Jess didn't know, because Thomas didn't speak, either.
They stood together, holding the page until the last of the damp sheen faded from the letters, and Jess finally cleared his throat to say, "Show me the pieces of the Ray. We need to have them on us."
Thomas nodded, put the page down, and moved around the room. From a heap of scraps he pulled out what looked like just another piece of wood-only more shaped and polished than the others. From a tangle of iron, a straight, thick tube. From behind the forge tools, a trigger mechanism. From behind a loose stone in the wall, a small golden ball that he pitched to Jess. "Don't drop that," Thomas said.
"Will it blow up?"
"Of course not," Thomas said. "But you'd crack the casing, and we've only got the one."
"Ah." Jess slipped it in his pocket. It was the power source come from Morgan's little singing bird. He watched as Thomas found the other pieces-small bits that he handed to Jess, while he used a length of cloth to bind the thick tube to his thigh. It came almost to his knee, but at least the heavy canvas trousers he wore helped conceal it. Jess took the other pieces and fashioned them into a necklace on another strip of cloth he tied around his neck, to dangle under his shirt. He had the Codex tied on his chest already, and slipped the trigger mechanism into the binding. "I hope this all fits together."
"It will," Thomas said. "What else?"
"Santi said to make sure we have another way out of this building, if the worst happens."
"Ah," Thomas said, and picked up a crude shovel. He tossed it to Jess, who nearly got knocked down by the weight of it. "So we make one. You start."
Jess couldn't hold back a groan.
He hated digging.
Two hours had passed by the time Diwell, looking terribly unwell, staggered back to his chair by the door. The fact that he hadn't dispatched another guard to cover his shift was, Jess thought, fairly significant; accepting extra food must have been a dire crime for him to avoid mentioning why he was ill. He was afraid Thomas might report him.
We can use that, Jess thought. He checked the time-a crude sundial using the sun from the window-and saw they were approaching the hour. He wished he felt more confident.
He wished he knew that Morgan was all right. Wolfe will see to her, he told himself. Mind your work. It didn't help.
"Feeling better?" Thomas asked the guard, with a cheerful glee that made Diwell send him a look that wished him burning in hell. "Good. You can take a message to Master Beck for us: we will have his prize ready for him to see within the next hour. I'm sure he will be pleased."
Diwell groaned. It was a faint sound, but raw. He put his head in his hands for a moment, then nodded and stood up. He started to speak, but maybe he realized that threats had no force now, and they watched in silence as he left. It might take him half an hour to limp his way to city hall, at that rate.
"Now we wait," Thomas said. "Here." He tilted back an enormously heavy anvil, and beneath it, Jess saw he'd dug out a small space. Into it he'd thrust two wicked knives, gracefully shaped but deadly at edges and points. He handed one to Jess. "Careful. It will split hairs."
Jess nodded and slipped it carefully into a slot in his boot-one made for a dagger about this size. Something Thomas no doubt had observed, or asked Glain about. Thomas had made a small leather sheath from scraps here in the workshop, and he slipped his own knife into it and strapped it to his forearm, hilt down. He rolled his shirt cuffs down to cover it. "Do you think we're going to die?" Thomas sounded almost academic about it. Remote. "I wish I could write to my parents. In case. But I suppose there's no way to do that, is there?"
Jess silently took out the makeshift Codex that he'd concealed under his shirt, and opened it to the empty page. The blue feather was still there, waiting. "I'll have to write it for you," he said. "But I can ask Brendan to deliver it."
Thomas nodded, eyes fixed on the window. On the storm, still rushing toward them. "It would be a bad omen," he finally said. "No. I will wait. I will write to them when I am free. When this is done. Just-just ask him to tell them that I love them."
Jess quietly wrote his brother the message, and added, Same from me to anyone who might care. And I suppose from Khalila to her family, and Dario, and Glain. Captain Santi has a brother somewhere. Morgan and Wolfe have no one, so if there are prayers to be done, I suppose it's left to you.
He wasn't sure his brother would write back at all, and when he finally did, the pen moved slowly, as if Brendan was fighting to write the words. Don't be such a morose bastard. You'll live to bury me. You're the luckiest ass who ever lived. And the fastest, and the bravest. So live, and do your own praying. We're moving our camp. Zara's made up some excuse. We'll be in place as agreed. You just get yourselves there. Understood?