Once the wall was clean again, Jess walked over and nudged Diwell’s chair with one foot, bringing the guard instantly back to startled wakefulness, with one hand on his gun. “We’re finished for now.”
Diwell muttered something that probably wasn’t kind, or complimentary, and led them back to the prison.
No way of knowing how late it was, but the moon was down. It felt like the world was spinning fast toward morning. Jess looked into Dario’s old cell as they passed. Captain Santi was still asleep on one bunk, and on the opposite, he recognized the brown curls of Morgan’s hair, though she slept facing the wall.
Wolfe, wrapped in one thin blanket, came awake the instant he felt their presence, and reached for a loose, jagged rock that was lying near to hand. He relaxed when he made out their faces in the dimness. He slipped the blanket away and climbed to his feet to meet them in the narrow hallway. “You took your good time,” he said. “Can you do it?”
“The press, yes. And possibly something more that could be a valuable help to getting us past these walls.”
Wolfe took that in and mulled it in silence for a few seconds before he said, “No unnecessary risks. Understand?”
“Yes,” Thomas said. “But everything is risk. You know that, sir. How is the captain?”
“Resting. The doctor’s not half the idiot I would have assumed.” From Wolfe, that was high praise. “Morgan’s been tending to him, as much as she can. If she weren’t, he’d certainly lose the arm. He still could.”
It was the studied calm in the way he said it that hurt. Jess cast a quick look at Santi, then away. Nothing more to be done for him. “How much is it hurting her?”
For a long moment, Wolfe didn’t answer; maybe he didn’t think Jess was ready to hear it. But finally, he said, “The power that the Obscurists possess comes from their life force, their quintessence. As they use it to transform and shift the nature of other organic and inorganic things, it becomes . . . affected by what it transforms. Think of it as water. Dip a dirty cloth in it, the cloth comes out clean, but the pollution remains.” Wolfe finally shifted his gaze to meet Jess’s stare. Jess wished he hadn’t. “Obscurists in the Iron Tower have time-tested ways to manage their work. They create scripts and formulae and touchstones—filters, so that the corruption doesn’t touch them directly. But using the quintessence daily . . . It’s dangerous. There’s a reason people have always feared witches. And there’s a reason we never call Obscurists magicians.”
“Because they aren’t?” Thomas asked. “They have an ability, the same as gifted engineers.”
“Engineers’ gifts don’t destroy them from within. An Obscurist without controls, without barriers . . .” Wolfe shook his head. “Nothing stops them. And that’s dangerous. She’s dangerous. She’s learning too much, too fast, and no one to hold her back.”
Jess swallowed. He didn’t like the sound of that, but it had the ring of truth. “And what do we do about that?”
“Nothing,” Wolfe said grimly. “Because we need her. And every single bit of power she can provide, if we’re to survive this and find a way out. I’m sorry about that, but you and I are alike: we’ll do what must be done. Even if it means letting those we care for put themselves in danger.”
Wolfe’s gaze slipped back to Santi as he said it, and Jess knew he was thinking of all the times Santi had stepped into the path of harm for him. And would, for as long as he could stand, or crawl.
I’m not like you, Jess thought. But he knew he was, really. He’d learned to be practical too young.
Thomas said, “And everyone else is all right?”
“Well enough. Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” Jess said. His stomach cramped and growled like a wild beast.
“Glain stole us a small supply of food. It’s not enough, but I expect no one in this town gets more, except Willinger Beck.” Wolfe nodded to two empty bunks in their cell. “Eat quickly, and sleep while you can. It’s very late.” He went back to his uncomfortable bed on the cold floor beside Santi, wrapped himself up, and was asleep again—at least, apparently—within minutes.
Thomas had already found a handful of cheese and a small slice of bread that sat out on a small shelf near the unlit furnace, and was making an effort not to take more than his share, though he was twice the size of the rest of them. Jess wolfed down a smaller portion of the hard crusts and soft cheese; it tasted like a promise of heaven, but just a taste. He wanted a dozen more mouthfuls and had to convince himself to leave the rest for the others, who must not have gotten anything yet. Nothing but cold water to wash it down, but by the time he’d drunk his fill, Thomas was already in his bunk and halfway to dreams.
Jess took the other bed and blew out the lantern, and was dreamlessly unconscious before the afterimage of the burning wick died.
He woke up with a metallic, filthy taste in his mouth—the aftermath of the Greek fire’s toxic smoke—with the glow of early sunlight spilling into the cell. Dario Santiago was looming over him, hands on his hips as he nudged the bunk with one knee. “Come on, scrubber. Up. It’s a bright new day.”
Jess raised himself onto his elbows and looked around. He could tell by the stiffness in his spine that he hadn’t moved much in the night, and he certainly hadn’t been on guard, though he ought to have been. Khalila was up and bustling around, tucking her hair under the scarf and giving him a distracted smile as she took one of the small, broken pieces of dry cheese from the shelf. Glain was doing another handstand and then rolled into a rapid flurry of push-ups before she got to her feet.
But when Jess looked at the cell across the way, he saw two empty bunks. Santi was gone, and Morgan, too. Wolfe’s blanket lay discarded on the floor.
Jess sat up and fixed his stare on Dario. “Where are they?”
Dario’s normally cocky expression shifted a little into something . . . less. “The captain woke up in some distress. They moved him into that Medica’s house this morning.”
“Some distress? What does that mean?” Jess demanded as he swung his legs over the side of the bunk and sat up. Dario shook his head and looked away. It was rare to see him struck without words, and it didn’t offer comfort. “Did Morgan go with them?”
“She said not to wake you.”
Because she damned well knew I’d go with her, and I might try to stop her from killing herself, Jess thought, and for a moment he felt a surge of sick dread so real that it froze him in place. He finally cleared his throat and said, “So you kindly waited here to rub my face in it?”
“No,” Dario said. “Thomas left for the workshop, and he told me to give this to you.” He reached inside his jacket and took out a thin, ragged scrap of cloth. It stank of dried sweat—torn, Jess guessed, from the bottom of Thomas’s shirt. There were words written on it in tiny, precise letters that had smudged just a little. Jess held the cloth closer to the light to read them.
“Where does he think I’m going to get this?” he asked. “Not from Beck. He’ll want to know too much about what it’s for.”
“He said you’re resourceful,” Dario said. “He’s not wrong.”
Down the way, Glain stretched like a particularly large and dangerous cat, and went to join Khalila. The two of them left without a word, which left Dario and Jess alone. Somehow, Jess thought, Dario had asked for that solitude.
“All right,” Jess said, and reached for his boots. “What?”
Dario seated himself on Thomas’s bunk. “You and I, in Santi’s absence, are what passes for strategists in our little company, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I don’t agree with much you say,” Jess said. “But I suppose.”
“While Santi is—indisposed, it’s our job to think ahead,” Dario said. “Not just to tomorrow. Not to next week. Not to escape. We need to think beyond.”
“Beyond to what?”
“That,” Dario said, “is why you’re the inferior chess player. What say you take a walk with me?”