CHAPTER NINE

EPHEMERA

CHAPTER TEN

EPHEMERA

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPHEMERA

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPHEMERA

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPHEMERA

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPHEMERA

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPHEMERA

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SOUND TRACK

EPHEMERA

Excerpt from a report delivered via secure message to the Archivist Magister, from the hand of the Artifex

I thought that you were being soft when you ordered us to keep the boy alive, but he’s been incredibly useful already. As you said, a brilliant mind. When we allow him access to books and papers, which we do as a reward, his observations on engineering are quite groundbreaking. After compelling him using the usual means, we provided him with chalk, and on the walls of his cell he began to write some unusual calculations and diagrams. These I have enclosed for your review.

He also had observations, which he confided to a guard I had ordered to be friendly to him, about the maintenance of the automata within the prison. Clever boy. And dangerous. He might have succeeded in turning one of them to his own uses if we hadn’t kept a constant watch.

I know you want to keep him alive, but even after this long, he continues to be outwardly cooperative and inwardly quite stubborn. I haven’t seen the like since . . . well, since his mentor, Scholar Christopher Wolfe.

As bright as he is, I don’t know how we can ever control him completely. It would be far kinder to kill him now.

Reply from the Archivist Magister, via secure message

Under no circumstances are you to kill the boy.

I have great plans for him.

CHAPTER ONE

Every day, Jess Brightwell passed the Spartan warrior statue on his way to and from his quarters. It was a beautifully made automaton, fluid and deadly, with a skin of burnished copper. It stood in a dynamic pose on its pedestal, with a spear ready to thrust, and was both a decoration and a protection against intruders.

It wasn’t supposed to be a threat to those who belonged here.

Now, as he passed it, the shadowed eyes under the helmet flickered and flared red, and the Spartan’s head turned to track his passage. Jess felt the burn of those eyes, but he didn’t return the stare. It would take only an instant for that form to move and that spear to drive right through him. He could feel the very spot the point would enter like a red, tingling target on his back.

Not now! Jess sweated, terribly aware of the leather smuggling harness strapped to his chest, and the slender original book hidden inside. Calm. Be calm. It was incredibly difficult, not only because of the threat of the automaton but because of the anger that burned inside him. As he walked away, the tingle in his back rose to a hot burn, and he waited for the rush of movement and the horrible invasion of the spear stabbing through his body . . . But then he was a step past, two steps, and the attack didn’t come.