Ephemera read through
Text of a note sent via Codex to Jess Brightwell from his mother, Charity Brightwell:
Jess’s mother is Charity in Ink and Bone. This part of the message he gets from home seems fairly innocuous, presumably in an attempt to make the note from his father seem more truthful, and not like it’s a hidden code. However, there are hints of something more. Jess’s father kind of reminds me of Tommy Shelby, from Peaky Blinders. A criminal who attempts to hide it with his position on councils and such – like his new role on the select committee on the beautification of their borough.
One more thing of note is that his uncle Thaddeus has moved to his country house in the north, and they are always welcome there. Is this the castle they go to in Ash and Quill?
A separate note from Callum Brightwell, attached to the same message, Suspected of hidden coded messaging and reviewed by Obscurists. Found to be inconclusive.
This is an excellent code. On the surface, it does just read as though it’s a message from a father to his son far from home – although some of the phrases are a little odd. I’m not sure if I trust that the Obscurists didn’t in fact find anything in the note of worth. This also shows that Codex messages, allegedly private, are in fact monitored for things like this.
Text of secured Library correspondence between the Obscurist Magnus and Scholar Tyler, stationed at the Oxford Serapeum
This is interesting. Despite the apparent decline in Obscurist numbers, some are still born outside of the Tower, and the fact that this is Morgan, with all her considerable power, suggests that the theory brought up by (I believe) Wolfe, that aggressively interbreeding Obscurists is in fact contributing to the decline instead of saving it.
Keria shows her usual lack of emotion here, choosing to stick to the facts and nothing else. She’s quite vague, suggesting they don’t know for sure if there is a budding Obscurist.
The fact that no reply to the message has been found could mean one of two things – Tyler just didn’t response, which I find…implausible, considering he was trying to protect Morgan and a non-reply would be as good as a confession to knowing something, or that there was a message, and it was removed by someone – whether Keria or Morgan, I’m unsure.
Handwritten paper message from Scholar Tyler in Oxford to Morgan Hault:
Handwritten – how was it delivered? Is there a postal service? I wouldn’t think one would be necessary, what with everyone having a Codex. Did Tyler pay someone to deliver it?
He feared that Morgan’s attempts wouldn’t be successful – it seems he has a good bearing on what she’s capable of, and what she could be capable of in the future. Tyler mentions the High Garda being sent to retrieve her. They really don’t want stray Obscurists slipping through the net, do they?
How has Tyler heard that the closer to the Iron Tower, the more likely it is Morgan will be able to effectively change the Codex? For that matter, how does he know that changing Codex formula to hide a person is even possible? Is there a whole group of Obscurists who have done this, hiding themselves from the Tower by changing formulae, making themselves invisible?
An excerpt from a work entitled On Press-Printing: A New Beginning by Research Scholar Christopher Wolfe, submitted to the Artifex Magnus for peer review and brought to him by the Curators of the Library. Marked as Seditious Content and sent to the Black Archives by order of the Archivist Magister, for his eyes only
This reads almost exactly the same as the Gutenberg one earlier in the book. The worry about the Obscurists and the sustainability of such a group, the suggestion of the mechanical press, and the hope that this will bring the Library into the new age.
Of note is that Wolfe built a prototype press, presumably by himself. He must have some engineering skill, to be able to do that with little or no outside help and could be used as evidence for the question of what the fuck was his speciality.
The way he writes suggests that, before prison, he was less bitter towards Obscurists in general, although not necessarily his parents – I can’t imagine canon era Wolfe saying that Obscurists are ‘rare, bright talents’, or that the press will ‘removes the burden from the fragile shoulders of the Obscurists’.
An annotation from the Artifex Magnus to the document:
Again with the heresy. They love that phrase for going against the Library, and I’m STILL curious about the way religion functions alongside the Library.
The Artifex seems genuinely upset that Wolfe has created the press, a hint of the friendship that used to exist between them at some point in the past. He also seems concerned about Wolfe’s close connection to the Tower in light of his invention. Why does the connection make it even more disturbing? Is it just because the press would mean they could no longer control the Obscurists under the guise of saving them and their skills for the Library?
A following annotation from the Obscurist Magnus to the document:
Oh Keria. I know you think you were doing the right thing here, but instead of ensuring your son is killed, you’ve doomed him to a year of torture and a lifetime of trauma and ruined any chance of having a relationship with him. Sure, he was probably going to be tortured anyway, but I’m quite sure he would consider being killed at the end of it a mercy.
This suggests that before Keria stepped in, it was just the documents and works pertaining to the press that would be sent to the Black Archives, not everything he ever wrote, which is interesting.
‘He must, of course, be made to understand that this extraordinary mercy will not come again, and he lives on the sufferance of the Archivist and the Curators’. This is almost certainly something Quall said to Wolfe, repeatedly and at length. I’m sure it would also have been made very clear that it was his own mother that essentially ordered this to happen to him. To then, a year later, have his mother rescue him from the hell she created for him, must have been a massive headfuck for Wolfe. The fact he’s even willing to talk to her is amazing to me.
