
I hope they kill me before I become just another broodmare for the Library's futile attempt to cling to its past.
Damn you, Jess, for making me hope it could be any different.
And thank you, too.
I still love you. As unwise as that is.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Mate," Thomas said, and moved his knight into position. Jess groaned and tipped his king. It was his third straight game lost, but he at least felt somewhat steadier and a good deal more levelheaded.
"Let's not use that term anymore," Jess said. "Just say, I win."
Thomas raised his eyebrows and smiled a little--the best that Jess had seen from his friend since finding him in that cell. "All right. You know, as much as I enjoy this strange new feeling of winning against you, you should go back and talk to Morgan."
"Not yet," Jess said. "She'd only throw another pillow at me. Or something more damaging."
"I understand why she's angry. What are you angry about?"
What was it, exactly? He didn't know, except that he was angry at everything suddenly. Angry for Morgan, but angry at her, too. Stupidly. It didn't even make sense. "She thinks I'm taking advantage."
Thomas's eyebrows rose to a ridiculous level, wrinkling his forehead like an old man's. "Are you, Jess?"
"How can you even ask me?"
"Your motives are completely pure, then?"
Jess glared at him. "Set the board, Thomas."
"You sound like Dario just now, you know."
"Are you trying to insult me?"
"Only a little." He outright grinned this time, and Jess smiled back. With months of grime washed down the drain and his hair drying to puffball brightness, Thomas looked almost like his old self. He had some spark back in his eyes. But the grin faded too quickly. "She's trapped here. I know how that feels. Now you begin to see it, too, how being helpless twists us around."
"It didn't twist you," Jess said. "You've done very well."
Thomas's expression didn't alter. "It seems so, maybe. But I'm not the same. She's not. Her confinement isn't like mine, but don't let the soft bars fool you. Taking someone's will, someone's freedom . . . it kills the heart and then the soul."
"It didn't kill yours."
Thomas said nothing this time. He set up the board, white and black, and waited for Jess to make a move.
Jess didn't have a chance, because a knock came at the door. He was hoping for Morgan, but when Thomas swung it open, Khalila stood on the other side. She glanced quickly at them both and said, "We have to attend dinner now. I don't think they gave us a choice."
"See?" Thomas said to Jess. "So it begins. The little deaths of freedom."
They stepped out into the hall. Khalila stood quite alone, and Jess wasn't sure if her arms were simply crossed or if she was hugging herself for comfort. He knew what she was thinking and feeling, because he'd felt it himself when Morgan had been taken away. At least he'd known where she was and who'd taken her.
Dario was just . . . gone. Vanished. And there was no way to know if he was alive, free, imprisoned, dead. All Khalila could do was hope . . . and hope was difficult, knowing what they all knew about the Library now. He's a smart one, Jess told himself again. Connections, money, friends . . . he'll be all right. He wanted to say that to Khalila but knew how useless it would sound.
When she looked up and saw him, she forced a smile and said, "I was just thinking about my family."
That stopped him. Why had he just assumed she'd be pining uselessly after Dario? Was it because he was so caught up in his own thoughts of Morgan? "Your family?" He knew he sounded surprised. "Why? Are they all right?"
"I don't know," she said. "I've betrayed everything they believe in. Worse than that, I've so many Scholars in the family. Will they be all right, Jess? Do you think the Library will punish them for what I've done?"
"No," he said. "Of course not."
"I hope not." The desolation in her voice hurt. He remembered her proud uncle, escorting her on the train to Alexandria, and the constant messages she'd received from her father and mother and siblings and cousins. Khalila's life was full of love, and the decisions she'd made may have cut her off from that love. Would she have done that if he hadn't come to her with his mad speculations and schemes?
Another knife cut of guilt slicing a piece of his heart away. He had no answers for her, nothing but a whispered, "I'm sorry," which was no comfort. He wished she had been thinking of Dario. It would have been a simpler subject, an easier answer. This cut to the core of who Khalila was.
She made the choice, some part of him said, but he hated that he thought it. Of course she had. That didn't make it all right. In some ways, it only made it worse.
While Jess stood helpless, Thomas walked directly to Khalila and wrapped her in a hug that lifted her off her feet. After a second of surprise, she put her arms around him--as far as they would stretch--and put her head on his broad shoulder.
"I would be dead if not for you," he told her. "I would be dead to everything and everyone I knew if you hadn't come for me. All of you. Don't think I will ever forget what you've done for me."
"I had to," she said. "I was glad to."
"Even so," he said. "If you lose your family, I will be your family. Always."
She took a deep breath and said, "Thank you. Now put me down, you lumbering bear."
He laughed a little and put her back on her feet. "Sorry. It's like picking up a tiny bird. You should eat more."
"So should you," she said. Her smile was back. So was the light in her eyes. It's remarkable, Jess thought, that Thomas can do that. He had so much light inside him that it warmed those around him. "Will you be my escort to dinner?"
"I will," Thomas said gravely, and offered her his arm, like an ancient country gentleman. She put her hand lightly on it.
Jess was laughing at them, but it stopped quickly as Morgan opened the door of his room and their eyes met. He nodded to her warily. She nodded back. Her eyes looked red and swollen, but there were no tears now. And no forgiveness, either.
He was still considering what to say to her when the door to Wolfe a
nd Santi's room opened and the two men stepped out. Wolfe gave them all a dour glance and said, "What are you waiting for?" as he pushed past and opened the door at the end of the hallway. Santi followed, and then Khalila and Thomas.
Jess cleared his throat and gestured, and Morgan preceded him out.
It didn't really feel like peace.
Somehow Jess had expected a small, private room that would have been set aside for them, but instead the dining room of the Iron Tower was a large, open space filled with many, many tables and groups gathered at nearly every one. Most of those in the room fell silent and turned toward them as they entered, and Jess had an instinctive defensive reaction until Morgan murmured, "They never see new faces here. You're novelties."
Novelties. He felt Thomas flinch, saw Morgan avert her eyes, and it made him even angrier. We're not your entertainment, Jess wanted to shout. He began to have a small inkling of what Morgan's life might be like here, being the rebellious outcast in what seemed to be a group of true believers.
Morgan, gaze down, wasn't looking at any of the other tables, but they were all staring . . . and whispering and pointing. A young girl rose from a nearby table and walked toward them. She couldn't have been more than sixteen and had an unpleasantly smug look on her face, but what drew Jess's attention was the rounded swell of her stomach beneath her dress. It took him a long moment to comprehend what that meant, and then he shot a fast, unguarded look at Morgan. Her face--what he could see from this angle--had set into a bland mask.
"Sister Morgan!" the girl almost purred, and extended both hands as if she expected Morgan to grasp them in welcome. "We're so glad you decided to rejoin us. We missed you!"
She managed to make it look like her own idea to clasp her hands in excitement and pull them back when Morgan didn't take the hint. Her smile turned brittle and a little vile. The silence stretched . . . and then Morgan said, "Rosa, we're tired and hungry. Please excuse us."
It was bare courtesy, and Rosa couldn't have missed it, but she somehow managed to hang on to that smile and put both hands now on the curve of her stomach. "The baby's started to kick. Do you want to feel it?"