The Artifex snapped his fingers, and his High Garda escort pushed off the wall, ready to move. Santi moved, too, walking around the tables to stand with Wolfe. Two sides, and the students caught in the middle, Jess realised.

And it was very clear who was on the winning side.

The Artifex pointed a sharp finger at Wolfe. ‘Leave. Another word, and you bring down a great deal of pain. Not just on yourself.’

Wolfe’s dark eyes glittered, and his hands clenched, but he nodded sharply, turned, and walked out of the room. Santi followed, but not without a look back.

That, Jess thought, was a killer’s stare, and it was fixed on the Artifex with real intensity.

Then they were gone, and the door shut behind them.

Portero cleared his throat. ‘Artifex? With the greatest respect, sir … what happens to us if we … don’t agree to go?’

‘You fail,’ the man said. ‘And you go anyway. Never fear, I won’t send you alone. You’ll have a troop of High Garda with you. And Scholar Wolfe, of course. I wouldn’t dream of keeping him from the action.’ Smug bastard, Jess thought. As much as he’d always disliked Wolfe, what he felt for the Artifex was an entirely new level of loathing.

‘When do we leave?’ he asked. ‘Sir.’

‘Immediately. Wait here for instructions. And no messages out. I will keep your families apprised of any necessary details they need to know. You are dismissed. Tota est scientia.’

They said it back, mostly by rote, and watched him depart, drawing his High Garda escort along with him.

Wolfe didn’t come back.

‘What should we do?’ Izumi asked.

‘That’s not the right question. The right question is, what can we do? And the answer to that is, nothing.’ Dario got to his feet, but even he didn’t seem to know where to go from there. ‘We refuse, are failed, and go anyway, or we go, and hope we don’t fail.’

‘My father won’t stand for this,’ Khalila said. She seemed stunned, out of her depth for the first time since Jess had met her. ‘The Library can’t just send us. Not to a war zone! We aren’t High Garda!’

‘They can do whatever they want,’ Jess told her. ‘They always have. You’re just seeing it that way for the first time.’ He offered her a hand, and she took it to stand. Her fingers were cold, but she offered him a small, unsteady smile. ‘It’ll be all right. We’ll look out for each other.’

‘Yes,’ Glain said. ‘We will. It’s time to stop biting at each other, and that means you, Dario, and you, Jess. We have to depend on each other from this moment on. No secrets. Agreed?’

Jess’s gaze brushed over Morgan’s. No secrets.

‘Agreed,’ Jess said.

One by one, they all echoed it.

The door to the room opened again, and Captain Santi looked in on them. ‘Down the hall. Wolfe’s waiting for you,’ he said. They all filed by him, but when Jess passed, Santi took hold of his arm. ‘Brightwell. A word.’

Thomas gave him a worried look, but at Jess’s nod, he left with the rest. The door swung shut behind him with a solid boom.

Santi let him go. ‘Do you recognise this?’ He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. Written on it, in ink, was a message that had no name or signature, but Jess recognised the hand. Brendan never had been very skilled with a pen.

Pay respects to your cousin Charlie. You’ll find him beneath the sod. Lay some flowers for us.

It was a family message, and it was in family code. Cousin Charlie meant his cousin Frederick, in Oxford; beneath the sod meant a particular spot in that town to find the man. Lay some flowers meant that Jess could ask for help there … at a price.

Jess looked up at Santi’s impassive face, and felt a real stab of fear. Brendan had written this, so had his brother been taken? How else could that note be in the possession of a High Garda soldier? He deliberately fought down those fears and handed the paper back. ‘Nothing to me, mate. No idea what it means.’

‘Ah,’ Santi said. His tone was light and pleasant. ‘Good thing. One of my eager young soldiers found it in the possession of a black trader. Barzem. Know him?’

‘Never heard of him,’ Jess said. Barzem had been the contact who’d sent him to steal the Aristophanes play from Abdul Nejem. He was a good liar; he’d trained at it his entire life.

But he didn’t think Santi believed a word of it.

‘Just as well,’ Santi said. ‘He’s dead. Knifed in the back on his way out of a coffee shop. What’s the world coming to? Well, might as well dispose of this.’ He ripped the message up into tiny pieces and put it back in his pocket. ‘I’ll burn it at home. Wouldn’t want anyone to find it here.’

That was confounding. And disturbing. ‘Are we done?’

‘I doubt it,’ Santi said, but he opened the door for him to escape.

Jess found the others, who were waiting in the hallway. Thomas sent him a questioning look, but Jess just shook his head. He edged closer to Morgan, who ducked her head and said, ‘What was that?’

‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ he said.

‘But something you should?’

He wasn’t sure yet. He knew that he ought to be worried; Santi obviously knew the message had been meant for him, and yet he’d shown it to him. He’d destroyed it.

Brendan knew he was heading for Oxford. He’d known even before Jess did somehow, and that was worrying indeed. His father had extensive networks of contacts around the world, every book smuggler did. But he’d never had contacts inside the Library itself, not before Jess. So how had Brendan known? Who’d told him?

There was something familiar about what Santi had just said about the dead man, Barzem. Knifed in the back coming out of a coffee house. It was a strong echo of something his brother had once told him, long ago it seemed, back in rainy London. Stabbed in the back coming out of his club, his brother had said.

The ink-licker’s murder. Something Brendan would know Jess couldn’t forget.

Brendan hadn’t got a message through to Barzem. He’d left it on his body.

His brother had never left Alexandria.

EPHEMERA

Text of a message in the hand of Scholar Wolfe, directly to the Artifex Magnus:

I’ve done all that you have asked of me since my release. I’ve stood silent when you threatened my friends, my lover, destroyed my life’s work. I’ve borne every punishment.

I will go to Oxford and preserve the books. If it becomes necessary, I will lay down my life for the Library and all it represents, as I’m sure is your plan.

But I warn you, you have crossed a line I cannot forgive. These students were given to me to train. They are my responsibility. You may have made me proctor as a bitter joke, since I have always been a miserable teacher at best, but even so you have no right to risk the lives of an entire generation of Scholars to punish me.

I will take this to the Archivist himself.

Response to Scholar Wolfe from the Artifex Magnus:

By all means, appeal. I have already spoken with the Archivist, and he understands the urgency of this mission. And the risks.

Your life belongs to us, Wolfe. Don’t test my patience again. As to your postulants, we both know that there will always be another crush to fill those empty spaces.

CHAPTER SIX

Jess expected that they’d leave the Serapeum and board carriages for the train station. It was a long journey back to London, and then to Oxford.

But Wolfe didn’t lead them outside. He put his wristband against the painting of Callimachus, the first Archivist under Ptolemy II, and the painting melted into flowing orange symbols. Symbols Jess recognised, after having seen them moving under Morgan’s fingers. Formulae, Morgan had called them. What was it doing here, hidden inside a painting?