Jess reached into the pouch at his belt and pulled out a glow; he shook it and held it out, and there was Thomas, sitting spread-legged on a damp concrete floor. What he’d tripped over was the mound of bags—packs, canvas duffel sacks.

The books. The Black Archive books.

The last ones. The survivors.

“Easy,” Morgan said, and knelt beside Thomas with her hand on his back. “We’re here. We’re all right.” She looked up at Jess with a panicked question in her wide eyes. “Aren’t we?”

He didn’t answer. “Khalila? Glain?”

“Here,” Glain groaned, and Khalila responded a few seconds later.

“I’m here, too,” Dario said, very quietly. Jess swung the light around and saw the Spaniard against the wall, shivering. The light reflected weirdly in his eyes.

Tears.

“Jess. Jess, stop,” Morgan said, and Jess realized he’d been moving toward Dario with a deadly serious intent. “Leave him! He helped us!”

“Leave a traitor to put a knife in our backs again?” Jess still had the gun he’d been firing in the Iron Tower, and the deadly weight of it felt good in his hands as he stared at Dario. “Khalila?”

“Leave him for now,” she said. “We’ll watch him closely. Where are we?”

“Smells like London,” Jess said.

“London smells very bad.” Thomas’s voice was choked but a little steadier now. “This isn’t a Serapeum.”

“No. It’s—” Jess raised the glow and looked around. “Where are Wolfe and Santi?”

“Here,” Wolfe said. “Nic?”

“It’s not a Translation Chamber.” Santi, Jess realized, was already on his feet and shaking another glow to life. The sickly yellowish light revealed an empty hall with a high, arching ceiling like a church, but no windows to let in the light. Underground, Jess thought. Somewhere near the river.

A symbol up high in chalk caught his eye, and Jess held his glow closer. “Smuggling route,” he said. “Belongs to the Riverrun Boys.”

“Yours?”

“Competitors,” Jess said. “My father’s not the only smuggler in town. The Riverrun Boys specialize in things other than books. Drugs, mostly. Nasty bunch.”

“Charming,” Wolfe said. His voice was as low and raspy as Jess’s. He’d breathed in a lot of smoke. “Why would she send us here?”

“There wouldn’t have been any chance for us at the Serapeum,” Jess said. “Dario’s betrayal would have seen to that. She must have known about this place. Maybe she’s even been here.”

“Unlikely,” Wolfe said. “My mother— Did you see—”

“Yes,” Jess said. “I did. I’m sorry.”

Wolfe said nothing. His eyes looked flat, lightless, utterly unreadable. The silence stretched a moment, and then he said, “We should find a way out.”

Jess broke out a glow of his own, and Glain had one, and they separated into teams to explore the room. It was wide and bare, and the exit that the Riverrun Boys must have once used had been blocked up with stones. Solid ones. London Garda had found this place. If she brought us all this way only for us to die in a trap . . .