Ash and Quill(51)

"They're better than you think," Jess said. "Brendan says Zara Cole's here. She brought your company. He says we can trust her."

Wolfe said, "The hell we can," just as Captain Santi said, "I think we should." That led to a strange silence, and the two of them staring at each other. Wolfe spoke first. "Zara's loyal to the Library. She shot you."

"She could have killed me, and she didn't," Santi said. "Believe me, Zara chose that shot carefully. It meant she wasn't convinced then. If she's here, she's convinced now."

"Maybe she's convinced that we need to have our heads on pikes; have you thought of that?"

"I know how you feel about her, but-"

"Nic! This isn't some petty jealousy. I don't trust her!"

Jess said, quietly, "Doesn't really matter, does it? She's our only real chance. Brendan's with them. If we tell them where to meet us, they can cover our escape if we can get through the wall. If you've got another choice, say so."

Wolfe glared, but he shook his head.

"Tell your brother we're coming out at the eastern end of the wall, just behind the grain storage," Santi said. "Dead-on east. They'll need time to arrange the move, if they need to move camps. A few hours at most."

Jess nodded, but he was looking at Wolfe. "If nothing goes wrong," he said. "But something has, hasn't it? I saw Morgan. What happened?"

"Something that wasn't her fault," Wolfe said. "But it shortens our timeline considerably. Tell your brother we're coming this afternoon. There's a storm moving in. It's better cover than we'd hoped. If you can summon Beck midafternoon, he'll bring his counselors, and many of the guards. While you're about that, we'll be quietly leaving. Once it starts, we can't break off. We're committed. You understand?"

"Yes," Jess said. "Midafternoon."

"Try to spin it out until the storm begins," Santi said. "And have a way out of that workshop besides the door. Understood?"

"Morgan does nothing else," Jess said. "Let her rest as much as you can."

"We all have our parts to play," Wolfe said.

"Really? And what's your part, Scholar? Because from where I sit, you've done nothing but use her."

"Jess," Santi said. He leaned toward him and held back a wince as he straightened his arm to push himself forward. "Believe me, none of us is clean. None of this will be easy. The others already know their jobs. Now we're telling you yours."

"Kind of you to include me."

"You were included," Wolfe said, with a sharp whip in his tone. A barbed one. "You and Thomas had to remain focused on the press and that invention of Thomas's. That was imperative." He took a tightly rolled scroll of paper from his pocket and smoothed it out. With a jolt, Jess recognized the map that Khalila had drawn from memory. Wolfe pointed to a building she'd painted black, hugging the eastern wall behind city hall, on the far side of the fields. "This is where we'll rendezvous."

"You realize that we're planning to burn a hole in a wall that's stood for a hundred years," Jess said. "You realize what that's going to do."


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Santi said, "It's out of our hands. The wall can be patched, and the city will have to hold on the best it can. Believe me, I don't want more death on my conscience."

"But this won't be bloodless," Wolfe said. "And we have to look out for ourselves now. Agreed?"

Another Brightwell family motto, Jess thought bitterly. He opened the book, sketched the map, and gave Brendan the approximate time, along with the warning to stay well back from the wall.

When he looked out the window, he saw that dawn was coming cold and steel gray, and Wolfe was right: there were black clouds massing on the horizon.

The storm would be on them soon enough.



Jess headed for the workshop. Inside the dark, smoky confines, he found that the forge had been allowed to sink back to coals, and the tiny amount of Greek fire that they'd been given to keep it burning had been carefully stored back in a padded box. Jess started to pocket it. There was no sign of Diwell, oddly enough.

"No, no, don't take that," Thomas called. He was half-hidden under the machine as he connected springs. "It's just water. I colored it with some dye I stole from a clothing shop. The real bottle is over there." He pointed toward a shelf cluttered with scraps of unused metal. Jess felt around and found a tiny glass vial, half-full and carefully stoppered. "Not much left. But good to have in an emergency."