It was a concise, cold, brutally truthful statement, and he said it low enough that only Jess heard. Jess nodded. ‘Given all that, it must have been incredibly hard for him to win a place here in the first place. Have some respect.’

‘I do,’ Dario said. ‘I also have clear eyes. He had secrets. So do you.’

They were, Jess thought, more alike than either of them wanted to admit. He’d never realised that about himself before; he’d always thought of himself as a good person, at his core. But sitting next to Dario, hearing familiar tones and words out of a different mouth, he was forced to reconsider.

‘I do have secrets. I secretly think you’re a bastard,’ he said to Dario, though without much heat. ‘Shove off. I’m thinking.’

‘Well, that would take all your concentration,’ Dario agreed, and moved off to put his arm around Khalila. Jess watched as her body relaxed into his, and he realised he wasn’t surprised that the two of them were drawing together. Not after what he’d seen in the Translation Chamber. She’d trusted the boy. Why she would was a mystery to him, but there was no doubt that some barrier had fallen between them.

Jess’s gaze went to Morgan. They’d all recovered more or less quickly, though Jess was cursed with a hitching pain in his ribs and what felt like a wrenched knee – not bad enough to hobble him, just enough to make him hurt a bit. He’d walk it off, though. He’d had worse.

But it kept him from catching up to Morgan.

As he grabbed his pack and swung the weight onto his shoulders, Thomas joined him. The German already had his pack strapped securely, but he still had a hurt, lost look in his face. ‘We’re just going to leave Guillaume?’ he asked. ‘Just like that? No … service?’

‘We’re heading into a war zone, Thomas. Can’t stop for services.’

‘Still, it seems—’

‘Come on.’

Jess knew he sounded impatient, but he couldn’t control that; Thomas’s grief rubbed like sandpaper, and made him want to lash out.

Thomas gave him a sad-eyed look, but followed as Jess made his way towards the door. Morgan was following close behind Wolfe. Khalila was still escorted by Dario, though as they emerged from the Translation Chamber into a wide brick hallway, she broke away from him and took a quicker pace, chin raised. Independent once more.

Wolfe led their party – only seven, now – into the Aylesbury reading room. Like the Alexandrian version, it was filled with shelves and tables, though Aylesbury needed a large, roaring furnace, where Alexandria rarely felt the cold so deeply. Jess hadn’t thought about it until now, but the familiar English damp and chill was starting to close around him. He’d worn light clothing for the merciless heat he’d grown accustomed to, and now he was starting to feel the lack of wool.

This room had a different smell, too. Paper and ink, yes, and dust, but a faint trace of mildew, too. And the sharp oak scent of the fireplace, whose warmth didn’t penetrate far into the space. Old ashes. Old sweat.

This place hadn’t been built as a Library building; it must have been converted from a church, at some point, and still had the feeling of one. The shelves in the room looked oddly spaced, bolted in to replace sacred statues or shrines. The Library hadn’t built new here, just repurposed.

‘Everyone fit to travel?’ Wolfe asked them, when they were assembled around him. One by one, they nodded. ‘Open your packs. In them, you’ll find two things I want you to wear. One is a bronze temporary bracelet; it conveys on you the rights of a full librarian for the duration of this trip. The second item is a Library coat. You will all put them on and wear them unless I tell you to remove them. I want no claims from the English or Welsh that they mistook us for combatants.’

Jess muscled his pack off again and dug inside and yes, near the top was a metal clasp bracelet – bronze – embossed with the Library symbol. Unlike regular Library bracelets, it could be removed; the symbols that librarians wore had to be cut away at the termination of their contracts.

The bronze was the lowest of the levels. At the end of a bronze contract, a Library employee would either move up, stay on, or move out. It isn’t a real one, he told himself. Just temporary.

He removed his postulant version and fastened the new one, and felt a chill when he looked down at his wrist. I’m one of them now. He’d wanted it, and still did, but that didn’t change the unease of a lifetime of running from that symbol, and fearing it. From knowing that the Library would relentlessly continue to pursue smugglers, and would cheerfully hang him, his father, his brother, even his mother.

When he donned the dull gold of the overcoat, he felt even more distanced from his past. The material weighed very little, though he was grateful for another layer to hold in the heat.

He looked like one of them now. Completely.

When they’d all properly fitted themselves out, Wolfe looked them over, made some adjustments here and there, and nodded. ‘You’re ready,’ he said. ‘Do what I tell you. Obey the soldiers when they give you an order, and you’ll come through.’

That sounded suspiciously like concern, and that, more than anything else, made Jess start to worry about what was coming next.

Outside in the large, walled forecourt of the Serapeum, stood a full squad of Library High Garda … about eighty of them. Men and women alike, laughing, talking, sitting, standing, playing cards and dice and other games he didn’t immediately recognise. A relaxed atmosphere, except that they all wore the formal black of the High Garda, and had heavy arms ready at hand. Santi was with them, talking to one of the others and reviewing a map laid out between them.

Santi rose from his crouch and folded up his map. As the captain rose, an instant change came over the company around him. Bodies straightened and stepped into neat ranks. It happened fast, and economically, from chaos to order in less time than it took Jess to recognise what was happening. Santi didn’t so much as glance at his troops, but he bowed slightly to Wolfe and said, ‘In your service, Scholar Wolfe.’

‘Grateful for it, Captain Santi,’ Wolfe said. ‘What conditions?’

‘Bad ones. Rain and flooding, but we’ve got the carriages to take us as far as the Welsh lines. From there, we’ll have to play by the rules we’re given.’

‘Which are?’

‘They’ll let us take one vehicle into Oxford. Even with all of my soldiers on foot, it’ll be a tight squeeze to get all your students inside with even a small number of books, but I don’t see an alternative. They didn’t even have to allow us the one vehicle, technically. Asking for another is useless.’

‘Not ideal.’

‘Not even close. But it never is, is it?’ Santi’s white, even teeth showed in a sudden grin, and Wolfe’s lips actually turned up at the corners. ‘I hope your children know which end of a gun to hold.’

‘They’ve been taught the basics.’

‘We’re going beyond the basics. Costigan! Issue our new friends with their arms, please.’

One of Santi’s men broke from the neat lines and grabbed a box, which he carried forward and opened. He gestured at Jess, who was closest, and as Jess stepped towards him, Costigan thrust a cloth belt, holster and weapon at him. ‘Fully loaded,’ he said. ‘You’re good for ten non-lethal shots, then switch the canister. Extras on the belt are charged. Try not to shoot your friends.’

That was it. When Jess tried to buckle the belt on where he was, Costigan impatiently shoved him away to make room for the next person stepping forward. Jess retreated into the shadow of a portico to finish strapping on the weapon; his fingers were cold and didn’t seem to work as swiftly as he wanted. He hoped to look smooth and confident, but he thought he probably looked scared.

Thomas fell in beside him and buckled on his own belt. He pulled out the weapon and looked it over with the avid interest of someone who truly itched to deconstruct it. ‘I’ve never seen one this small before,’ he said. The weapon didn’t much look like the sleek, deadly projectile weapons that the regular High Garda carried; these were far bulkier and squared, and had visible tubing around the top. ‘It fires charged darts. I’ve seen them used; they can drop a man for almost an hour.’ Thomas turned it over. ‘How do you think they solve the overheating problem? Someone must have, if they could fit the coil here, you see?’