by Rachel Caine
"I'm afraid we are all far too tired this evening," Khalila said, which sounded brusque but, in the way that only Khalila could manage, also sounded warm and kind. "Rosa, is it?"
"Yes," Rosa said, and turned to her. She took in Khalila in one sweeping glance, head to toe. "You're not one of us."
"I am a Scholar," Khalila said. "How does that make me alien to you?"
Rosa dismissed her and went back to Morgan. "Don't worry," she said, and pitched her voice a little louder to carry. "I know you missed your time, but Dominic is a patient young man. I'm sure you look forward to it."
Dominic. Jess felt something dark settle into the pit of his stomach, because now he had a name for the Obscurist Morgan was expected to bed. Dominic. He scanned the room, wondering which of them it was. The puffy, pale one at the back with his attention fixed on his plate? The lean one watching them with silvery eyes? It would drive him mad, not knowing which one of them to hate.
Rosa started back toward her table but then turned around, as if she'd just thought of something. Pure, petty theater. "Oh," she said to Morgan. "I don't suppose you've heard about poor Sybilla?"
That, for the first time, broke through Morgan's mask, and she quickly looked up. "What about her?"
"She had a . . . misadventure," Rosa said. "Perhaps you should visit her on the hospital floor."
This time, Gregory stood up from one of the tables not far away, and though he said nothing, Rosa quickly ducked her head and went back to her seat without another word. Gregory sank down, too, but Jess could feel his gaze on them.
On Morgan.
"Well," Khalila said as they took chairs at one of the few empty tables. "I can see how the charm of this place might wear very thin. Morgan? All right?"
"Yes," Morgan said, but in a toneless way that made Jess think the opposite. "Fine." She swallowed and forced a little cheer. "The food's very good. The servers will bring what you want."
Thomas, settling uneasily into a chair too small for him, said, "Is there a list of choices?"
"No. You just tell them what you'd like. Wolfe was right; Obscurists are pampered. The best food, prepared just the way we want it; that's just one of many ways they try to make us forget we're--"
"Prisoners," Jess finished.
"No," Morgan said, and didn't look at him. "Prisoners eventually get out."
A servant wearing a gold band--didn't that go against the entire structure of the Library?--came to ask politely what they wanted for food and drink. With no slate of choices, Jess was too tired to think creatively; longing a bit for home, though he didn't know why, he just ordered roast beef and mash. Thomas must have felt the same, since he ordered schnitzel. Morgan asked for chicken; Khalila for roasted mutton. It was all very normal. As soon as the servant walked away, Thomas said, "The servants are pledged here for life as well?"
Morgan nodded. "The difference is that they do get to leave the Tower from time to time. Obscurists can only leave under the strictest rules and controls."
"What about the ones who operate the Translation Chambers?"
"Our lowest caste," she said. "They have the least talent for writing scripts; they can only interpret what's already been written and infuse it with the quintessence to make it work."
Jess thought it must be a strange blessing here to be a disappointment; it held the chance to take the outside air, see the world, at least a bit. "Lucky devils," he said, and got a look of agreement from her. Just a brief one, but it made him feel less cold. He'd lost his anger, he realized, and partly because it was becoming clearer and clearer to him that none of this had to do with a choice Morgan had made. She'd not chosen to be born with this talent; in fact, she'd done everything in her power to avoid coming here in the first place. She'd never sought out being an Obscurist.
Or children, he thought before he could stop himself. Rosa, with her self-satisfied glow and pointed jibes, made it clear just how Morgan was being taunted.
"Morgan," he said quietly. "Who's Sybilla?"
She froze for an instant in the act of reaching for her water glass, then completed the motion, drank, and set it down before she said, "A friend."
"And she's ill?"
Morgan said nothing, but Wolfe did. He looked angry. "Not ill. Leave it, Brightwell."
Another awkward silence, one Thomas moved to fill with a patently false cheer.
"Do you know the Tower already?" Thomas asked Wolfe. "You lived here. Such wondrous inventions they have here, I'd love to hear about all--"
"My mother determined I was without significant talent as an Obscurist when I was five years old," Wolfe broke in. "At ten, I was removed to the Library orphanage, where I received my training. I've never been back. So I know little about the inventions, Thomas."
"A lot of time between visits from your mother," Santi said. He was watching Wolfe closely, a cup of poured wine forgotten in his hand.
"Not long enough. I saw her the day they released me from the Basilica Julia prison," Wolfe said. "She brought me home. To you. She left before you found me."
Silence at the table. Santi opened his mouth and closed it again, as if he couldn't decide what to ask or what to say; he finally just drank his wine. Wolfe followed suit.
The mood had fallen a little dark, and grew darker with the sudden approach of Gregory, who smiled at them as if they were old friends. "Obscurist Hault," he said. "Your presence is requested. Dominic has missed you during your absences. Please come with me."
Dominic, Jess realized, must be the red-haired young man who stood a few paces back. He was small, compact, and covered in a spray of freckles . . . and miserable. Jess had been prepared to hate him, but seeing how he avoided even so much as looking in Morgan's direction, he understood with blinding speed it wasn't the boy's choice, either.
Just a duty to be done.
Jess was rising to his feet to do something violent--to Gregory, if not to Dominic--when Wolfe quickly stood, faced Gregory, and said, "I'd have thought you'd have learned some manners at your age, but you're as bad as you were when I was a child. You'll have her the rest of her life. Isn't that enough?"
Gregory straightened to face Scholar Wolfe, and Jess realized there was real dislike between these two. It bordered on hate. For all Gregory's droll observations, he wasn't remotely friendly. There was something dark underneath his smile--more like a smirk now. Unpleasant and superior. "Keria's always favored you," he said. "Her precious little boy, born a disappointment. She fought to keep you long past the age when you should have been sent away, and when you finally were, she still never forgot you. All her love was reserved for you, and you can't even give her a kind word in return."
"She doesn't look to me for kind words. She has you for that. You were ever the politician. And the predator."
Gregory's smile froze in place, and shattered into a compressed, hard line. "What are you implying?"
"Nothing," Wolfe said. "Except that you take a special, unseemly delight in your job."
"And what do you think I do?"
"Play God with the lives of children."
"Obscurist Hault is not a child. She is a young woman of tremendous potential who might one day prove as important as, if not more important than, your own mother. It's in the best interests of the Iron Tower to--"
"To match her with an appropriate sire for her children? Oh yes. I know the game. I grew up with a mother who loathed the very sight of my father, and he hated her in turn. Odd, isn't it, that your forced inbreeding has created generations of progressively less powerful Obscurists? It's as if it doesn't actually work to force people into loveless unions!"
"You know nothing--"
"As one of your more notable failures, I'd say I know everything," Wolfe said flatly. "Go away, Gregory. Morgan stays with us."
Jess stood up. Didn't say or do anything; just stood up. Khalila stood, too. Thomas. Santi. Wolfe stood still with deliberate calm.
Dominic at last raised his head, and the relief on his face was
very plain.
"This is a foolish waste of our charity," Gregory said. "We've offered you safety. Refuge. Care for your wounded. And you're throwing it back in our faces, and for what? You can't keep her. She belongs to us. To the Tower and the Library."
"She belongs to no one. Let me be clear: the girl makes her own choices, for as long as she's with us. If my mother disagrees with that, tell her to come herself. I don't listen to self-important lackeys."
Gregory's face turned an alarming shade of red. "As you wish," he said. "Scholar Wolfe."
He walked back to his table, anger in every stiff motion, and pointedly turned his back to them. Jess didn't want to do the same. He didn't trust Gregory not to stick a knife in it.
Dominic was still there. The young man looked scared as a rabbit, but he stayed long enough to say, to Morgan, "I'm sorry," before he went back to his own table.
Not everyone in the Iron Tower was as content and smug as Rosa.
"Morgan?" Khalila settled back down in her chair and reached for Morgan's hand. "They haven't forced you--"
"Not yet," Morgan said. "Thank you, Scholar Wolfe."
He shook his napkin out and dropped it in his lap. "Don't thank me," he said. "I did it to annoy Gregory."
"Watch him," Morgan said. "He's a snake."
"I'm immune to his particular poison. We knew each other as children, and he was five years older. You can imagine how that appealed to his cruelty."
She shuddered. "I'd rather not. And thank you, whatever you meant by it."
He shrugged as if it didn't matter. And then the food arrived, and Jess was pleasantly surprised to find his roast beef and mash were as good as a Sunday feast at home--one of the few consistently pleasant things he could recall about his childhood. They'd even mushed his peas. For a while, the five of them concentrated on their food. Someone had wisely allotted Thomas a double portion, and he ate it at an alarming speed that worried Jess for a moment; maybe the young German's stomach couldn't handle such a sudden rush of rich food. But Thomas seemed happy, and at the moment that was all that mattered.
"Glain!" Thomas suddenly put down his fork--he was more than halfway done with his second large schnitzel--and looked around at the rest of them. "What is Glain eating? Is she allowed visitors yet?"
"You're free to ask," Wolfe said. "The Medica floor is below this one."
"Soup," Thomas said. "I'll take her soup." Without waiting for anyone else, he stood up and stopped a server, ordered a bowl to go, and quickly left with it. Santi, done with his meal, leaned back to watch him go.
"He's making a quick recovery," he said.
"Yes," Wolfe agreed. He didn't look happy. "Seems so."
They exchanged looks--significant ones, Jess thought. "He's strong," he said, out of some impulse to defend his friend. Santi sighed.
"He wouldn't have survived without that," he said. "But strength won't keep the darkness away, and being on his own in a hostile place isn't good for him. Go. Find him."
Jess didn't hesitate to take that suggestion. And it led him to the Medica floor.
The floor, instead of having individual chambers, had been built open, with only suspended curtains sectioning off one patient from another. Most of the curtains had been tidily drawn back and secured, the beds empty. The Medica attendant on duty rose from her station to study him as he entered, then nodded toward one of the curtained areas. "Your companions are there," she said. "You can stay a few minutes. No longer. The patient needs rest."
Jess nodded and continued on, and found Thomas sitting at Glain's bedside. He seemed fine, and so did Glain; she'd been propped up with cushions, and was trying to spoon up soup, but without much appetite that Jess could see. He pulled a chair closer and straddled it. "I've been told that the Iron Tower gets the best of everything," he said.
Glain swallowed her mouthful and reached for the water glass. "Soup is soup. But they've treated me well enough." She shot Jess a guarded look. "How is everyone else?"
"All right so far," he said. He knew she was asking mostly about Morgan, and he didn't want to answer that question. "So, you're not going to die on us, then."
"Don't you just wish? No. You're not so lucky, Brightwell."
"Good." He extended a hand and she clasped it, but quickly, and then dug back into her soup. Personal emotion always made her uncomfortable. "Thomas thought of the food."
"It was kind," Glain said, and gave the German boy a brief, full smile. "Did you eat?"
"Schnitzel," Thomas said. "But I almost regret it. I-- My stomach can't take so much rich food so quickly, I think." He'd paled again and his fingers drummed in agitation. Trying, Jess figured, to distract himself from thoughts of what he'd eaten in the cells, or the times he'd had to endure hunger. Even the good things are tainted for him, Jess thought, and it enraged him all over again. But it would get better, wouldn't it? Given time? It hasn't for Wolfe. Against his will, he recalled Elsinore Quest's advice: damage like this couldn't be buried safely.
"We should leave you," Jess said, "unless you need something?"
"I'll harass the staff if I do. That's what they're here for," Glain replied. "You concentrate on finding a way out of this. I'll join you tomorrow."
"If the physicians say you can."
"Tomorrow," she said, and ate another mouthful of soup with grim determination.
Thomas seemed reluctant to leave despite his restlessness, and Jess had to convince him that they weren't abandoning Glain; he seemed eager for her not to feel alone, but to Jess it appeared to be more about Thomas's experiences shadowing the situation. Eventually, Glain persuaded him by rolling her eyes and said, "Oh, for the sake of Heron, just leave me to get some rest, Thomas! I'm fine!" And as blunt as it was, it did the job of convincing him to follow Jess out.
As they left, though, Jess caught sight of a familiar figure slipping into another private curtained-off area across the way, and put his hand on Thomas's arm to hold him back. "Wait here for me," he said. "I'll just be a moment."
"Jess?"
"One moment."
He didn't go into the private space, but he pulled the curtain aside, just enough to see Morgan sitting down at the bedside of another young woman. It took him a moment to recall it, but hadn't the snide girl Rosa mentioned something about Morgan's friend? Sybil . . . No. Sybilla.
Sybilla couldn't have been much older than Rosa--fifteen or sixteen, best guess. She was a slip of a thing, swallowed up by blankets and pillows, wan, pale, and unconscious.
As he watched, Morgan put her hand on the girl's shoulder, bowed her head, and began to cry. Silent, wrenching tears.
"Sir," the Medica attendant said sharply from behind him. "Come away. Now."
Jess jumped and turned and followed her away. "Wait," he said. "What happened to her? The girl in the bed?"
"I can't discuss that."
"Wait." Jess drew her to a stop and met her eyes. "What happened?"
She looked away all too quickly. "I told you, I can't discuss it." But she hadn't pulled away, either, and after a pause whispered, "She took poison. She's not the first."
He kept his voice as low as hers. "Why?"
"Not everyone is happy with their fate," she said, and then did pull away. "Or suited to it. You should go. Now."
Jess looked back over his shoulder at the closed curtains. Morgan must not have heard; he could see her shadow against the cloth, still bent forward. Still lost in her grief and fear.
I won't let it happen to you, he told her. Whatever you feel about me now, that doesn't matter. I don't ever want to see you like Sybilla.
He walked Thomas back to the safety of the others and waited on the stairs until Morgan walked out onto the landing in front of the Medica doors. She didn't look up to where he stood; she seemed tired and lonely, and she turned and took the stairs down. Away from him. Away from the rest of them.
Jess followed quietly and at a distance.
She descended two floors and went down a hallway, and as h
e stepped through and into sudden, thick darkness, he felt a knife prick the skin of his throat, and he immediately froze.
Then she sighed. "Oh, Jess. Please go away." Her voice sounded thick and unsteady, and he knew she was still crying or on the verge of it. The knife moved away, and he heard her start to turn.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. That earned another sigh, even more quiet.
"For what?"
"For not understanding. Staying away from this place should always have been your choice. Not mine." He hesitated for a second. "Your friend. Will she live?"
"Yes," Morgan said. "And that's almost worse. You see, they now consider her a danger to herself, so what little freedom she did have left will be taken away. She can't bear that. Yet she'll have to somehow."
"Is he so bad? Her match?"
"No. Iskander is perfectly fine. But Sybilla . . . she was in love with someone else."
"Who?"
Morgan turned and put her hand on his cheek. The contact was sweet and warm and unexpected, and he resisted the urge to put his arms around her.
And then she said, "Me."
He couldn't comprehend that for a moment, and then his stomach lurched and dropped two floors. "You-- You and Sybilla?"
"No, Jess, that's not what I mean at all." Morgan's hand dropped away and he felt terribly, icily cold now. He felt her move away. The hallway was starting to reveal itself to him in shadows and highlights of dark gray, and he could see her now, just a shape. A cipher. "She was kind to me. She was the only one, at first, and we spent time together. She liked me. I didn't realize--I didn't realize at first that she felt more for me than that." The pain of that was still there in her voice, and he almost winced. "And when I did, I didn't know what to say, except that I--I couldn't be with her. I felt awful about it; I think she saw me as . . . as a refuge from Iskander. But it was never . . . I never . . ." This time there was no doubt she was crying; he could hear the agonized hitch of her breath. "Oh God, Jess. I didn't tell her I was running. I left her here alone. You betrayed me, and I betrayed her. I should have at least tried to help her get out of here, too. I knew she was just as desperate!"
He still felt light-headed; his heart was pounding so hard it hurt. "It wasn't your fault. You felt you had to help us with Thomas. You know that."
