Ash and Quill(45)
"Glain," Jess said.
She ignored him, focused entirely on Morgan. "For the binding, we can use the tops of my boots. Good leather. I remember the Turks once destroyed a library for the leather covers to make marching shoes for their troops. Seems fitting to do the opposite."
"Glain!" Jess nearly shouted it, and both of them looked at him with identical expressions of surprise and annoyance. "No."
"Why not? It's perfect." Glain swung her look to Morgan, who nodded. Of course she would, Jess thought. He felt sick.
"I can write a touchstone script to narrow the communication, one to one. The Library won't be able to see it."
"And we can send a message to your brother," Glain said to Jess. Her eyebrows rose. "Problem solved, and why are you looking at me like I killed your sainted grandmother?"
He fought not to throw Glain out of the cell and slam the door behind her. "Morgan's done too much already."
"Jess." Morgan put her hand on his. "No one else can do this. Stop. Stop trying to protect me."
"Fine, then we'll do it in the morning," Glain said. She pulled out a set of faded, much-bent playing cards. "That gives you the entire night to rest up. Jess? Care for a game?"
"A game?" Jess repeated. He'd gone from stunned to furious-with Morgan, for volunteering again to overextend herself, with Glain, who didn't seem to understand the point at all. "No. I don't." He cast a look at Morgan that begged for her to change her mind, to understand that she was destroying herself, but she held his gaze without flinching. All he could see were the dark circles beneath her eyes. The slight tremble in her hands.
He was right; she'd lost weight these past few days. If you burn, you'll burn fast. Askuwheteau's words to her. Was she already on fire, somewhere deep inside? How long before she failed, or something worse happened?
///
"Jess, please," Morgan said to him. "Please stay."
I'm not going to watch you burn, he thought, and went to his cell. He wrapped himself in blankets on his cot as the others sat down to play. All of them. Even Thomas.
He'd never felt exiled from their circle of friendship before, but it made him remember that if they succeeded, if his brother came through, if their plans worked, if they escaped from Philadelphia . . . then there was far worse to come. And he, Dario, and Morgan would have to lie to everyone to get it done.
This is what it will feel like.
Maybe he needed to get used to it.
EPHEMERA
Excerpt on the subject of theories of printing from a work by Scholar Plato, interdicted and sent to the Black Archives. Restricted to the eyes of the Archivist Magister.
. . . familiar with the common practice of inscribing notes upon tablets of soft wax, which it seems childishly simple to reproduce upon a fabric surface. A simple application of dye upon the tablet produces, when impressed upon fabric, a reverse of the letters inscribed upon the tablet. I have seen children playing at such games, pressing molds into the mud to make objects of great delight. Surely there is therefore a way to inscribe such letters in reverse, and when dyed and impressed upon the fabric, to create a record that may survive, rather than a tablet that is wiped and reused daily. We copy information to scrolls, yes, but this is still subject to error, and each copy must be made with time and skill.
We must find a way to save for later generations the knowledge so laboriously written and rewritten. We must find a way to easily and quickly copy, for the more accurate reproductions we make, the better our chances of such knowledge surviving our lifetimes. Scrolls are prone to mold, to ruination by water and fire, by storms . . . and so are the lives of men.
Our words must live after us, if we are to lift ourselves up.
CHAPTER FIVE
Glain woke Jess screamingly early, when dawn was still just an idea on the horizon. She put a finger to her lips and beckoned him up, past the still-sleeping Thomas, and then out. The guards stationed there came to alert, but Glain said, "We're not going anywhere. Just over here, to the corner."
The woman on duty nodded and went back to sewing up a cut in a piece of cloth, but she was no fool; all her attention stayed on the two of them as they walked over a little distance.
"If this is about last night-," he said, but she cut him off with an impatient gesture.
"There. Look." Glain crossed her arms as she stared at the repaired but clearly melted and misshapen corner.