Opportunities . . . What opportunities did she have right now? Kai might be able to use amazing dragon powers to stop Alberich entering an area, but that wasn’t much use when he was already inside it. And she might be able to force Alberich out of an area using Language, but again that wasn’t much help if he could simply wait outside its boundaries . . .
Boundaries. A half-plausible thought moved through the back of her mind. She wished she’d had more time to ask Kai about his capabilities. When he warded an area, did the warding simply follow the track that he left? Or was it a more metaphysical sort of thing, with the boundaries of his warding being linked to whatever he intended to ward?
“Let’s reduce the potential hostages,” she said briskly, ignoring Kai’s intake of breath from behind her. If this was going to work, she needed him outside and free to act. “I’m the one you want. As you said, I’m Kai’s superior. Having him stand here and maybe lose his temper won’t help either of us.” She tried to look gullible. Impressionable. As if she believed Alberich when he said she might survive this.
“You’ve already got one hostage, and you know I’m concerned about his well-being. If I wasn’t, we’d already be attacking or running away. Let’s clear the ground. Let Kai here go as a start to the negotiations.”
Alberich surveyed her thoughtfully, and again there was that flash of hunger in his eyes. “It’s true that my questions concern you, not him,” he said slowly. “And he’s no initiate. I needn’t fear him trying to open a door to the Library behind my back. Very well. I’ll be reasonable. In return for a similar concession from you.”
Irene remembered to breathe. “Such as?” she said.
“Your birth-name,” Alberich said quickly, and she realized this had been his plan all along.
Magic had never been Irene’s field of expertise. It still wasn’t. But she didn’t need to be an expert to know that Alberich’s Fae magic, with knowledge of her true name, could be very bad news for her.
“Ha!” Kai said. She suspected he was sneering.
Irene nodded to Alberich, then turned to Kai. As she had thought, he was sneering. “Kai,” she said. “I want you to do something very straightforward for me. I want you to go outside and stay outside. I don’t want you setting one foot inside this library.” How to convey to him I want you to set up that warding you talked about and do it as fast as possible? “I’ll handle this.”
Kai blinked at her, totally blindsided. “But—,” he started.
“But me no buts,” Irene snapped. “It’s as Alberich said. You’re not a Librarian and there’s nothing you can do in this situation. You don’t have the Language and you can’t fight him. I’m not going to endanger yet another person. Now, are you going to obey my orders and get out”—she could hear her voice rising—“or am I going to have to worry about you as well as Vale here?”
Kai gave her a long stare. It felt like a reproach. It was a reproach. She didn’t want to do this to him, but Alberich wasn’t stupid. The slightest hint of collusion would get Vale killed, and she could only hope that Kai understood that.
“You know perfectly well there’s nothing I can do if I’m outside these walls,” he said. Could he have grasped what she wanted? “I’m supposed to be your colleague, not your brain-damaged dependent! At least let me stay nearby.”
“It’s all one to me,” Alberich said blandly.
Irene jerked her thumb at the door. “These are your orders, Kai. Out, and stay outside, and I don’t want to see your face until we’re done.” She glanced up at the window for a moment. “And don’t get any ideas about flying around on the zeppelins.”
Kai’s eyes narrowed fractionally, and she could only hope that he’d grasped the idea. “Don’t think I’m happy about this,” he said, shoulders slumping to the very angle of their first meeting. It had looked better in a leather jacket.
Irene nodded and turned back to Alberich. “The door, please.”
“Your name, please,” he said, with the same intonation that she had just used.
“I give you my word that I will give you my birth-name the moment Kai stands safely outside that closed door,” Irene said in the Language.
“Neat,” Alberich commented. “You think quickly. Room door, open.”
The door swung open, squashing silverfish in its wake, and thudded against the wall. There was nobody in the room beyond—at least, there was nobody alive. Just the huddled mounds of the few unfortunate bodies caught in the silverfish attack. Irene hoped queasily that they were just unconscious, overcome by ultrasonic waves or something like that. She couldn’t handle more deaths.
“If you hurt her,” Kai said softly, “I swear by my father and his brothers, and by the bones of my grandfathers, that you shall pay for this.”
Alberich regarded him thoughtfully. “What a curious way of putting it. I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere before . . . Oh, never mind. I daresay I can dissect you later if it’s absolutely necessary. Out of here now, before I change my mind.”
Irene didn’t say anything, in case Alberich did change his mind. She gestured Kai towards the door and wondered how long it would take him to set up a barrier. And also how long she had before Alberich was finished with her.
Kai hunched his shoulders angrily and stalked out of the office.
“Close, room door,” Alberich said, and it slammed shut with another squelch of splattered silverfish, leaving the three of them alone together.
Irene felt the compulsion of her own oath like a noose around her neck. “My parents gave me the name of Ray,” she said, quickly choosing her words, before it could force out even more detail. The phrasing was more convoluted than it might have been, but it was true enough. “I don’t know their birth-names, so I can’t give you a family name.”
“Ray.” Alberich looked as if he was about to laugh. “And did they call you their little ray of sunshine?”
Actually, yes, they had. Irene raised her brows. “Is that relevant?”
“Not particularly, but I have always been a curious man.” His hand didn’t move, and the knife at Vale’s throat stayed steady. “Why don’t you know their birth-names?”
There was no way she was telling him they were Librarians too. And now she’d answered, she wasn’t bound and could lie as much as she wanted. “They always kept secrets from me,” she invented. “I’m answering your question as best I can.”
Alberich narrowed his eyes, and she suspected with a chill that he didn’t believe her. “Relevant questions, then. What precisely has been going on?”
She hadn’t expected that one. “Er, in what sort of detail?”
“There have been far too many people interfering in what might otherwise have been a perfectly straight-forward extraction. Believe me, Ray—”
She knew he saw her twitch when he used her name. She couldn’t help it. She hadn’t heard anyone use it to her for years. It was a childhood name, and she wasn’t a child any longer.
“—I didn’t ask for any of this,” he went on smoothly. “I would much rather have simply taken the book and left. No mess. No fuss. So I’m asking you, in a perfectly reasonable way, to stand up straight, stop stammering, and give me a full report. Imagine I’m one of your superiors.”
He could have been one of her superiors too. It was easy to imagine. They were diverse enough—such as Coppelia with her clock-work limbs or Kostchei with his thousand-yard gaze. But all had the same air of authority that Alberich was displaying. Other than that and the rumours, she knew nothing about him. She didn’t even know what he looked like. And he terrified her.
“Under the circumstances—,” Vale put in.
“Remember that I can and will freeze your vocal cords too,” Alberich said. “And your lungs. Unless you want to explain events yourself? In which case, Ray here becomes worthless . . .”
“I believe Miss Winters can ha
ndle this,” Vale said. “I will only interrupt if I have something important to add.”
He was probably used to coping while people held knives at his throat, Irene reflected savagely. “Allow me,” she put in. “I believe that the main factor here was that Wyndham knew too much.”
“Quite a claim, given how much Vale seems to know of Library business,” Alberich said pleasantly.
Irene decided to ignore that as she wondered how long Kai would take. And would she know when he’d finished? She needed to spin this out as long as possible, weave all her guess-work into a convincing narrative, and pray that Alberich would accept it. “Wyndham had connections with the Fae,” she started confidently, “but he also knew that Dominic Aubrey was a Librarian and, as such, opposed to the Fae. Wyndham knew the book was significant to Silver and thought that he could use it as a bargaining chip to gain something in return. Or he might have been taking some sort of complicated revenge. It was one of those Fae relationships. He decided to make sure that the book was somewhere safe while he negotiated. So he sent it under cover of another parcel to the Natural History Museum.” Could she persuade Alberich to go there to look for it? “And then he was murdered.”
“Oh yes,” Alberich said. “I arranged his killing. My agents didn’t find the book while they were there, but that would be because Belphegor got there first. The Iron Brotherhood were extremely useful. Vampire-killing assassins, automata to send after you, and other things too. It seemed the easiest way for me to get hold of the book. I didn’t feel like dealing with Silver or the other local Fae. Some of my allies have issues with certain factions. But I won’t bore you with the details. I entered this alternate, took control of the Iron Brotherhood, found the locally stationed Librarian, questioned him, and assumed his skin. Simple enough. Speaking of that, do you still have it?”
Irene abruptly wanted to be sick. She’d maintained some control during werewolf attacks, zeppelin near crashes, and silverfish fatalities, but this was different. Questioned him. Assumed his skin. “It was you, wasn’t it? The first time?”
He understood her question, ill-formed as it was. “Oh yes. I was the one who met you and your student when you first came through. To be honest, you’ve been rather a surprise to me.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Irene said primly, counting seconds in her head.
Something else was clearly ticking over behind Alberich’s eyes too. “If you’d found the book in the Natural History Museum, you could have gone straight back to the Library by forcing a portal elsewhere. You wouldn’t have needed to come here. And you’ve admitted Wyndham knew that Aubrey was a Librarian. Answer me, Ray. Did Wyndham send the book to Aubrey?”
“Yes,” Irene said. The word came grating from her mouth in response to his question and his use of her name before she could waltz around the subject any further.
A high colour showed on Alberich’s cheeks. It must have been some sort of anger reaction transmuted by the skin he was wearing. “Are you telling me that the book came here?”
Irene could feel the response dragging at her throat, trying to say itself. Vale’s eyes met hers for a moment, as she weighed the benefit of distracting Alberich further against the risk of his cutting Vale’s throat if he lost his temper. “Yes,” she said quickly, giving in and letting the word out, before Alberich felt the need to make good on his threats.
“And it’s the book on the desk?”
Irene opened her mouth to deny it but couldn’t. The word dragged itself from her lips. “Yes.”
Alberich exploded. “You pitiful little idiot! Do you have any idea how much effort I’ve had to put in here over the last few days?” He was shrieking like a harridan, and though the knife at Vale’s throat was steady, Alberich’s face was wrong—his mouth open a little too wide, his eyes staring furiously, spittle spraying the side of Vale’s face. “I shift skins twice. I take my attention away from very important projects. And because you have been running around hiding this book, my efforts have been wasted. Do you think that’s funny, Ray? Do you?”
The room began to shift and crawl around him. The papers on the desk ran into liquid and dripped away, running down to splash against the floor. Dead silverfish dissolved into vapour that blew outwards in widening curls, as though Alberich and Vale stood at the centre of a whirlwind. The panes of glass in the display-cases began to vibrate, thrumming as if someone were singing at an impossibly high pitch. And now Irene could feel it pulsing at the back of her skull, humming in her ears. “Stop it!” she cried out.
“No,” Alberich said. He smiled at her, abruptly calm. “No, it isn’t funny. I’ll take that book. You will give it to me.”
“Or you’ll cut your hostage’s throat?” Irene said. She was still shaken from the sudden flux. Everything about it had been wrong. The Fae were bad enough, but this softening of reality had been much worse. She’d been ready to face death, even, but that—no.
“Be reasonable,” Alberich said. “I’ll need a new skin soon. Another Librarian’s skin would suit me quite well. So would Vale’s position in society. Don’t give me any excuses, Ray. Don’t give me any more reasons to slit this man’s throat and then rip your skin off. Be very polite, be very helpful, and listen to what I’m about to tell you.”
Irene simply jerked her head in a nod. She was afraid of touching off that anger again, afraid for Vale’s sake—and, more honestly, terrified for herself.
“Where was I?” For a moment he reminded her of Dominic Aubrey, making her wonder how much of that charade had been imitation and how much had been genuine Alberich, filtered through a dead man’s skin. She’d liked Aubrey. “Ah yes. Motivations. Tell me, Ray, what is the purpose of the Library?”
“To preserve,” Irene said automatically.
Alberich nodded as though he’d expected that answer. “Now tell me—tell me honestly and sincerely—that you’ve never thought about using the knowledge you’ve helped preserve. To change the worlds around you for the better. Or do you think that they’re already perfect?” His voice dripped sarcasm.
Irene felt as if she were having to run through a minefield blindfolded, with no idea what the correct answers were.
“Of course I’ve thought about it. But you know that they don’t send us”—for a moment she wished she hadn’t used the word us; it brought them onto the same level—“out on missions unless they’re certain that they can trust us.”
“And you accept that so readily?”
“It’s the price I chose to pay to get what I wanted.” She’d never wanted anything else.
“Don’t think I make this sort of offer to just any Librarian,” Alberich went on. “You’ve shown a degree of intelligence which has impressed me. Not all Librarians know when and how to break the rules.”
“Excuse me a moment,” Vale said politely, while Irene wondered if Alberich gave the normally I wouldn’t spare your life, but you’re special spiel to every Librarian he met. “Might I ask what happened to the original Miss Mooney?”
“Who?” Alberich said blankly.
“The woman whose body you are occupying.” Vale’s tone dripped with cold disdain. “Jennifer Mooney, one of the more influential figures in the Iron Brotherhood. I recollect the face from one of Singh’s photographs. I wish I had remembered it earlier.”
“Oh.” Alberich smiled. “Ah, Ms. Mooney—I had to take her identity in quite a hurry, in order to use the Brotherhood as a diversion.”
Irene could have kicked herself. Of course. The alligator attack on the embassy, to distract Silver. She clearly remembered him dashing off to protect “a book.” And Alberich had been right on the scene afterwards, leading to their almost drowning. Then there was the assault on the Natural History Museum—all of it made sense now. That was what he’d meant earlier when he’d said that he had taken control of the Brotherhood. She saw Vale’s face twitch in mortified humiliation. He mu
st be having the same chain of thought and blaming himself for not deducing it earlier.
“And they have the most baroque ideas about false names and false identities. You’d think that a pro-technology group would be more efficient about record-keeping, wouldn’t you? Now, if only you’d said ‘Damocles,’ I’d have known precisely whom you meant.”
He didn’t even know her name. For some reason, that utterly chilled Irene through and through. And Alberich must have seen it in her face, for he went on, “And now, Mr. Vale, no more words: your vocal cords are locked shut.”
Irene saw the sudden flare of panic in Vale’s eyes and saw his mouth move, but he made no sound.
I don’t think he copes well with being helpless.
Anger fought with the fear that held her still too, its heat against the cold. And I don’t think I cope well, either.
“Let us assume that you have three options, Ray,” Alberich said, dropping back to his conversational tone.
“The first is that you agree to help me. Give me the book, swear your loyalty by certain oaths which I shall dictate to you, and join me. The Library was never meant to be just a storehouse for books and a school for the obsessive. It could change worlds. It could unite alternate worlds. It has potential—you have potential, and that potential is being wasted. I would swear my protection to you, just as you would swear your loyalty to me, and you would be safe. You could learn to use Fae powers, just as I have done. Perhaps in time you would challenge me, but together we would do terrible and wonderful things. You know that some key books can change the worlds to which they are linked. Help me, and we will change them for the better. You’ll have the power to make things better. If you refuse that power, then that’s a choice in itself, isn’t it?”
The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library Novel) Page 28