And a walk in the dark with her, however brief? Irresistible.
There was a minor argument with the two guards who'd been left to secure the prison, and who didn't look too happy to have their guests leaving again. They'd only just got settled, and one was halfway through his cold, meager dinner. Diwell, Jess realized. "You're not going anywhere," Diwell said flatly. "Not until we're relieved."
"Which will be when?" Khalila asked. She'd carefully washed the ink stains from her hands. She'd also made Dario mop up the drips from the cone, which might not have been fair, but it had been dead amusing. "Our friend needs to go back to the doctor's home to tend Captain Santi."
"Don't care," Diwell said. He took a bite of stale bread and stared at them as he chewed. The look in his eyes said he personally blamed them for the quality of his meal. "You wait."
"How long?"
For answer, the other guard-older, calmer-simply drew his gun and rested it on his knee. He didn't even get up from his comfortable sitting position.
Jess let out a frustrated sigh. "All right," he said. "We wait."
They did, impatiently. Morgan was looking up, craning her head back, and Jess did the same. It was dizzying. The lights of Philadelphia were thin and weak, and the stars shone so brightly that they seemed to fill the sky. The night had a weight to it, and a pull.
"Beautiful," Morgan said.
Dangerous, he thought, but he didn't say it. She was right. He was just trained to look for the danger in everything. "Morgan, I meant what I said before. Please. Be careful."
"I am," she said. "But there are things only I can do. You know that. Wolfe-"
She broke off, as if she shouldn't have said his name, and Jess looked down at her sharply. She continued to stare at the stars, willfully ignoring the question in his eyes.
"He's got you doing something other than healing Santi," he said.
"That's my own business." She lowered her gaze to meet his, and why, why did she have to be so stubborn? But he knew the answer to that . . . because all her life, it had kept her alive. Kept her free.
"I'm asking you to tell me."
It was, he thought, because he asked that she finally said, "I offered Master Beck something to satisfy him when I couldn't reactivate the Translation Chamber. I told him I could increase the yield of their crops."
"Can you do that?"
"Oh yes," she said. "I didn't, but it gave me an excuse to walk through the fields by the wall and find a protected spot in the wall where I could begin to weaken it. The Obscurist who put up the wall generations ago was strong. It takes time and concentration, but-"
"Can you bring it down?" he asked her.
"No. But I can remove the protections that keep it from melting under Greek fire and other kinds of attacks. If I succeed, I can make it vulnerable."
"Enough for Thomas to finish the job." Jess sighed. He felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. He didn't like the moving parts of this plan, didn't like the ifs and maybes. "Morgan-how hard is this for you?"
"Not bad," she said, and he was almost sure she was lying. That she'd lost weight since he'd seen her in the morning. That the shadows beneath her eyes-in her eyes, too-were darker than they should have been. "Jess. Wolfe's right. We need at least two ways out of here. Three, if we can manage it. But if I can help . . ."
"We can find a way for you to help without destroying yourself."
She reached up a hand, put it on his cheek, and looked into his eyes. A serious, steady regard. "We all take risks," she said. "This one's mine." The coolness of her skin shocked him, and he curled his fingers around her wrist. Her pulse beat fast under the skin, but it seemed to be providing her little warmth.
///
So he wrapped his arms around her to share some of his own. She sighed, as if it was a major relief, and for just a few moments, there weren't greater issues, or worries, or plans.
Just the two of them, under the stars.
Then the guard change arrived, and Diwell and the older man gladly departed. In their place came Indira, and another man whose ancestry looked drawn from the same part of the world as Dario's. Spaniards had helped colonize the American colonies and still claimed Mexico and beyond. Made sense there'd be some here.
Indira didn't look especially pleased to see them lingering outside. She directed that displeasure at Thomas. "What are you doing here?"