He took a small leather case from a pocket of his robe and opened it.

A glass globe filled with green fluid rolled into his outstretched palm.

Jess pulled in a breath, but Wolfe was the first to understand, fully, the impossible. “No,” he said. “You can’t. You can’t.”

“I don’t want to,” the Artifex said. He was crying. Tears streamed from his reddened eyes and lost themselves in the canyons of wrinkles beneath. “But you did this, Wolfe. You.”

He threw the Greek fire into the shelves of delicate, flammable books.

Jess screamed and threw himself forward, but it was too late, too late. The glass broke, the thick greenish liquid splashed over vulnerable spines and fragile paper, over faded ink and lost dreams.

And then, with the sound of a sickening, indrawn breath, it ignited.

Jess lunged at the soldier in front of him and slammed his forehead into the man’s nose with a muscular crunch and a corresponding blackness that radiated through his skull like a ringing bell. He didn’t pause, just put his shoulder into the staggering man’s stomach and heaved up to toss the soldier off his feet.

The restraints tightened around his wrists like snakes constricting, and he felt a hideous whine inside his head. The first shelf of books was fully on fire with licks of greenish-white flame. The second above it smoked, and Jess could see paper blackening and curling at the edges.

Santi had put down a soldier, too. Glain hadn’t; she was hobbled by her bad leg and had fallen herself. Together, he and Santi rushed at the Artifex. Jess didn’t have a clue what the good of it was, but he had to do something.

They never made it, of course. Jess felt something hit him in the back and pitch him forward, off balance, and fell to the floor hard. Santi fell just a breath behind him, and before Jess could scramble back to his feet, someone was pinning him down.

Jess raised his head and watched the shelves of the first level smoke, warp, spark, and burn. Book after book.

Level after level.

When the smoke became thick and choking and Jess could no longer see for the tears streaming out of his eyes, he felt himself being pulled backward by his legs, out into the sweeter air.

The Black Archives were gone.

And now all that remained was for the Artifex to finish them off.

He was being rolled toward the steps; Santi had already been pushed down them, to roll in an awkward ball. Jess would be next. The others had already been sent down, and he saw Khalila’s stark, blank face staring up. Morgan beside her. Thomas was crouched on the floor in the open space of the garden, beside the Translation equipment they wouldn’t have a chance to use. It would take too long, even if Morgan could operate it. What remained would be a quick, ugly death for most of them, and prison inside this tower for Morgan and Wolfe’s mother. Forever.