Jess took up a leaning spot on the wall. Wolfe paced, of course, as was his usual habit. Khalila and Thomas sat, quietly watching him. Santi poured Jess a cup of wine, and Jess took a sip before he asked, “So, what’s this?”
“This is us planning what to do,” Santi said. “It’s not going very well. Considering that no matter what we do, there’s very little chance we can break free of this tower, and none at all we will get out of Alexandria alive if we do.”
“Nic.”
“There’s no point in planning when we’re too tired to think,” he said quite reasonably. “Your mother’s not likely to hand us over immediately, is she? Or have us knifed in our beds?”
“No,” Wolfe said. He kept pacing, hands restlessly tugging at his robe. “Hardly her style.”
“In that case, I have some news,” Santi said. “Zara might not be a friend to me any longer, but I do have some in the High Garda I can rely on. I asked them to let me know if anyone matching Dario’s description was captured either in Rome or elsewhere. There have been no arrests. He made it out of Rome safely, I believe.”
Khalila let out a trembling breath and whispered a prayer of thanks.
“Glain’s doing well,” Jess said. “She should be strong enough to join us tomorrow.”
“Or will join us, anyway?” Wolfe asked. “Yes, I know the girl. She won’t stay in that bed long.”
“And Morgan?” Thomas looked at Jess and raised his eyebrows. “She’s all right?”
“Yes. She’s all right. I saw her to her room.”
“Morgan’s in no danger at all here, at least not the kind we’re in,” Wolfe said. “Her problem is more desperate, but less violent. We have a day, two at most, before the Archivist himself arrives at the Tower, and once he does, my mother won’t have a choice but to hand us over. She can turn the Artifex away. Not the head of the Great Library.”
“Then we need to leave,” Thomas said. “Perhaps the Obscurist will send us away to safety?”
“She says she will,” Wolfe said. “I don’t know if I believe her. My mother’s ever been in pursuit of her own agenda. Sentiment doesn’t often enter the equation.”
Like mother, like son, Jess thought, but had the sense not to say it. “Any other way out of here?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. If there had been, Morgan wouldn’t have been here as long as she had.
“It’s possible,” Khalila said slowly. “I’ve been researching the Iron Tower for months. I was doing it for Morgan, in case I could find any way to get her out safely. Just before we left, I found something strange in the records. Very strange. I took notes, but I didn’t have a chance to verify the research.”
“And?” Wolfe asked, and she blushed a little.
“Just a moment.” She turned, and Jess thought she was retrieving something from a hidden pocket in her dress. Or under it. She handed over a single sheet of paper to Wolfe. “It’s coded. Dario created the cipher for me. Do you need the key?”
Jess gestured for the page, and Wolfe passed it along. Jess blinked. “When did he make the code for you?”
“When? Just a few days ago. He said we’d be better off that way. Why?”
Jess felt himself smiling tightly; how like Dario to do something smart and at the same time demonstrate his arrogance. “Because I recognize it. It’s my family’s code.”
“Don’t tell me Dario’s a long-lost cousin!”
“Just an ass,” Jess said. “He asked me about the code once. I told him it was unbreakable. So of course he broke it. And now he’s using it. Idiot.”
“The contents?” Wolfe prompted impatiently. Santi, who’d said nothing, pushed himself off the wall he’d been holding up to stand next to them.
“There’s a hidden section in the Iron Tower. Several floors unaccounted for in all of the records that exist. What’s above the garden level, where the Translation comes in?”
Wolfe frowned. “Nothing. That’s the top of the Tower.”
“No, that isn’t true,” Thomas said. His eyes turned blank, the way they did as he performed calculations Jess couldn’t even fathom inside his head. “There must be at least four more floors above it. Possibly five.”
“Morgan would have found it by now. She’s had nothing but time to look!”
Jess sent Wolfe a warning look. “If Thomas says it’s there, it’s there. Perhaps we could hide in these hidden floors. Perhaps there’s even an escape of some kind there.”
“Don’t you think if there was a way upstairs, someone else would have found it by now?”
Wolfe hadn’t said anything, but he looked over their heads at Santi, who raised his eyebrows.
“We can try,” he said. “But I have a feeling that anything that’s secret inside the Iron Tower may be a great deal deadlier than it looks.”