“Yes, sir,” Jess said. “I’ll try to contain myself, sir.”

Lucky. Too lucky. He sensed some hand behind yet another windfall of good fortune, but he didn’t know where to look. Could be the Artifex, setting him—setting all of them—up for a disaster. Or, rather more unlikely, it could be a better angel looking out for them.

“Routes,” Troll said, and all of them got out their Codices. He scribbled down a map and labeled their names on hallways, and it appeared in rapid, neat strokes on the page in Jess’s Codex assigned for orders. Jess had been paired with Glain, which seemed natural enough; Troll would have recognized they worked well together.

The hall they’d been given to patrol ran the length of the first floor on the Forum side of the building. Jess remembered the maps he sketched out last night and the one that he’d drawn from Wolfe’s Mesmer session, and stacked them one atop another in his mind to see the differences.

Wolfe’s secret hall, the one that led from a concealed inner portal to the door that led down to the prisons, was on the other side of the wall from where they’d been assigned. Convenient, that. Too damned convenient. His feeling that they’d just so happened to be assigned here today and that they’d just so happened to be given a patrol so near to the secret prison entrance . . . it raised an itch on the back of his neck.

Better angels, or conniving demons. Something nipped at his heels.

He silently kitted up with the armored Library coat and his weapons, and found Glain—of course—ready before him. Rollison was checking off his squad as they left the room, and held out a hand to keep Glain and Jess back. They were the last out of the room.

Troll turned to Glain and Jess, closed his Codex, and said, “Follow me.”

“Sir?” Glain said, but complied. He didn’t explain, just set off at a quick pace. They fell in behind him as he led the way through a maze of doors that finally ended in a blind storage area lined with shelves.

“What is this?” Glain asked, and added only as an afterthought, “Sir.”

“It’s where you wait,” he said. “Captain Santi and the others are coming. Don’t worry, I’m— I can’t say I’m one of you, but I’ve known Captain Santi a long time. He and my father were friends back in training. After my father died, he and Wolfe made sure I had a place to live, enough to eat. I owe him this much.”

He turned to go. Glain grabbed his shoulder. “Wait,” she said. “Do you know what—”

Troll brushed her hand away with a move so smooth it almost seemed effortless. “No. I don’t want to know. It’s a favor for a friend, and that’s where it ends. When you’re done here, make your patrols.”

He left without a backward glance and shut the door. Glain frowned after him and said, “Do you trust him?”