Wolfe’s voice was hushed as he said, “The Black Archives. I don’t know what’s worse—the number of things they’ve kept from us or the incredible hubris of the idea.”

The Black Archives. A story, a rumor, a fable. The place where the Library kept everything too dangerous to circulate, too damaging to allow out to the public.

How could so many books be dangerous? And by whose standards?

Khalila walked to a shelf, reached for a book. Morgan got there fast and grabbed her wrist before she could touch the leather spine. “Wait,” she said. “There could be traps or alarms. Before you touch anything, let me look first. That goes for everyone.” In truth, she looked shaken. So did Wolfe, for that matter. Even Santi kept turning in place, staring in shock and a mixture of wonder and horror.

Traps. The word finally penetrated Jess, and he swallowed. There could be traps on books. Jess tried to comprehend that and failed. The scale of the place continued to overwhelm him. So many books abandoned here. Criminal works walled up to die.

They waited while Morgan made the rounds of the shelves, looking, occasionally brushing her fingers across a shelf or a case. Finally, she said, “It’s safe. You can touch them now.”

Khalila took the book from the shelf. Her voice trembled as she read the title. “Generation of a Magnetic Field by Use of Electric Currents,” she said. “Hans Christian Ørsted, 1820.” She put it back and pulled another. “The Law of Reciprocity of the Magneto-Electric and Electromagnetic Phenomena and Applications for the Reversibility of Electric Generators. Heinrich Friedrich Emil Lenz, 1833.”

Wolfe moved around the shelves, not touching, just looking. He said, “This whole level has to do with applications of electrical fields. Heat, light, machines—all powered by electrical fields. These are things that I’ve only seen here within this tower. I thought it was an Obscurist’s trick, powered by alchemy. It isn’t. It’s something engineers discovered centuries back. And they kept it from us.”

“But why?” Thomas’s eyes had gone very wide. He went to Khalila’s side and pulled more books, searching the titles. “Why would they keep these amazing things from us? Can you even imagine how bright the world would be if we had these lights? What about using this electromagnetic phenomenon to power trains or carriages? Could it be better than steam? Why would they—”

“Because someone, when this work was first submitted to the Library, decided the very idea of it was dangerous. Uncontainable.” Wolfe’s voice sounded weary, and angry. “They looked into that future and decided it couldn’t be controlled, and, above all, the Library wants control. Look around you. Look at what the Library kept from us. We all knew it was true. Thomas and I, we both have experience of what they won’t allow to be known.”

“The press,” Thomas whispered.

“The what?” Khalila asked it absently, still fascinated by the titles of the books on the shelves, all the knowledge that they had never seen. Never imagined.