by Rachel Caine
“No, you should not,” Khalila told him. “Save your strength. Your father wants to come to see you in the morning. But only if you agree, of course.”
“Might as well get it over with,” Jess said sourly. “Say a prayer for me, will you?”
“You are always on my list,” she said. She bent and planted a warm, gentle kiss on his cheek. “My brother.”
“Two sisters I never had. So strange.”
“Oh, I think you’ll find you have more siblings than you can handle.” She looked at the time. “I’m sorry to leave you, but I have a meeting with the kings of Wales and England, and I must make a decision about what to do with France; it’s ghoulish to continue to operate it as a memorial to our own power, and I’d like to hand it back to the rightful French citizens. But there are treaties to negotiate there as well. I’ll see you as soon as I can, Jess.”
She left, and six High Garda soldiers formed up around her at the doorway. He’d just been kissed farewell by the Archivist of the Great Library.
His life had gotten complicated.
He slept, woke, demanded a bath and a meal, and got them. When his parents arrived with the sun, they found Jess up and walking, if carefully and slowly.
Both his parents wore black. Jess accepted his mother’s silent embrace, and thought she looked sincerely worried about him.
Callum Brightwell didn’t bother with any pleasantries. He swept Jess with a look and said, “You seem better than I expected.”
“Thanks,” Jess said. “Don’t tell me you came all this way to smother me with parental love.”
“Jess,” his mother murmured. “We do love you.”
One of you might, he thought. But his mother had never stood up to his bully father, so that didn’t really count for much, either.
“We’re only here to claim Brendan’s body,” Callum said. “The damned High Garda won’t let us have him until you sign a release to allow it. Here.”
He thrust out a Codex, and Jess read the document inscribed on the page. An agreement allowing Callum Brightwell to take the body of Brendan Brightwell from where it lay in state in the Serapeum with the others who’d fallen in the conflict, and remove it for burial to England.
Jess said, without looking up, “Where are you going to bury him?”
“Does it matter to you?”
“Yes.”
“On a hillside on the castle’s grounds,” his mother said. “He liked it there. He sat sometimes to read and watch the sea.”
A lonely, windswept hillside in England. Maybe she was right; maybe it was what Brendan would have wanted. He didn’t know. They’d never talked about it. Never thought it could happen.
Jess closed the Codex. “I’ll think about it,” he said.
His father’s face flushed a deep, ugly red. “No, you’ll do what you’re told. He’s lying dead inside that great bloody pyramid because of you! The least you can do is let me get him decently buried and not gawped at by half the librarians in the world—”
“Honored, you mean. By people who loved him.”
“Don’t you dare, boy. I loved Brendan—”
“More than me, yes, I know.”
“Sign the form!” His father’s fist was clenched. Jess watched it, but he wasn’t afraid. Or surprised. He wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to fight the old man—or, at least, to win—but he’d damn well try.
It caught him by surprise when his mother stood up and said, in the sharpest voice he’d ever heard from her, “Leave him alone, Callum!”
It seemed, from the look on his face, that his father had never heard that tone, either. “What?” He recovered smoothly. “This isn’t your business. This is between—”
“Shut up,” she said. “I’ve had more than enough of your cruelty and arrogance. I will not let you do it a moment longer. Not to my last child. Go away.”
Jess’s mouth was open, but he didn’t really know what to say. He just watched this woman he’d always loved but never known change before his eyes into . . . someone else.
A person. A real, live person instead of a silent statue.
“My dear, you can’t really think—” Callum was trying a new technique. Wheedling. It didn’t work.
She stalked past him to the door and opened it for him. “Leave,” she said. “Now. We’ll discuss this later.”
“You can’t—”
“She can.” Jess kept his voice level, and he was surprised to find it hardly hurt at all to feel the rage coming off his father like a mist. He’d grown a shield against it, finally. So had his mother. And he felt that Brendan would have liked that. “The High Garda will escort you back to where you belong. You can wait.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Brightwell roared, and raised that clenched fist.
A black shadow flashed through the doorway, as if it had been waiting, and caught his father’s arm. Shoved him back with such force Callum Brightwell hit the wall, stumbled, and fell flat.
Jess’s mother didn’t come to her husband’s defense. She crossed her arms and glared down at him.
Scholar Wolfe stood over him, smoldering like the coals in a barely covered fire, and said, “Get up, you miserable bastard. Don’t come back unless Jess asks for you. You’re lucky you’re not in chains, but I promise you, it can still happen.”
“He’s my son!” Brightwell shouted, and scrambled to his feet with his fists clenched. “Mine, not yours!”
“Wrong,” Jess said quietly. “On both counts. I’m not your property. And I’m more his son than I ever was yours.”
Callum Brightwell was at a loss for words, finally. And he seemed small, and bewildered. A bully robbed of victims.
He left without another word.
Jess’s mother drew in a deep breath and extended her hand to Wolfe. “Thank you,” she said. “For loving my son as much as I do.”
He kissed her hand and held it for a moment. “I can’t imagine the strength it has taken you to get to this moment,” Wolfe said. “And I’m glad I saw it.”
“So am I,” she said. She smiled. “I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced, Scholar Wolfe. I’m Celia Brightwell. Jess’s mother. And I intend to be a true mother to my boy from this moment on.”
Jess didn’t altogether trust it, this fragile feeling blooming inside. He’d been living in a desert so long that finding a rose in the sand seemed impossible.
But he said, “I love you, Mum.”
And when her arms went around him, he knew he meant it.
* * *
—
Brendan’s body had been carefully preserved, and he almost looked alive. Almost. Jess didn’t touch him, though he pulled up a chair to look down into the mirror of his own face. He thought how close he’d come to occupying a bier beside his twin, and some part of him still thought that might have been right. But he could almost hear his brother’s reply. Plenty of time. I’ll wait.
“So, Scraps, do you want to go home? Let Father bury you and raise up some monument in your honor? Pretend like he ever cared about either one of us, except for what we could do for him?” Jess asked the question, but he knew he’d have to answer that for himself. “Yes, I suppose you would. You’d like to be back there, I know that. And getting Da to waste his money on a monument? You’d enjoy that, I’m sure. The larger, the better.”
He half expected Brendan to turn his head, laugh, tell him it had all been a brilliant prank. But his brother was gone, and he needed to finally accept that.
It was going to take a lifetime to understand it.
He’d been sitting for a while when he heard footsteps. He didn’t turn. He’d heard other visitors come and go, murmurs and whispers. None of them had disturbed him.
“You should be in bed,” Thomas said from behind him.
“I know,” he said. It wasn’t
just Thomas who’d come. It was everyone. Dario, dressed in darkly glittering richness. Archivist Khalila, holding a small bunch of English violets. Wolfe and Santi, standing together with clasped hands. Even Glain in her sharp High Garda uniform, hands clasped behind her back.
Everyone present but Morgan. The spot where she should have been felt like a new wound, and he looked away, back to his brother.
“He’d be honored,” Jess said. “To think all these important people have time to come visit him.”
“And visit you,” Khalila said. “I’m sorry it took as long as it did.”
“Well, you were signing treaties and negotiating the return of France,” Jess replied. “I think he’d forgive you. I know I do.” He stood up. For a moment they all simply looked at him. No one seemed to quite know what to say.
So of course, Khalila went first.
“I brought these,” Khalila said, and handed him the flowers. “I hope they are appropriate—”
“He’d like them,” Jess assured her, and put them on top of his brother’s still chest. “Thank you. All of you. You didn’t need to come.”
“We did,” Glain said. “Don’t be daft.”
“Glain,” Khalila reproached her, but it was gentle.
Glain was the first to hug him. He was surprised by that; she hardly ever showed that side. It was a warrior’s embrace, all muscle, and a sharp clap on the back as punctuation. “Don’t follow him,” she whispered. “We still need you here with us.” She left just as quickly, head high. Off to rejoin her squad.
Dario came next, and he offered his hand. Jess ignored it and embraced him, too. “I’ll stop calling you Scrubber,” Dario said as he slapped his back. “Eventually. Maybe.”
“I’ll look forward to that. Your Royalness.”
After Dario, Khalila. Her hug took his breath away, and he felt something crack inside, just a little. “I’m proud of you,” he said. “And a little afraid of you, too. I heard they’ve confirmed you. Youngest Archivist in history, so they say.”
She gave him another kiss on the cheek. “And you have to listen to me when I tell you that you’ll be all right,” she said. “We’re all going to make sure you are.”
Then it was Thomas, and a very careful embrace from arms the size of healthy young trees. “Khalila told you about the press? The new publishing operation? We’re going to replicate the Great Archives! People will be able to own books, Jess.”
“Yes, I heard,” Jess said. “I’ll join you when I’m able.”
“Your office is already being built. I’ve made you Chief Printer.”
“Do I get paid?”
“We’ll discuss it. But it comes with all the books you can read.”
“Then I’m in,” Jess said, and smiled. “See you tomorrow.”
When Thomas was gone, it was just Wolfe and Santi. Wolfe said, “Are you in fact all right? Be honest. You’ve seen me at my lowest. Don’t be afraid to admit it if you need our help.”
“I know, and I promise, I would. But I’m . . . better,” Jess said. “More than I expected. This is . . .” He took in a careful breath and glanced down at Brendan. “An ending. I don’t know who I am without my brother, but I suppose now I have to learn. He’d demand that.”
“Well,” Santi said, “let me be the first to tell you that I’ve released you from contract to the High Garda. You get full salary for the rest of your life, by the way. Orders of the Archivist.” He embraced Jess. “You’re not just Wolfe’s son, you know. I love you, too.”
“I know that, sir. Thank you.”
Perhaps it was worth surviving, after all.
Anit was waiting in the hall when he left; the High Garda stationed there were eyeing her with real mistrust, and her own guards gave it back in full. His gaze caught on the tall form of Katja, who nodded back. “Condolences,” Anit said. “I hear you’re a great hero now.”
“I’m not,” he said. “But thanks.”
“So heroic you won’t be in the family anymore, perhaps?”
“Oh, I’ll always be a cousin,” he said, and cast a smile at Katja, who raised a lofty eyebrow. “Just not one who runs books. I’ll be printing them instead.”
“So I heard,” she agreed. “Come on, my brother. Let’s have coffee. I understand the day is beautiful, the sun is shining—”
“And you have an interesting proposal for me?”
“Of course. I’m thinking of opening a bookshop. The first of its kind in Alexandria. And I’d like you to be my partner.”
“Fifty-fifty?”
“Seventy-thirty.”
“We’ll discuss it.”
He opened his Codex, signed the release form, and let his brother go at last.
EPILOGUE
“Thank you for letting me be here,” Wolfe said, and his father nodded. “I haven’t been in the Iron Tower of my own accord for . . . quite a while.”
“Ever, I think is the word you’re searching for,” Eskander said. “But you’re always welcome.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t left. You’re not required to stay, you know.”
“Funny thing. I’ve spent so many years behind these walls that I can’t imagine living somewhere else. But I think the new Obscurists will find it easier to come and go.”
Wolfe stood awkwardly in the open lobby. The Iron Tower stretched out above him, quiet for now. High Garda still manned posts at the front entrance, and the burn marks still on the floor indicated why. Alexandria wasn’t quite what it was. Not yet. And maybe it never would be again.
Nic thought that would be a very good thing, a sign of progress after centuries of stagnation. Wolfe reserved his judgment.
He felt he needed to say something more to his father, but he wasn’t quite sure what. Finally, he just blurted out his real question. “Where is Morgan?”
“Her body is in the Necropolis, as you were told,” Eskander said. “With all the proper rites and funerals.”
“I know that, but—” Wolfe struggled with the words. “I can still feel her presence. I needed to ask why.”
“Does Niccolo know you’re here?”
“No, I—I didn’t know what to tell him.” He swallowed. “Am I going mad?”
“Not at all.” His father’s eyebrows rose. “I confess, I didn’t expect this. You never had talent.”
“Thanks.”
“Obscurist talent, Christopher. It was always latent in you, but it never manifested before. How is it you can sense her?”
“Maybe I’m imagining it. Wishing it to be true.”
“Or maybe what you sense is this.” Eskander reached into his pocket and took out a large amber ring. “Put it on.”
“I—”
“Put it on.”
Wolfe slipped the ring on his finger, and for a moment, nothing seemed any different. A vague sense of unease, of sensing someone standing just out of view.
Of being watched.
And then Morgan’s voice said, “I was wondering if you’d find out.”
He turned, looking for her, but saw no one. He had not, he realized, actually heard her. The words were not in his ears, but in his head. “Morgan?”
“I’m inside the ring,” she said, and laughed. It felt bright as sunshine on skin. “It sounds like I’m trapped, doesn’t it? But I’m not. I’m free. There’s so much here! Endless expanses that become whatever I want them to be. I’m part of the Imperishable.”
“Apeiron,” Wolfe said. “The ring is made to contain and channel apeiron. Is that—where you are?”
“I’m everywhere,” she said. “I’m with all of you. And you’re with me. It’s what I always was, Scholar. Just . . . free.” Her voice grew a little sad. “But not in the form you knew me. I’d like to tell Jess that I’m sorry.”
“I’m not telling him a voice in a ring talked to me,
” he said. “And he’s better off not knowing this.”
“Yes. That’s true. He’s got a path now. Knowing I was here—it might pull him away from that. It’s a good, strong path. A long one.”
“You see futures.”
“I see everything,” she said.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what she saw for him, but he resisted. He’d never wanted to know the future. If he didn’t know storms were coming, it was easier to enjoy the sunshine.
“You sent for me, didn’t you? Why?” he asked.
“Because of this.”
His world opened. His body burned, tingled, and woke with sensations he’d never known, never imagined in his life. He saw the flow of life, the bones of the universe, the building blocks of everything, and it was the most beautiful thing he could imagine.
“You were meant to be an Obscurist,” she said. “Something went wrong in your body, but only just slightly. The talent was always there; you just couldn’t reach it. And now you can be what you were supposed to be. If you wish. You could be very, very powerful.”
He let out a raw sound and put his back to a wall to hold himself steady. He’d been a disappointment to his parents, a failure rejected and sent to find his own way beyond these iron walls. And she offered to give him that.
For an awful moment, he wanted it more than anything.
Then he caught his breath and said, “Give it to someone who needs it. I don’t.”
Another silky, cool voice in his head said, “You see? I told you. He has his own path. Let him walk it, Morgan. I am interested to see what he makes of it.”
“Who is that?” he blurted.
“Archivist Gargi Vachaknavi,” Morgan said. “Dead thousands of years, but alive in the Imperishable. Don’t mind her. She thinks you’re better off as you were.”
“I am!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! I don’t want to be—this!”
“Then I’ll take it all back,” she said, and the power faded out of him. All the brilliance and beauty and breathtaking wonder, gone.
