“They’re following us,” Shan Yuan shouted unhelpfully, as though this might assist Kai rather than distracting him. “Do something!”
“This airborne business would be a great deal easier if we were in our proper forms,” Kai muttered between gritted teeth. He yanked on the vertical lever, pulling the air car upwards. More glass came loose from the edges of the shattered windscreen, falling behind them in a glittering trail. “This thing has no style . . .”
More bullets chattered through the air to their left. Kai swung to the right, wishing for a gun of his own. “Do you think they’re police, or the ones who were keeping us captive?”
“Does it matter?” Shan Yuan was huddled down as far as was possible in his seat, and clearly hating every second of this undignified crouching. “Get us to that building and out of the air!”
He shared Shan Yuan’s eagerness. They were weaponless and being shot to pieces up here. “We’re getting there,” he reassured his brother, putting the air car through a couple of quick turns, then gliding under another traffic stream. He could see their target now. He just wished he had more idea of what they’d do once they arrived . . . besides the obvious Rescue Irene and dispose of all enemies.
“Halt or be shot down!” came the blast of another loudspeaker. Kai bit back a curse as a second vehicle came swooping in to join the chase. He yanked a joystick, forcing his air car to climb, but he could feel the drag of air and wind.
The building ahead came into full view, and for one moment, even mid-chase, he was distracted. It was glorious. He’d only seen images of the Sagrada Familia up close, and they were now perfectly positioned to admire it. Or would have been if they weren’t under attack. The illuminated cathedral had the beauty of a living, organic creation—as fair and elegant as a coral reef, or a grove of trees, or one of his father’s palaces. Dark stone curled upwards into glorious spires like singing poems, etched and patterned with designs that made him ache to see them properly in daylight. Ornate glass windows glowed with rich colours, lit from inside the building. The beauty of their burning hues ached against the darkness. He could have hung there in mid-air and stared at it for hours.
Their air car shook with the impact of a bullet. “Warning,” the pleasant female voice said from the console, “fuel tank integrity is damaged. Please land and inspect your vehicle. Warning, fuel tank integrity is damaged . . .”
“Do all your escapades end up like this?” Shan Yuan demanded sourly.
“Make helpful suggestions, or stay quiet,” Kai replied, gauging their options. It was reassuring that Shan Yuan trusted him to handle this and hadn’t just grabbed for the controls himself. He wasn’t going to disappoint his brother now.
They could land outside the building, but their airborne pursuers could easily shoot them down. And he could see guard posts and security patrols down there. If they wanted to avoid being shot, and get inside the building, he could think of only one way to do it. Kai felt an almost physical pain at the thought of what he was about to do. Any damage could be repaired, of course, but . . .
“Is it helpful to say we’re on fire?” Shan Yuan pointed at the rear of the vehicle.
Kai didn’t look round. Looking round wouldn’t help, and it would just distract him from his plan. “Don’t worry,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “Keep your head down. This will only take a moment.”
“Kai, what are you—no!”
Shan Yuan threw his arms across his face as Kai swept the air car round in a curve, aiming for the great oval window ahead of them. They crashed through in an explosion of glass and light.
CHAPTER 22
Can you pass through the circle?” Irene said urgently. Normally she’d have given Catherine time to recover from such a traumatic experience, but Lord Guantes might return at any moment. Worse, Lady Guantes might show up. Not a talker, like her husband, she might go with a just shoot everyone approach.
Catherine pulled herself together and took a careful step forward, hand extended. When her fingers touched the circle’s boundary, she came to a stop, jerking her hand back. “No,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t think so.”
“Did it feel as if you touched an invisible surface, or did it evoke feelings of pain or disgust?” Might as well know the nature of her prison, Irene thought.
“It felt maybe more like . . . a force field, and I felt a sort of buzzing. It was more . . . achy than painful. I suppose I could try running at it and see if I get through?” Catherine was clearly doing her best, but the suggestion lacked enthusiasm.
“We’ll save that for if we get desperate.” She didn’t want to kill Catherine with a casual experiment. But what on earth could they try? “All right, Catherine. Did Lord and Lady Guantes say anything that might be useful in front of you, when they thought you were under their control? Anything about what’s going on?”
“I think that circle is drawn in Alberich’s blood,” Catherine said, demonstrating that she was capable of identifying the most important facts in an emergency. Irene resolved to give her a commendation for that later. She was further impressed as Catherine continued. “Lady Guantes has some sort of big set-up underneath this building, but I didn’t get to see much of it. The vaults beneath here are pretty deep—and extensive—apparently. There are guards down there and guards outside, though I haven’t been able to go outside. And I think we’re in Spain—well, a Spain anyway. We’re in the Sagrada Familia—I recognize the interior from those laptop reports. There are computers absolutely all over the place, which would also fit with this being the Guanteses headquarters. Oh, and it’s currently . . .” She checked her watch. “Half past eleven at night. And something is going to happen at midnight. Lord Guantes said ‘the ceremony,’ but Lady Guantes called it ‘the overwrite.’”
“That gives us half an hour before that something happens,” Irene said, forcing herself to stay calm. “Midnight. How very overdramatic. I suppose it matches the narrative of me being chained up in a cathedral.” She sighed. “I think we should plan on leaving at least five minutes before that deadline.”
Catherine looked determined, but Irene noticed that her hands shook as she tried to master her fear. “So we’ve only got twenty-five minutes, then.”
Irene nodded. “All right. Now, walk round the circle—see if you can read any of the writing.” She was having difficulty seeing behind her, due to those awkward chains. But it would be great if there were some convenient To Exit, Break Here sections.
“It’s in the Language, right? I know the Language is supposed to read as if it’s in my own native language, but this doesn’t make sense.” Catherine was behind Irene now, her steps quick on the stone floor. “It’s like reading a really archaic form of English, mixed with higher mathematics. I can read that it’s about binding and holding a prisoner—at least, I think that’s what it is, it wouldn’t make sense for it to be about tying knots. And . . . um.”
“‘Um’ what?” Irene demanded.
“This bit is rather dramatic . . . The circle can only be unmade by the blood of the person who wrote it. That’s almost poetic.”
Irene took a deep breath. Her stomach was tight with panic again. She couldn’t yank her wrists loose from those chains. And she’d been trying, desperately. Even if she managed to dislocate her thumbs—she’d read the theory but had never done it in practice—she didn’t think it would help. If only Alberich’s blood could break the circle, and his arrival meant her death or worse . . . then there was no way out. Her mind flinched away from that conclusion.
As a Fae, Catherine should be able to travel between worlds on her own—if she was strong enough. But every other Fae whom Irene had seen do this had been older and had already chosen their private archetype.
Yet if Catherine could travel . . . Irene could tell the girl to run while there was still time, to reach Vale’s world and contact Sterrington—or even Silver. One of the
m would tell the Library what had happened. The Library could then safeguard itself against whatever might come knocking on its portals . . . dressed in Irene’s own skin.
Of course, that wouldn’t save Irene. But maybe it was time to make the least worst choice—how she hated that phrase—and accept the consequences.
“Irene, what are we going to do?” Catherine asked tentatively, clearly hoping for a positive reply. But even a Librarian couldn’t conjure hope where there was none.
Irene bowed her head, trying to muster the will to tell Catherine to go. Her gaze fell on the crumpled gloves that Catherine had dragged off her hands. It had seemed like such a triumph to break her free of Lord Guantes’s control. Now it just felt as if Irene had won a battle . . . but lost the war.
As she looked at the gloves, something clicked into place at the back of her mind. It wasn’t quite a full idea; it was the beginning of a chain of logic. She found herself approaching it carefully and by degrees, as though it were a wild animal and she didn’t want to frighten it away. The gloves had been symbolic. Here, deep within chaos, symbolism had power. Alberich was a Librarian, or at least had been, and Irene was also a Librarian. This made them metaphorical brother and sister, which meant that they were symbolically of the same blood . . .
“Catherine! Do you have anything sharp on you?”
Catherine dashed back to face Irene, galvanized by Irene’s burst of energy. “No—I don’t think they trusted me that much.” She paused, and her bare hands went up to touch her hair, which had been carefully pinned back into a tight bun. “Wait. Some of the hairpins she stuck in there felt sharp enough when they went in. Give me a moment.”
Irene watched impatiently as Catherine dismantled her hair-style. A couple of dozen hair grips, a bun net, two lethal-looking silver-headed hairpins, and two tortoiseshell combs. “Right,” she said. “Try rolling one of those hairpins across the circle. Let’s see if it will let it through.”
The hairpin skittered across the stone, undeterred by the circle. Irene nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Now move round to my right hand side—that’s right—and slide the other hairpin towards my right hand.”
“What are you going to do?” Catherine asked. “You’re not going to rip out your own intestines with a pin and arrange them to make words in the Language? Because if you are, I may throw up.”
“Have you considered a career as a horror novelist?”
“No—but if I had, being around you would give me lots of inspiration,” Catherine muttered. She followed Irene’s instructions, and the hairpin rolled towards her. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get symbolic.” Irene tested the hairpin’s point against her fingers. It was one of the brutally sharp variety, the sort that scraped the scalp. Good, that’d make what she was planning easier.
She deliberately avoided dwelling on what she was about to do, and shifted the hairpin around in her hand, bracing the point against the bare wrist below it. This would have been much easier if she’d been able to bring her hands together, but she’d just have to cope.
“Don’t do it!”
Irene blinked. “What?”
“Don’t commit suicide!” Catherine dropped to her knees so they were both on a level, leaning forward urgently. “Look, please, there has to be some way out of here, we can think of something, you’re good at thinking of something—”
“Stop that.” Irene decided not to admit how she’d almost resigned herself to death just a few minutes before. “I have a plan. And it involves me staying alive, you’ll be glad to hear. I’m going to try to draw some blood and break the circle.”
“Oh,” Catherine said, looking rather embarrassed.
“We both need to stay calm.” Which may be harder for you than me. “Keep talking to me while I work. Tell me something.”
“Tell you what?” The thought of making a meaningful contribution seemed to steady Catherine.
“Tell me about your family. Not Lord Silver. Who were your parents? Where were they from?” Irene began to push the hairpin into her wrist, bracing her hand against the floor.
“My mother was Lord Silver’s great-great-niece, or something like that,” Catherine said, her hands clenching nervously as she watched Irene. “Lord Silver is several generations older, but because he’s powerful he hasn’t aged the way humans would. She grew up in Liechtenstein, where he has a branch of the family who never really went large—if you know what I mean? They didn’t try to make something of themselves or gain power. They were just . . . people. Nearly human. Father was from Brazil. They fell in love.”
“There was an accident, while they were travelling, you said,” Irene prompted. She could see her flesh dimpling where the pin’s point dug in. She could also feel the pressure of time ticking away as they talked, seconds hissing into oblivion like sand running through an hourglass. She visualized an imaginary sundial, a ray of dark light tracing its way towards midnight—the moment Alberich would arrive. But she hadn’t lied to Catherine; this casual conversation was keeping her steady, giving her a focus other than her own fate.
“Yes, that was what Uncle told me.”
“Why did he remove you from the rest of your family, after they died, to have you brought up in a lonely manor house?”
Silence. Irene looked up to see Catherine duck her head and hunch her shoulders stubbornly. Well, she knew of one reason why a Fae might hide a vulnerable young relation. “Was your parents’ death due to some feud?” she guessed. “And not just an accident?”
Catherine sighed. “That’s what I think. He wouldn’t tell me. And I wasn’t old enough to protect myself, or walk between worlds. I’m still not powerful enough to travel between worlds on my own . . .”
Irene wouldn’t normally expect Lord Silver to have any interest in protecting innocents—or innocence. He was a libertine, a politician, and a spymaster, and he lived up to all three archetypes with enthusiasm. To protect a young dependant and to shield her from unpleasant realities was . . . out of character. If a Fae departed from their chosen narrative and archetype, it weakened them. It reduced their power and longevity and drew them back towards the common mass of humanity. Silver’s actions here seemed a flaw in his character, an off note in the perfect symphony of his immorality.
Then, between one heartbeat and the next, the hairpin bit in and drew blood. Irene’s first reaction was a natural human response to pain—she wanted to snatch her hand back and get that point out of her flesh. Instead she set her teeth and forced it deeper, still bracing one end against the stone, dragging the pin sideways in an attempt to widen the wound. Blood trickled over her fingers.
“Ow,” she said, finding some relief in the word, a diversion from the fact that she’d just torn her own wrist open. “Ow, ow, ow, bloody ow. This had better work.”
“Why does Alberich hate you so much?” Catherine asked, apparently feeling that it was Irene’s turn to do some sharing. “Couldn’t he just kidnap any Librarian, if he wanted to take one over, rather than going after one as difficult as you?”
“Thanks for the compliment.” More blood dribbled from her wrist. “I think it’s personal. Very personal. I’ve opposed him multiple times. I stopped him from securing a unique first edition, which contained a secret about his Librarian background; I destroyed his plans to ruin or usurp the Library; I burned his private store of rare books—”
“You did what?”
Irene sighed. “You know, that’s pretty much the way he reacted too. I wasn’t exactly happy about it either.” The hairpin dropped from her fingers, slippery with blood, but the wound was deep enough; it wasn’t going to close of its own accord. She shifted position again, wriggling so that her right arm was as near the edge of the circle as possible, and cupped her hand to catch the trickle of blood running into it. “Catherine, step back a bit—I’m not sure what effect this will have.”
<
br /> “What about you? You’re right next to it.”
“Your concern is noted and appreciated,” Irene said through gritted teeth. She’d already thought of that. “Don’t worry—if an explosion knocks me out, you can drag me to safety.”
Catherine took several steps back—then, at Irene’s glare, a few more.
Irene took a deep breath, readying herself, and shook the handful of blood in her palm towards the edge of the circle. As it fell, she spoke in the Language: “Warding circle, break!”
Where her blood hit the circle, it flowed over the writing like mercury or like oil in a hot pan. She watched in fascination as the droplets moved, keeping their coherence rather than soaking into the paving. The calligraphy dissolved as her blood rolled across it, draining her energy until she sagged forward in her chains—barely able to keep her head off the floor. Words blurred into incoherence, sentences snapped midway, and still her blood ran around the circle. It overlaid the dark brown lettering, leaving a brighter ring of colour that continued to seep towards the outer boundary of the warding.
The line of blood seemed to hesitate for a moment—and then it surged forward, breaking the final line of text. The circle’s power ripped apart with an audible snap, and cold air rushed around Irene as though a door had been opened.
Irene’s brain was spinning. She shook her head, trying to pull herself together, the blood still running down her arm and hand. “Right,” she said weakly, “let’s have another go at this. Manacles, unlock and open.”
The cuffs around her wrists fell to the ground with a clatter, and Irene felt the almost-expected stab of a headache. She gratefully rolled her shoulders, then examined her right wrist. It didn’t look good, but she wrapped a fold of her dress around it and staggered to her feet with an effort, aching from having been on her knees so long. She took one pace, then another, then finally crossed the broken circle.
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