Ash and Quill(96)

"We have time," Wolfe said, and it sounded as if he was continuing the argument that Jess had walked in on. "Your father wants this press as much as Willinger Beck ever did. We made it out of Philadelphia. We'll leave this place on our own terms."

"Maybe we don't want to leave," Santi said. "This castle is strong and defensible, well situated to withstand any kind of attack. Brightwell was right about one thing: running into the Archivist's city like brave heroes of old will get us cut down. I don't want to see that. Neither do you."

Wolfe glared at him, and Jess saw the rage simmering in him, barely contained. Jess knew that feeling, because he'd just felt the helpless shudder of it, the desire to lash out. He'd walked away from his brother because of it.

"So we stay here, in this-overstuffed prison, waiting for the Archivist to turn the High Garda on us? I won't. I can't!"

"Chris-"

"No!" The word came out of Wolfe in a barely checked snarl.

Santi threw up his hands and stalked away to stare out the mullioned window at the darkness beyond. They were all raw, Jess thought. Too raw, too angry, and still too far from right.

On impulse, Jess said, "Do you still smell it, too?"

Wolfe frowned at him. "Smell what?"

"The smoke." Jess's throat convulsed as if a finger had brushed the back of it, and the nausea broke cold sweat onto his brow. "Sweet and rotten. Every time I think about being trapped, I smell it. Feels like I'll never cough it all up."

The silence after he said it was profound and painful, and Wolfe dragged in a breath and then shook his head without speaking.

Santi opened the window, and a blast of pure, cold air rushed into the room. It felt . . . clean. He turned and looked at Wolfe and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't understand." 

Wolfe managed a sick little laugh. "No. Neither did I. The things we think we put behind us . . ." He gazed down at his feet. "We don't ever put it behind us. I should know that by now. I never meant to take it out on you, Nic. I'm sorry."

Santi walked over to stand facing him and held out his hand. Without looking up, Wolfe took it.

"This isn't a time to make choices, sir. We'll make bad ones," Jess said, which was three-quarters of a lie; he was making choices, wasn't he? But he needed to keep Wolfe and Santi from anything more . . . aggressive.

"You're likely right," Wolfe said. "You'll be working with Thomas on the press, I presume?"

"I will."

"Then you need to pay attention for the same from him. Thomas has exceeded what anyone could have thought he could do. But . . . I know how the Library's cells can break a person, and sometimes they don't even know they're broken. Anger is as poisonous as arsenic, and it rots you from the bones out." He looked up at Jess, and it felt like the old days, like being pinned under the Scholar's gaze like a butterfly to a board. "If he falls, you must be the one to catch him."

Santi, Jess noticed, was standing close to Wolfe, standing as if he expected to have to catch his lover. The press was pure tragedy for Wolfe; it was the physical expression of an idea that had destroyed his life and sentenced him to unimaginable pain. The symbol of all his hopes and dreams, and all his despair, too. And now Jess could hear the echoes of it in his voice.

"I'm all right, Nic," Wolfe said, and finally looked at him. "We walked through the dungeons under Rome, survived Philadelphia, and this perfumed cage won't bring us to our knees. We're all stronger than that."

"All right," Santi said. "But don't ask me to stop standing next to you. Because you know I will, however much you shout about it."

"I know." For the first time, Wolfe smiled. It was such a kind, unguarded sort of thing, it didn't seem to fit on him. "That's what makes me live when the alternative seems so peaceful."

Without answering, Santi placed a quiet kiss on his lover's lips. It began quietly, at least. They'd never been prone to public displays, but that kiss . . . that was more intimate than most Jess had seen, and clearly, neither cared who was watching.

Santi laughed softly when it ended and said, a little regretfully, "Now, that's a proper hello. Haven't had one for a while. And you haven't talked to me about Philadelphia."

"True for you, too."

"I'm a soldier."

"That just means you hide it better, not that it didn't leave marks on you."

The two of them weren't paying Jess any mind now, and he wasn't wanted here, or needed. He silently turned to go.

"Jess." The two men were still close, still with their arms around each other, but Wolfe had turned to look at him. No rage in those dark eyes now. Just something like concern. "You'll stop tasting that smoke. You never leave it behind you, but even that fades with distance. Even that. All right?"