Ash and Quill(13)

Thomas nodded to Jess, blue eyes clear and calm. "I'll be fine," he said, which 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.


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"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.