Ash and Quill(77)

"I think he means it," she said. "We should go. As fast as we can."

"You know what you did?" Santi asked her. "That man is going to become the new leader of the Burners."

"I know," Khalila said. "And someday, we will have to sit in a room with him and make our reparations for what the Archivist has done. Better we start that now, before more blood flows."

Wolfe said nothing. He watched her walk back to the transport with Dario before he said, "Our children are growing up very well."

Santi laughed softly. "And I said you'd never make a good father. Come help me get the girl."

"I'll do it," Jess said. "You're still half-healed, Captain. Thomas?"

"Ja," his friend said. He was still staring after Khalila. Jess couldn't really tell what he was thinking. "I'm coming."



Morgan was asleep, but as they drove on, she woke up. Khalila had taken the seat beside her, displacing Dario, to Dario's annoyance. "Better I talk to her," she told Jess. "The doctor said to keep you away from her, for now."

"Why?" Dario asked, suddenly and irritatingly interested.

"None of your business. Khalila, I'm fine. I'm better." And surely, the reason that Morgan's talents had turned on him had been because of his damage. Not hers. He didn't want to believe that.

She seemed all right, he was relieved to find. Exhausted, despite the drugs, or because of them, and she dozed for the next two hours, until Brendan got up from his place near the rear of the vehicle and pushed forward to lean over Santi's shoulder. "We're coming to the coast," he said. "You've followed the map?" 

"He's a High Garda captain," Wolfe said. "Of course he followed the map. Probably better than you could."

Brendan shrugged. "Just checking. All right. You should see the cliffs coming up soon. There'll be some thick brush blocking the way. We'll need to clear it. It covers a switchback path down to the shore."

"And you're certain there's a boat."

"Oh, I'm very certain."

It didn't take long for Santi to ease the transport to a halt, and Brendan was out the side door, with Glain hot on his heels. Thomas went, too.

Jess stayed where he was, watching Morgan. She'd opened her eyes, and in the quiet, as Khalila and Dario got out, and Wolfe and Santi left the cab, they didn't say anything at first. Then she reached out her hand to him. When he didn't take it, she slowly let it fall. "I suppose I deserved that."

"It isn't because I don't want to," he said. "Morgan-until you're fully in control again-"

"I know. Best I don't touch you. Or anyone else." She looked down at her hands, loose in her lap. "I didn't mean it, you know. Killing the fields. I was so tired, and I had to find the energy, the power, to keep going. I didn't know I was taking it from living things. Does that make me a monster?"

"No," Jess said. "It makes you powerful. You saved our lives, weakening that wall. If you hadn't, we'd never have left that city. We'd be ash and bone."

She nodded wearily. "I don't want to hurt anything else. Anyone else." Her smile didn't warm her eyes. "I don't ever want to hurt you."

He wanted to cup her face in his hands and kiss the doubt and anguish from her, and for a moment he thought he might, until Thomas leaned the door in and said, "You'd better come. Now." His friend had a tense look on his face, and that drove everything else out of Jess's mind. He forgot and offered his hand to Morgan to help her down, and the momentary press of their skin made her take in a sharp breath and quickly withdraw. She pulled well away after they hopped out of the transport.

"What?" he asked Thomas, who jerked his head toward the trees to the south of where they were standing.

A tall, handsome man stood there dressed in a flowing black Scholar's robe, with white Arabic garments on beneath. He had one hand on a large, gilded pole, and at the top fluttered a gold-fringed flag.

The flag of the Great Library. The all-seeing eye. Next to him, sitting on its haunches in the whispering tall grass, was a large bronze automaton lion.

Khalila said, "Cousin Rafa." Glain and Santi had drawn weapons. Jess did, too, but none of them were pointing them. Not yet.

"Khalila." He nodded. "Captain Santi. Scholar Wolfe. I come in peace."

"Guns back in your holsters," Santi said, and put his away. Brendan swore softly. "I mean it. Shoot a Scholar under a Library banner, and I'll be the one shooting you. Understood?"

"Fools," Brendan said to Jess. "Your friends are fools, you realize that?" He lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. "Get to the transport. We can't outrun the thing, but it'll have a harder time gutting us before we can kill it."