The terrible truth was that the Library still was all those things. It was a force for good. It did protect what would otherwise have been lost in wars and chaos and disasters. It did encourage scholarship and knowledge across the world, across religious and national lines. It did set knowledge and learning in a place of honor above all other considerations.

It was just how it went about it that turned his stomach and made it all wrong.

The Library will change, Morgan wrote, and he could hear the whisper of her voice saying it, too. It has to change. We must make it change. Is that still our bargain?

As if they had the power to do that. Jess’s optimism had guttered out months ago, and whatever embers remained were fast losing their heat. He took up his pen and hesitated. He knew what he needed to write to her; it was the same information he needed to give to Glain, and to Wolfe, about Thomas. But, as with Glain, he couldn’t think of the words.

Morgan’s pen moved one last time, to write, I will have more information soon. Look after Wolfe.

He wrote, Don’t take unnecessary chances.

She didn’t reply to that last, only marked down a final X to let him know she was finished, and then the words vanished from the page as the Codex scrubbed any trace that she’d ever written to him at all.

He didn’t understand how she could do this—cover her traces so thoroughly from other Obscurists who should have been watching them both. Morgan was clever and resourceful; she’d concealed her abilities as an Obscurist for most of her life without being detected. Still . . . he knew it was a risk every time she sent him a message, and yet he still craved any contact from her like a drug. One day, she’d let something slip, some sign she was letting go of her anger and bitterness.

One day in the distant future, she might even forgive him.

He returned his Codex to the case on his belt and saw Glain looking at him from across the way. She might have suspected Morgan was still in contact with him, though he’d not been completely forthright about it. Glain knew too many of his secrets as it was.

Jess was just about to shut his eyes again when Santi strode into the room, swept all of them with a look, and pointed to Glain, then to Jess. “You two,” he said. “With me.”

He executed a crisp turn and left, leaving Jess and Glain to scramble up and after with as much decorum as their battle-sore bodies could manage, while the rest of their squad stared holes in their backs. Santi didn’t pause as the door shut behind them. He continued a quick march down the long, plain corridor, then up a flight of stairs decorated with Anubis statues in alcoves, and to an office door with an armed guard beside it. Santi accepted the soldier’s salute with one of his own.