She could have made some gruesome predictions about the possible consequences of all three representatives dying, but she didn’t want to unsettle Catherine—or at least, didn’t want to unsettle her further. Being the target of a murderer left one in a natural state of unsettlement anyway. Instead, she said, “So where did you secure our latest precious book?”
“It’s in a left-luggage locker,” Catherine said carefully.
“Oh?”
“At one of the railway stations.”
“I can’t help noticing that you’re not telling me which railway station.”
“Irene.” Catherine swallowed nervously. “You know that I wouldn’t want to consider blackmailing you.” Her shoulders were hunched, her hands tightened into fists; she was clearly already expecting opposition and punishment.
“I wish I did know that,” Irene said, “because I have a nasty suspicion that what’s coming next sounds a bit like ‘You don’t get the Malory book back unless you do what I want.’” Be calm, she told herself. Let her say her piece.
“I don’t want to blackmail you . . .” Catherine said, “but I will if I have to!”
“A balanced and reasonable attitude,” Irene said drily. “So what do you want?”
Catherine clenched her hands in her lap, her expression mulish. “I don’t want you dumping me with someone else. I want to learn how to be a Librarian. A real Librarian, even if that means joining some of your more . . . adventurous missions. I know you can work out a way to make this happen if you have to. I just need to motivate you properly.”
“Catherine . . .” Irene wanted to tear her hair out in frustration. “You’re behaving as if this is some sort of training exercise or comedy of errors. It isn’t. People have died. Our enemies aren’t afraid to blow up submarine bases or torch office buildings to get rid of us. We’re currently on the run in a London that’s been infiltrated by one of the most devious men I’ve ever known—”
“You have a monomania about Lord Guantes. And in any case, I don’t think it’s him.”
“I have a sensible and well-reasoned fear of Lord Guantes,” Irene said between her teeth, “and there’s only one other person who could pull off a plan of this scale—and would make me his primary target.”
“Who?”
“Alberich.” Whom Irene had left behind in a burning library, in a world deep in chaos, hoping that he was dead or permanently trapped there. She wasn’t going to tempt fate by saying anything like We’ll never see him again, but she did hope rather desperately that he was gone for good. But in any case, he definitely couldn’t enter this world—so he couldn’t have been responsible for the Guernsey ambush. That was something.
“Oh yes, Uncle told me about him.” Catherine sounded dismissive, as though the greatest traitor in the Library’s history warranted no more than a footnote in some academic’s research. “You dealt with him before, though, didn’t you? I don’t see why you can’t do it again. And he was a villain. Doesn’t the Library have heroes to counter people like that?”
“No, we just have people who get the job done. A number of whom were killed by Alberich, in various unpleasant ways, so I advise you not to talk about him so casually. And speaking of your uncle, he’s left town. Or did you already know that?”
Catherine clearly didn’t. Her eyes widened in shock. “He never leaves London if he can help it. Has something happened to him?”
“No. At least, hopefully not. He’s gone to Hawaii with his household. Ostensibly on holiday, but he was warned of an assassination attempt. Which is why I particularly want to make sure you’re safe.”
“But I don’t want to be safe!”
“You might feel a bit differently if you’d been trapped on the roof of a burning building earlier today.”
“I’m an adult.” Catherine folded her arms. “And I’m your student. Teach me.”
“You seem to think that I’m your enemy, not your teacher,” Irene said, her voice a whip-crack. “You’ve disobeyed me, you’ve endangered yourself, and you’ve attempted to blackmail me. Why should I teach you?”
“I did what I did because I couldn’t be sure you would teach me, otherwise.” Catherine glared at her, as if willing her to concede. “You’re not my kind. You aren’t forced to keep your word if you give it. So I looked for other options.”
“No, I’m human,” Irene said slowly. “Which means you’re going to have to depend on my sense of honour instead.” And on her urgent need to get Catherine into the Library, so as not to disrupt Library-Fae relations. But it wasn’t the moment for ulterior motives. “Are you really asking me to pledge my name and power in the Language to teach you, in return for your Fae oath to obey me? Do you actually want to bind us in an unbreakable bond, unto death—as that’s what it would mean?” She leaned in closer. “Do you think that you’re actually going to be any happier or better off that way, Catherine?”
Catherine edged back in her seat a little, unease showing in her eyes. “I . . . perhaps that might have some disadvantages I hadn’t considered.”
“I’ll do it if I must,” Irene went on, holding the Fae’s gaze. “I honestly thought we could trust each other. I’ve tried to be fair and honourable. But if a binding oath is the only thing you’ll accept, then I’ll do it, and God help us both. So make your choice, Catherine. Are you prepared to bind yourself to obey me as my loyal student? Or can we simply trust each other to keep the deal we’ve made, and do our best to behave like rational adults?”
“Perhaps I should consider apologising instead?” Catherine suggested in a tiny voice.
“Perhaps you should. Just a moment.” The cab had slowed to a crawl. Irene rolled down the window and leaned out to call to the driver on the roof. “Is something the matter?”
“Traffic jam, ma’am,” he said. “We may be a bit late getting to the zoo.”
While Irene didn’t think that Lord Guantes would tie up London’s traffic just to catch her, staying in one location was dangerous. “We’ll walk from here,” she said.
* * *
* * *
Two hours, three cabs, and a fair amount of walking later, Irene finally sat down feeling something approximating safety. The cheap rooms they were staying in were near Heathrow Airport. But within the Zeppelin port’s workers’ district, rather than near the opulent hotels for incoming visitors. All her usual precautions were in place too, so she felt confident that Lord Guantes wouldn’t have found this hideout yet.
“You said you wanted me to teach you,” she said to Catherine, who was staring gloomily out of the window at the smoke-stained wall of the house opposite. “And this is a very important lesson. Always maintain a few alternate hideouts in case things go wrong. I rent this place and a few others, using different bank accounts under different names, and I drop by once or twice a month to check that things are in order.”
“All that for emergencies that might never happen?”
“Things have gone wrong,” Irene pointed out. “This is not an academic exercise. You wanted to be a Librarian. You wanted me to teach you. So pay attention, because we’re about to have a very thorough class on paranoia, why it’s a good idea, and how to be motivated by it.”
Catherine pulled off her bonnet angrily and threw it down on the battered dresser. “You’re not listening! At least I’ve got you to myself now and I don’t have to compete with Kai all the time. But I want to be a Librarian—a real one.”
Irene was about to say, What do you think I am?—but something made her pause. She had an unpleasant feeling that she and Catherine were operating on different wavelengths, and this had to be sorted out before matters became any more dangerous. “So explain to me,” she said, keeping her voice mild as she sat down in the room’s only chair. “I’m listening now. Tell me what you mean.”
“Irene, you’re a very nice person,” Catherine said, obviously sl
athering on the honey before she got to the vinegar stage of the conversation. “I’ve nothing against you personally. I’m sure that you really believe in what you do.”
“But?” This didn’t sound promising. Though it did sound patronising.
“I don’t want to be a librarian spy! I don’t even want to be an archivist. I want to be a proper librarian. I want to be someone who shares books, who shares knowledge, who makes the library a better place!” Catherine was transfigured. Her face was alight with eagerness, and her eyes were almost literally glowing with emotion. “I want to be the sort of librarian who curates books, who loves them and cares for them and shares them with other people. I want to welcome little children into the library and hand them books which will make their imaginations blossom. I want to find the books people have spent their lives looking for, to help them achieve the things they were always meant to do. I want . . .” Catherine must have noticed Irene’s horrified expression. “You did ask,” she said resentfully.
Screaming would not help. “How long have you felt this way?” Irene asked, as gently as she could manage.
“Years.” Catherine sat down on the edge of the bed. The springs creaked under her weight. “I wasn’t lying, you know. When I said I wanted to be a librarian, I was telling the truth. If I have to go on a few adventures with you first, I don’t mind doing that, as long as I end up where I want to be.”
“But your uncle negotiated your apprenticeship so you’d end up being a Librarian like me,” Irene said. That had been quite definite. “Collecting rare stories, helping keep the many worlds stable, that sort of thing.” The sort of thing that was Irene’s work and life. “Not to become a glowing, romanticised librarian archetype.”
“I’m not responsible for what Uncle said to you,” Catherine said, hunching her shoulders again. “Besides, he knew what I wanted, he must have deliberately chosen to ignore it. And it’s not as if you have to do that much to help me. Just get me into the Library and I’ll take care of the rest. If I can do that to keep them happy, they won’t care what I do next. I want the books and I want to share them.”
How many other “little details” had Lord Silver left out? Catherine’s current over-emotional, brattish behaviour suggested one possibility. Irene tapped her finger on the arm of the chair. “Catherine . . . your uncle assured me that you were ‘of age’ and that you were experienced and reliable. That I shouldn’t make any judgements based on your appearance. In retrospect, he was trying to make me think you were older than you look, wasn’t he? Just how old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” Catherine said brazenly.
Irene met her gaze.
“. . . next year.”
Irene stayed silent.
“Okay, I’m twenty-three.”
Irene raised her eyebrows.
“Twenty-one?” Catherine said hopefully.
“Just tell me which side of eighteen you are,” Irene said wearily.
“I’m eighteen in five months’ time,” Catherine muttered. “And there are lots of cultures which consider me to be fully adult and capable of making my own decisions about my future.”
Dear merciful heavens. I have a teenage Fae on my hands. One who feels she has a vocation to be an archetypal librarian. Irene wished that she believed in prayer. It would have been nice to have someone to ask for help. Unfortunately she had committed herself to taking on Catherine as her apprentice—and neither Lord Silver nor the older Librarians were about to let her off the hook in a hurry.
“You’re being very quiet,” Catherine said uncertainly.
Sighing won’t help. Nor will screaming or throwing things. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me a little bit more about your past employment,” Irene suggested. “Previously you hinted you had a career in international intrigue. Should I assume that was a blatant lie too?”
Catherine stared at her hands. “Well, I was Uncle’s social secretary,” she mumbled. “For three months. So you could call that international intrigue. But before that I grew up in the country, in a manor house in Liechtenstein with retainers. I didn’t do much there besides read. That was why I want to be a librarian—a proper one—and spend all my time with books.”
“What about your parents?” Irene asked.
“They died when I was very young. Uncle Silver’s my uncle on my mother’s side. There was an accident while they were travelling and then Uncle did what he could for me. I chose my name because St. Catherine is one of the patron saints of librarians . . .”
Irene had been wondering how her student had acquired her name. Powerful Fae hid their true names, choosing an appropriate pseudonym—like Silver, or Sterrington, or Lord Guantes—while the really powerful ones, like the Cardinal or the Princess, went by titles alone. She pulled herself away from speculation to reality. “I wish you’d told me this before,” she said.
“Would you have taken me for an apprentice if I had?” Catherine asked.
“I don’t know,” Irene admitted, “but at least I’d have had a better idea of what was going on.”
Catherine chewed on her lower lip, trying and failing to look calm and unconcerned. “So what are you going to do?”
“We’re going to take this one day at a time,” Irene said finally. “Our first objective is to stay alive. I’m not happy with you, Catherine—but I’m not going to abandon you.”
“Thank you,” Catherine whispered. “I hoped you’d understand. Uncle said your parents had been Librarians too.”
Lord Silver had apparently been very free with his information about Irene’s background. “They were,” Irene said, deciding a bit of reciprocal honesty would be good for their relationship. “They are. They adopted me as a baby, but yes—libraries are what I’ve known all my life. I’ve always loved books.”
She left out the fact that she’d only found out about the adoption a few months ago. And that it had taken place under dubious circumstances, which her parents had been completely unwilling to discuss. Kai and Vale knew all about it, but she saw no reason to share those details with Catherine.
“How do you ever let go of them? To pass them to the Library?” Catherine asked. “The books, that is?”
“Practice. And I do know I can visit them if I really want to . . . We’ll collect the Malory in the morning. For now, get some sleep. You look tired.” And it would give Irene a chance to draft some letters—to Vale, and to a certain Fae uncle. “I’ll wake you later so I can nap myself. We should probably take turns to keep watch.”
“I thought you said we were safe here!” Catherine protested.
“Relatively safe.” Irene looked out at the fog, dyed orange and red by the setting sun. “I’d hate to find out I was wrong.”
CHAPTER 11
Kai glanced around the inner sanctum of Lord Zhang Yi’s office. Zhang Yi favoured a calming palette of grey and white. The only notes of colour were framed slices of crystal and gemstone that hung on the walls—Kai spotted a deep green, a red, and a purple. Even the chair was upholstered in bone-white cloth, the stools covered in dark grey silk. It was like being inside a frozen cloud. A single tablet rested on the low table.
“Sit,” Lord Zhang Yi said, lowering himself into the chair. His back was erect, but he moved with the slow care that Kai had seen in elderly humans with arthritis, like Irene’s Librarian mentor Coppelia. “Prince Kai, you have come at a convenient time.”
“I’m glad to be of service, sir, and hope that my present pleased you,” Kai answered. Even though Shan Yuan was a couple of feet away, he could sense tension emanating from his older brother. But Kai knew the proper forms of courtesy. He wasn’t going to offend his revered senior—especially not when Zhang Yi was a dragon he truly respected.
“There was a present?” Lord Zhang Yi blinked. “How kind. But that wasn’t what I wanted to discuss.”
There were only two things that Kai could
imagine Lord Zhang Yi wanting to raise: treaty matters and Indigo. Of course, it would be nice to believe that Lord Zhang Yi had heard about his talent with computers and wanted to personally invite him to be his student . . . but that was about as likely as his brother deciding to forget their past rivalry. So he said, “Of course, sir. How may I be of assistance?”
“Fae and computing.”
When it was clear that further detail wasn’t forthcoming, Kai said tentatively, “If you would explain, sir?”
“We do not have a peace with the Fae. We can never expect to be truly at peace. The best that we can hope for is this truce. However . . .” Lord Zhang Yi’s eyes glittered beneath his thick eyebrows. “While we do have the truce, we need to take advantage of it in every way possible.”
Wild images blossomed in Kai’s mind. “Are you considering a dragon-Fae student exchange, sir?”
“Of course not!” Shan Yuan snapped. “Who in their right mind would agree to it?”
“The fact that you consider such a thing speaks well for your innocent warm-heartedness, boy,” Lord Zhang Yi said. “No doubt this broad-minded attitude is what allows you to tolerate the Fae. Don’t misunderstand me. I agree some of them have certain . . . qualities that would, in our own kind or humans, be worthwhile. Admirable, even. But that only makes them more dangerous. In the long run, we have to expect the worst and make preparations accordingly.”
“You speak as though you don’t expect the truce to last, sir.”
Lord Zhang Yi briefly withdrew into himself, reduced to rigid weariness. “Nothing lasts,” he said, his voice guttural with age and remembered pain. “Neither knowledge, nor skill, nor family, nor the bond between master and student. In another thousand years I will be gone. And in time you both will pass as well, and this place will be dust. For all that we pride ourselves on our power and our length of years, Prince Kai, ultimately dragons too are as fleeting as fireflies. There was a time when we never existed; there will also come a time when nobody will remember us. War changes to peace. But, ultimately, peace collapses into war and the cycle continues.”
The Dark Archive (The Invisible Library Novel) Page 12