That stopped him cold. He’d expected her to ask something else, something more . . . military. But instead, it took his tired brain a moment to scramble to the new topic. He finally said, “That they’re a myth.”
“Really.” Scorn dripped from that word, and she leaned back against the wall behind her. “What if I told you that I heard from someone I trust that they’re not?”
“You must have slept through your childhood lessons.” He switched to a childish singsong. “‘The Great Library has an Archive, where all the books they save—’”
“‘Not fire or sword, not flood or war, will be the Archive’s grave,’” Glain finished. “I memorized the same childhood rhymes you did. But I’m talking about the other Archives. The forbidden ones.”
“The Black Archives are a story to frighten children—that’s all. Full of dangerous books, as if books could be dangerous.”
“Some might be,” she said. “And Dario doesn’t think it’s a myth.”
“Dario?” Jess said. “Since when do you believe anything Dario Santiago says? And why is he talking to you at all?”
She gave him a long unreadable smile. “Maybe he just wants to keep track of what you get up to,” she said. “But back to the subject. If it’s where they keep dangerous information, then I say that’s a place that we need to look for any hints about what happened to send Thomas to his death. And who to go after for it. Don’t you?”
Thomas. Hearing his best friend’s name said aloud conjured up his image behind Jess’s eyes: a cheerfully optimistic genius in the body of a German farm boy. He missed Thomas, who’d had all the warmth and understanding of others that Jess lacked. I can’t think about him. For a wild instant, he thought he’d either shout at her or cry, but somehow he managed to keep his voice even as he said, “If such a place as the Black Archives even exists, how would we go about getting into it? I hope Dario has an idea. I don’t.”
“You know Dario—he’s always got an idea,” Glain said. “Something to think on, anyway. Something we can do. I know you want to find out how and why Thomas died as much as I do.”
“The Archivist told us why,” he said. “Thomas was convicted of heresy against the Library.” Tell her what you know, for God’s sake. The thought beat hard against his brain, like a prisoner battering at a door, but he just wasn’t ready. He couldn’t tell what saying the words out loud, making them real, might do to him.
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” Glain said softly. Her dark eyes had gone distant and the look in them sad. “Thomas would never have done anything, said anything to deserve that. He was the best of us.”
Just tell her. She deserves to know!
He finally scraped together just enough courage and drew in a deep, slow breath as he looked up to meet her eyes. “Glain, about Thomas—”
He was cut off by a sudden hard rapping on the door. It sounded urgent, and Jess bolted up off the bed and crossed to answer. He felt half relieved for the interruption . . . until he swung it open, and his squad mate Tariq Oduya shouldered past Jess and into the room. He held two steaming mugs, and thrust one at Jess as he said, “And here I thought you’d be still lagging in bed . . .” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of Glain standing against the wall. She had her arms crossed, and looked as casual as could be, but Tariq still grinned and raised his eyebrows. “Or maybe you just got up!”
“Stuff it,” Glain said, and there was no sign of humor in her expression or voice. She moved forward to take the second cup from Tariq and sipped it, never mind that it was probably his own. “Thanks. Now be about your business, soldier.”
“Happy to oblige, Squad Leader,” he said, and mock saluted. Technically, they were off duty, but he was walking a tightrope, and Jess watched Glain’s face to see if she intended to slice through it and send him falling into the abyss for the lack of respect.
She just sipped the hot drink and watched Tariq without blinking until he moved to the door.
“Recruit Oduya,” she said as he stepped over the threshold. “You do understand that if I hear a whisper of you implying anything about this situation, I’ll knock you senseless, and then I’ll see you off the squad and out of the High Garda.”
He turned and gave her a proper salute. His handsome face was set in a calm mask. “Yes, Squad Leader. Understood.”
He closed the door behind him. Jess took a gulp of the coffee and closed his eyes in relief as the caffeine began its work. “He’s a good sort. He won’t spread rumors.”
Glain gave him a look of utter incredulity. “You really don’t know him at all, do you?”
In truth, Jess didn’t. The squad had bonded tightly, but he’d held himself apart from that quite deliberately; he’d formed deep friendships in his postulant class and seen some of those friends dismissed, injured, and dead. He wasn’t about to open himself up to the same pain again.