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Everything Jake needs to know, he can get by reading. Well, most things. Baird has shown him some new tricks with fighting, but to be fair Jake never tried reading up on that.
So, he uses books and he picks up knowledge. He’s worked hard for it. What Jake doesn’t use is magic. He doesn’t. And he has no intention of starting. Cassie can tell him all she wants that he’s using magic every time they call on The Library’s name, or use the door, or read the clippings books, and she’s right. As far as it goes.
It’s not the same, though. Jake feels that in his bones.
He wishes he could get Cassie to understand.
“Mr Stone, do you need a drink to help you sleep?” Jenkins asks.
Jake looks up from the book he’s reading, or letting his eyes rest on while he thinks, and smiles. He feels that it’s strained, and from the tilt of Jenkins’ head he sees it, too.
“No, I’m good. Thanks, though,” he says.
Unlike other nights when Jenkins has found Jake still out in the main room, he doesn’t give him one of those part-smiles that says Jake should really tidy himself up out of Jenkins’ way, and then leave. No. This time, Jake looks up again to find Jenkins still standing there, watching him.
“Do you need something?” Jake asks. “I could help, if you…”
“If you don’t mind my saying, you seem troubled,” Jenkins says.
“I’ll be fine,” Jake says. “Really, I don’t mean to be a bother. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do.”
If Jenkins wonders why sometimes Jake snaps and spits sarcasm and at others he comes over all polite and unassuming, he doesn’t challenge him on it. Instead, he holds up a finger, essays a part-nod, and sits in the chair at right angles to Jake’s.
“Mr Stone,” Jenkins says, “I have, as I always do, a great many things to do. But seeing as you and your fellow Librarians have become a fixture, I’ve set aside my belief that my day, or my night, will run interrupted.”
He pauses. It’s the sort of pause Jake has come to know means that Jenkins is shifting gears. It used to mean he was suppressing his irritation that they wouldn’t just leave, but these days it more often means he’s warming up to saying something that gives away how much he cares.
“Thanks for coming and getting us,” Jakes says, before Jenkins gets his words lined up. “That magic…it… It was out of control.”
Whatever Jenkins was going to say, he visibly drops it. He leans slightly forward and catches Jake’s eye, and it’s these sort of moments where Jake can’t forget that Jenkins was a soldier.
“And that’s what has you sitting up, reading a tome on water-spells from the 1400s, when you should be sleeping off the effects of said magic?” he asks. “You find it unsettling.”
“Don’t you?” Jake asks.
“I’m well aware of the dangers of meddling with magic without understanding it,” Jenkins says. “The Library is about control through knowledge, and about protection, and about guardianship. New artifacts are certainly troubling.”
Jake nods. Of them all, only Eve seems to accept how dangerous magic is better than Jenkins does. Or Jake. Ezekiel is far too cavalier about it and Cassie is far too excited. And Flynn? Well, even though he’s much better with the teamwork, Flynn still acts like he only has himself to answer to far too much of the time.
The thing is, magic has consequences. He still doesn’t get why they can’t see that. Why Cassie can’t see that.
Her mind is connected in ways no-one can fully grasp. Hell, he sees connections and means of communication wherever he looks, sees language and symbolism and art, but he knows it isn’t the same. Cassie doesn’t just see these links in the abstract - she literally sees them. Smells them. Hears them. He’s read up on it, has immersed himself in prose and poetry and music and art that might help him to feel the reality of it, but nothing quite seems to capture what Cassie says she experiences.
And he doesn’t really expect a young thief who’s so focused on himself to get it, because Ezekiel Jones has always walked away from situations when they don’t work for him, leaving the alarms blaring and the guards to explain how they lost that priceless artifact. There’re about a thousand reasons Flynn can’t be trusted to see it quite right, even though he does like to issue warnings.
But surely a mathematician who literally lives connections ought to be able to get her head around the idea that actions cause other actions, that events lead to eventualities. And eventually she’s going to wind up in trouble and Jake might not be there to save her.
He is aware she would be upset to hear he thought that. He’s certain Eve would do more than just give him that look she gets, the one that says she sees his dad’s attitudes bleeding out through the cracks in him. And he’s been trying, he has, but that’s another way these things can get you: ideas you wouldn’t choose to believe can just be there, a part of you, shading how you think, how you feel. Rooting them out is a trick he hasn’t quite mastered yet.
Eve training him, teaching him how to be stronger and more effective in a fight, hasn’t exactly cured him of wanting to keep the others safe. Even if they don’t need saving in the objective sense.
So, he wants Cassie to get it, because then she’ll be safer, but he knows she doesn’t like it when he tells her she can’t use magic. She’s told him she’s going to ignore his opinion on it, even though she doesn’t like him being mad at her.
To Jake, it’s like watching a wet-behind-the-ears kid mess about with the power-tools, or near the cables, with some apparent belief that getting cut up or electrocuted won’t happen to them. Hell, Jake has a scar on his lip for a reason, and he got lucky. Very lucky.
Cassie already got a damn magic rock embedded in her chest, and that hasn’t been enough to slow her down. Not really. Jake is almost sure she’s being less open about it around him, but it smacks more of consideration for his blood pressure than it does any sense she might be doing something wrong. Or unwise, at least.
“You’re worried,” Jenkins says. “About new artifacts? Or is it someone in particular? Miss Cillian, perhaps?”
And Jake is smart, but he does keep forgetting how a trained solider will keep an eye on the people around him. He forgets that Jenkins may have shut himself off from people, but only after hundreds of years.
“She won’t accept how dangerous this all is,” Jake says, and instantly feels guilty. He doesn’t want to gossip about Cassie behind her back. It’s been a long road back to trusting her, and he doesn’t want to be the one not trusted. Still… “It’s like she sees it all as some exciting experiment where nothing can really go wrong.”
“Miss Cillian chose to stay with us,” Jenkins says, and doesn’t elaborate on which time he means. “Perhaps we both need to remember that.”
Jake feels his lip curl into a grimace, and he taps at the edges of the book.
“Of them all, you’re the most resistant to using magic,” Jenkins says. “Have you considered why that might be?”
“Not really, no,” Jake says. But he has. Of course he has.
He’s had enough time spent being very aware of what he could and could not use, which pieces of knowledge had to be hidden away until he was typing an essay safely in his own home. Jake knows very well that just because you know something doesn’t mean it’s safe to show you do. It doesn’t mean it’s safe to use it.
“You know,” Jenkins says, “Judson and Charlene didn’t want me experimenting on the artifacts. As far as they were concerned, that counted as using them more than we should be doing. But it’s given me a lot of information, information and knowledge that I’ve used to help you. The back door, for instance.”
Jake frowns. He can’t quite bring himself to meet Jenkins’ eyes again.
“You saying we should use magic, now?”
“No, Mr Stone. I’m saying maybe neither you nor Miss Cillian are entirely right. I’m saying perhaps you don’t want to find yourselves on opposite sides of a disagreement. I came for you all today, and I will always come for you, because much as I fought against it to start with, you are my family now. Do not put yourself in a position to split yourself apart from a member of your own family. Believe me, I know how that goes, and I would not wish it on you.”
This time, Jake thinks. This time, maybe he’ll get around to asking Jenkins about Du Laq, and exactly what the books got right and what they got wrong, but when he looks up he sees Jenkins’ expression has shifted back to something approaching distance. The moment is gone.
“Now, don’t stay sitting up all night,” Jenkins says, standing. For a second, it seems he might put out a hand, that he might pat Jake on the shoulder, but that moment pases, as well. “Get some sleep. I applaud your efforts to learn everything you can, but you aren’t the only Librarian, and you won’t be able to learn everything all at once. Knowledge is a powerful thing, Mr Stone. But it isn’t everything.”
Jake doesn’t read anymore, but when Jenkins is gone he does stay sitting at the table, thinking about what he knows, and what he fears, and what he hopes for. Most of all,he wants his family safe, but Jenkins may be right: pushing Cassie away by arguing will mean he can’t be there with her anymore. Perhaps.
He feels in his gut that using magic is the wrong move, but he can’t muster the arguments to get her, to get them all, to agree. He’s afraid he might not have a choice about being on the opposite side, if it comes to it. He just wishes he knew how to make this right, but there are some pieces of knowledge even The Library can’t offer him access to.
If it could just offer him access to Cassie’s mind, if it could just let him connect with her about this, he’d be able to rest. For now, he sits and he thinks. And he feels the gaps in their agreement.