Ash and Quill(78)

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It was good advice, but Jess didn't take it. He stood where he was, watching Santi. Watching Khalila, who looked stricken. Her cousin, for all his pronouncement of peace, looked like a man who could handle himself in a fight if it came to it. He had a High Garda–issue gun on one hip and a fairly impressive sword on the other. Not quite completely peaceful, then.

"Peace is given when peace is received," Santi said. "Hello, Rafa."

"Niccolo." The Scholar nodded. He planted the banner in the ground with one decisive thrust and left it there to sway and snap in the wind as he crossed his arms. His black silk robes fluttered and spread in the breeze, too, giving him an almost unnatural air, as if he were half made of smoke. "It's been a long time since you guarded me on my journeys, but I hope we're still friends."

"I hope so, too," Santi said. "It depends on why you're here."

"I'm here to beg my cousin to come home," Rafa said, and looked at Khalila. "You had such promise, little one. Such a bright, bright future. And you've thrown it away, for what? For friendship? For some false ideal? We want to bring you home. Me, your uncle, your father. You need to come with me. Now."

"How did you find us?" Jess asked. The Scholar's black eyes shifted to him, then dismissed the question. "Who sent you here?"

"You know who sent me," Rafa said. "The Artifex Magnus, whom I serve. Whom you all serve. I'm not the only one who was dispatched, if that eases your mind. There are messengers at the seaports, and I bribed smugglers to tell me the most likely place a ship loyal to the Brightwells would dock. He thought you would have survived, you see. And he wanted to be sure you understood that you have a choice. You can come home. All of you. Before you bring more disgrace down on yourselves and your families."

Khalila said, "I don't think you're one to speak of disgrace, Cousin Rafa. I remember that my uncle had to buy you a pardon from prison. Twice."

"You're very young," Rafa said. "And the young are often stupid. If you live through this, it's possible you might come back to find a place in the Library once more. I did."

She shook her head. "Not while the Archivist Magister sits in that chair."

Rafa sighed and moved his attention back to Santi. "And you? Have you really betrayed everything you've been loyal to all your life?"

"When it betrays me first? Sometimes one has to take a stand." 

"Ah, but is it really your stand?" Rafa's gaze moved toward Wolfe. "I know you're doing it for love, but it borders on obsession, the way you come running. Is he really so wonderful, to make you betray everything you believed in?"

Jess recognized the perfectly friendly, chilling smile that came on Santi's lips, and the tone that went with it. "Well, since you're asking," he said, "he is. Why? Jealous?"

That volley hit. Rafa's face went tight.

"Enough," Wolfe said. "If you have something useful to say, get on with it. If you're trying to bait us into a fight, it won't work."

"I think it might, with a little encouragement. But you're correct; we should move to business." The Scholar reached into his robes and came out with a scroll case. It was made of finely tooled leather, and he opened it, reached in, and then smiled even wider as Glain and Jess drew their sidearms at the same moment. "Peace, peace. I am no Burner," he said. "Though that seems to be company you prefer these days. It's only paper. Nothing more dangerous than that."

It was an official Library document, that much was clear, heavy with ornate braids as well as seals, and the Scholar offered it with a certain formal respect. Santi accepted with both hands, just as respectful, and then both retreated a few steps-the Scholar to stand under his flapping banner, and Santi to snap the seals on the document and unroll it.

He said nothing. An alarming lot of nothing. He read it completely through and then let it snap shut. Rafa waited, and when Santi didn't speak, he crossed his arms. "You surprise me. I've rarely seen you silent."

"You don't know what it says, do you?" Santi turned and held the document out to Khalila. "I'm sorry. I truly am."

It was the gentleness in the way he said it that made Jess go still, and he watched as Khalila unrolled the document and read. She made it only halfway, he thought, before she seemed to lose her balance, and immediately Dario moved forward, his shoulder a solid wall for her back to lean against and to keep her on her feet. She didn't make a sound as she let the scroll snap shut again.