Felt like his, though. A part of him now.

The first section of the Codex held the standard Library listing of volumes available for reading and research—constantly updated by means of a science that was the secretive work of Obscurists, but that wouldn’t have triggered the shock—and, behind that, the contents of the latest reading he’d requested, which happened to be a history of the ancient Romans in the time of Julius Caesar. For all his faults, the man had put aside his quarrels with Cleopatra and Antony to save the Library. In many ways, the modern world owed its whole existence to him.

Behind his reading, on a separate tabbed page, were messages that came in handwritten directly to him. Normally they were from his family—innocuous questions about his progress and health, deep coded with requests from his father for information about books. Nothing new from family, though. Today, on a new, blank page, a message had come from a nameless source, and he recognized the neat, precise writing immediately as being from an invisible pen moved over the paper on the other end of the connection.

Is Wolfe all right?

He stared at those words hard for a moment as they faded from view. The message was from Morgan Hault, locked up in the Iron Tower of the Obscurists; the girl could not leave and had no chance of escape, and yet every time he saw her handwriting, he remembered the silken feel of her skin and the heat of her body against his. The scent of her hair washed over him in a warm wave. He’d told himself to forget her; she was trapped, and she must still blame him for that. He’d been the one to hand her over. He hadn’t fought to keep her free.

She didn’t ask how he was. Only about Scholar Wolfe. That said volumes. And stung more than a little.

He wrote back, He’s fine. Are you all right?

The words faded, and there was no immediate reply. He hated that she didn’t tell him what was happening to her inside the Tower. Still, she had to be safe enough: Obscurists were rare. Valuable. Necessary to the continued operation of the Great Library and the entire system of the Codex, and Serapeum. They’d have no reason to hurt her. And surely she wasn’t yet old enough for them to be demanding a child from her, to continue the Obscurist line. That would be in her future, but not yet. Surely not yet.

At long last, as he watched, a pen moved over paper somewhere in a room far away. Does that matter?

As simple as that was, it ripped a piece of his soul away. She hadn’t forgiven him.

Of course it matters. Are you?

Is anyone? she replied. As long as the Library rules us?

She was right, of course, but he wished, futile as it was, that the Library could be what he’d always believed it to be as a child: the light of knowledge, the protector of science, arts, history—a force for great and eternal good.