Jess took an indrawn breath that seemed to fill him with her presence, her reality.
“You’re here,” he said. “You’re really . . . here.” It seemed impossible. No, it was impossible, by any imagining; she couldn’t leave the Iron Tower. If she could have, surely she’d have run away, not come here.
But then her hand brushed his, and he knew it wasn’t a dream or a trance or anything but real. She was here. Alive. Morgan smiled, and his heart shattered into pieces, because it was a guarded smile, not a happy one. “I won’t be here long,” she said. “I’ve managed to stay out for almost a full day, trying to find you. You do hide yourself well.”
“Then you can stay out longer? Get far from here?”
She was already shaking her head. “No, I’ll never make it out of Alexandria. They’ll find me soon. I haven’t found a way to take this off yet, and until I do, they can track me.” She withdrew her hand and traced fingers over her collar, the symbol of her enslavement to the Library. Some sanity came back to him, and with it, doubt. Maybe they’d turned Morgan. Maybe she was a lure meant to distract him from another, more serious threat. He didn’t see anyone or feel anything, but she was a stunning distraction. He couldn’t take his gaze away from her for long enough to keep a good watch.
So many things he wanted to ask her, but he settled for, “You must have had some great reason to come now. What’s wrong?”
Something clouded her face for a moment, and it almost looked like . . . fear. “There were other reasons, but mostly . . . mostly, it’s about Thomas. Jess, I think he could be held in Rome! I found reference to an ancient, very secret prison—”
“Below the Basilica Julia. I know,” Jess finished. “I’m sorry. I just found that out. But . . . do you have proof that Thomas is actually there?”
Morgan seemed shocked and then a little angry. He didn’t blame her. “Proof? No. But I thought— I thought you’d want to know, that it would give you something more to investigate. And instead I risked my neck to come here to give you information you already had?”
She really does seem pale, he thought. Even in the Iron Tower, there must be sun somewhere for them to enjoy, and she hadn’t gotten enough. She seemed thinner, too. And even discounting the deceptive shadows of the night, he read the weariness on her face. The frustration.
“Did you find records about him? Is he all right?” Jess asked, when all he really wanted to ask about in that moment was her. What she was enduring in the Iron Tower. Whatever it was, he knew it was his fault she was there. They both knew it, and it stood between them like a dark, brooding shadow.
“I know he’s still alive,” she said. “The Artifex seems to believe he has a use for him. Something about the design of the Library automata. From the reports, Thomas had notes in his Codex that might help improve the automata against the Burner attacks. They’ll want to get that from him, at least. If he proves useful, they’ll keep him alive. And if they think they can trust him, they might even . . .”
“Let him go?”
“No. But move him somewhere not as terrible. It must be terrible, Jess. From what I’ve read . . .” Her voice faltered, and it took a heartbeat for it to return. “Wolfe suffered horribly there. They were going to kill him before his mother finally intervened. I didn’t know human beings could be so . . . cold. So cruel. And especially not . . . not in service to the Library.”
Jess did, unfortunately, though it seemed to him there were always more terrible surprises left in the world. “How long before they find you?”
“I’m not sure. They’ll have searched for me inside the Tower first, probably most of the day. If the Obscurist is involved, it won’t be long now.”
“Then we don’t have much time.” His body felt hot and cold at once, and the feeling in his stomach was like that of standing in a very high spot, looking down at the drop. He took her hand and held it. “Morgan, please. I need to know if you can ever forgive me.”
“For sending me to the Tower?” she asked, which was blunt and painful, but he nodded. “Most days I don’t blame you. Some days I do. I tell myself they would have caught me eventually, that you just spared me pain and injury and maybe even death fighting the inevitable. But it still hurts. As long as it does, I can’t . . .”
“Can’t feel the way you used to,” he finished for her, and she slowly nodded. And there it was, the drop he was falling off of, a long spiral down to an inevitable painful impact. “All right. That’s fair enough.” All the nerves in his fingers seemed uncomfortably aware of the feel of her skin, the softness, the warmth. The way her hand curled around his and held on.
“No, it isn’t fair at all,” she said. “I’m sorry, Jess. It isn’t that I don’t care for you—I do. I just—”
“Let me make it up to you. Come with me,” he said. It was an impulse, a wild thing he couldn’t quite control. “I’ll take you away somewhere.”