It was just as well he moved, because the Spartan retained enough power to bring the spear down one last time, hard enough to pierce the stone where Jess had been lying. It would have pierced his skull just as easily. He heard the whine of the gears inside grinding to a stop, the springs unwinding, and felt a surge of weakness that nearly put him down flat again. Then he felt giddy. He’d just become the world’s foremost criminal expert in stopping Library automata. That was worth something on the open market, surely.

“You’re bleeding,” Morgan said, and reached down a hand. He checked the floor around him, and, yes, he was, but not badly. A rain, not a flood. He grabbed hold and let her haul him to his feet, and then hung on to her for steadiness as the hallway rocked and spun around them. “Can you walk, Jess?”

“I can walk.” He wasn’t sure, but it was something to aspire to. “I’m all right.” He wasn’t. Definitely wasn’t. “Let go.”

“No,” she said, and there was no arguing with the way she said it. “Why is it that you’re always hurt when I find you? Is that my fault?”

He wanted to laugh, but the fog was clearing, and in its place pain had taken up a steady, red throb. Laughter would split his skull in two. “We need to find Thomas.”

“I know,” Morgan said, and her strong arm around his waist helped him find his balance again. “Come on.”

The third High Garda soldier they’d expected was down by the time Jess and Morgan arrived. Santi glanced at them, but then his gaze locked on Jess and the blood. “Are you all right?” It was only half concern. The other half of the question had to do with the viability of their escape if he wasn’t.

“I’m fine,” Jess said, though he knew he wasn’t. “I won’t hold you back.”

“Stop chattering,” Wolfe said, his tone as cold and bitter as winter. “Jess. Locks.”

For a blank second, Jess didn’t understand his order, and then he fumbled for his picklocks and moved past the men to the door of the cell.

“Jess,” said a quiet voice from beyond the bars. It sounded rough and strange, somehow familiar, and when he finally looked straight into the cell, he saw his best friend, Thomas Schreiber, sitting on the floor of the stone room. He was shackled to a metal ring in the wall. The big, young man had lost weight, which somehow made him seem larger without that comfortable layer of padding. He no longer looked as young and innocent as Jess remembered. He’d grown a beard, and his hair was a matted mess down to his shoulders. He was dressed in a plain oatmeal-colored shirt and trousers that were much worse for wear.

Jess wrapped his hands around the bars, partly to keep himself from falling as dizziness hit him, and said, “Got yourself in a mess, haven’t you, Thomas?”