"I thought you were asleep, sir."
"I'm not a sir. My people don't have royalty. And I never sleep long. Too much to do." The doctor plucked another book from the shelves-a small green one-and smiled at it like an old friend. "You're shocked by my collection?"
"Delighted," Jess said. "I think all houses should be stuffed with books. It makes them-"
"Homes?" the doctor finished. "You are quite the heretic, for someone in a Library uniform."
"Guilty."
"Then take the book. Read it. If it pleases you, keep it. I love for them to find good homes." The doctor studied him with a sharpness at odds with the yawns. "Did that Obscurist girl tell you that Beck asked her to join us?"
"What?" Jess's fingers tightened on the cover of the book.
"He offered her sanctuary here. Freedom, and her own home. A life without fear of being locked into a collar. They're kept as little better than slaves in that tower, you know. No will of their own-"
"I know what the Library does to Obscurists," Jess cut in, and the edge in his voice was too sharp. "They'll lock her up, make her work the rest of her life keeping the Archivist Magister and his cronies in power, and breed her like a prize cow-" He stopped, because that crack in the bedrock of his soul had widened with an almost audible snap. "And I'm supposed to believe that the Burners will treat her better? Beck isn't a man who offers things from pure goodness. What kind of slavery will she have here, if he keeps her?"
The doctor watched him in silence, then said, "Why do you think I warned you? The girl deserves better."
Jess gripped the book tightly, and left.
The next day, Jess drowned himself in work. Morgan hadn't come back to her bed in their prison/guesthouse, and it hurt like he'd taken a crippling wound. He spoke little at the workshop, methodically following Thomas's instructions as he crafted more gears. Thomas had removed the stone vessel from the forge first thing, while Diwell fetched his meager breakfast, and quickly poured the thick, honey-colored liquid glass into a set of small frames they'd made ready the night before. Jess set it to cool behind some concealing junk. They both made themselves industrious and busy, and Diwell quickly got bored and took to his chair.
It was hours before the glass had cooled and hardened. Once it had, Jess nodded to Thomas, who took to heating metal and beating it with hammers, a spectacular show of strength and noise, while Jess took up the sandpaper he'd made earlier and began to polish the small mirrors, with a box of gears ready to pull over to conceal his work if needed. Thomas had explained the process to him and warned him it was exhausting and hard, and he was right: polishing, turning, polishing, turning, always in precise patterns. It made Jess's body ache in ways he'd never known it could. But he kept at it. When Diwell paid attention to him, he worked on cast-metal gears and sanded them to perfection; as soon as the man's attention moved on, it was back to the mirrors.
For hours, until the glasses were uniform in size, and he'd put in the precisely measured curves that Thomas had asked. Then it was more polishing, this time with a much softer-grit cloth. More hours. More grinding pain in his arms and shoulders, neck and chest.
Thomas finally called a halt by shoving a pitcher of water under his nose-said nose was dripping with sweat, Jess realized. And outside the barred windows of the workshop, the day had gone well into sunset.
"Drink," Thomas ordered, and Jess did. The sweet relief of cool water on his parched throat made him realize that he ached in every muscle, and he sank down on a wobbly bench that gave an alarming creak as Thomas sat next to him. Jess gulped half the container and handed it back. Thomas finished it off and put the pewter down. Diwell was snoring in the corner. Loudly.
Jess passed over the mirrors. Six of them laid out on a soft piece of cloth on the tray. "Will they work?" he asked.
"They should," Thomas said quietly. He examined them closely and nodded. "We won't know until it's all mounted. But I think yes. I will put everything together, but only when we're ready."
"We still don't know if it will even work."
"No," Thomas said. He didn't seem worried. Such an engineer. "But that's why we have different plans on how we exit. Yes?"
"Sure." Jess leaned back against the dirty, splinter-prone wall and closed his eyes. "What about the press?"
"I'll have the last pieces cast tomorrow," he said. "Another day to put it together. Then we can set the timing as we like, to let Beck see the fruits of our labor."
///