“What? For you? You’re as vain as the stories say.”
“For yourself, madam. I know what you’re about to do. You intend to transfer your husband’s personality onto me—a new attempt to bring him back.”
“Your deduction is correct. The current version is growing unstable and his decisions are becoming unwise. Perhaps using you as a base will last longer—you have Fae blood, after all. You should be suitable.”
“For your own sake, madam, stop this.” Vale tilted his head to meet her eyes. “You’ll never be satisfied. You can try to bring your husband back as many times as you like, but—”
“We’re wasting time,” Lady Guantes interrupted. She drew a small gun from her jacket and set it against Vale’s temple. “Miss Winters, and your companions, do come out and join us.”
Irene and Kai looked at each other. Was it a bluff?
“Believe me, I’ll fire,” Lady Guantes said, a note of weary irritation in her voice. “And I am addressing all of you. You, Prince Kai, the other dragon, and the girl.”
Irene caught Catherine’s attention, indicating she needed to see the time. Catherine showed her watch. Quarter of an hour till midnight. There was still time to negotiate. She mouthed Stay here to Kai, then stepped out of the shadows. “I’m the one you want, aren’t I? Let them go.”
“I suppose I can settle for you. For now.” Lady Guantes didn’t move the muzzle of her gun from Vale’s temple. “After all, we both know perfectly well that they won’t leave as long as you’re here.”
Irene ignored that, asking instead, “How did you know we were here?”
“Do you honestly think I haven’t been following you on my screens?” Lady Guantes waved at the tablets that encircled her and Vale.
“I’m surprised you didn’t send guards after us.”
Irene was burning to use the Language to jam Lady Guantes’s gun, or heat it up, or something . . . But it would only take one touch of the Fae’s finger on the trigger to kill Vale, and even a single word might not be fast enough. Then her heart leapt; while Lady Guantes had been speaking, Vale had half slipped one hand free of its bindings.
She sought for ways to keep the other woman distracted. “If you kill Vale, you can’t use him to house your husband’s personality.”
“I can find someone else.” Lady Guantes shrugged. “Why so horrified, Miss Winters? Have you never loved anyone so much that you’d break all laws, natural and supernatural, to get them back?”
“I’ve never been in that position,” Irene said truthfully. And I hope I never will be. But she didn’t want to explore that route to keep Lady Guantes diverted. “Let me guess what’s going on here . . .” she said instead. “Alberich is helping you get your husband back, by somehow twisting the Language. That’s payback for the technology you’ve procured for him, and for helping him access other worlds through his doors. He also wanted you to kidnap me, which helped you to pursue my fellow treaty representatives at the same time. And by killing them, you can look forward to the treaty failing—making your Fae-versus-dragon war an option again. Or is the treaty failing a mutual bonus?”
Irene’s speculation was keeping the Fae’s attention on her; she hoped Vale would take full advantage of that. Perhaps Lady Guantes might even drop a few hints about Alberich’s goal in all this—something that still wasn’t entirely clear to Irene.
Lady Guantes’s eyes narrowed as she considered Irene. “We haven’t hidden our motivations, so it’s unsurprising that some of your conclusions are correct. Alberich and I both benefit if the treaty is destroyed. With two representatives dead, and the third one changed . . . Well, I’m sure you can imagine just how much damage Alberich could do while wearing your face and your body. He isn’t just seeking petty vengeance against you, you know. Once you’ve been ‘compromised’ by him, he can have you betray everyone. Dragons, Fae, and the Library alike.”
“You said earlier that Alberich could use any Librarian for his plans—so I could betray a colleague to save myself.”
Lady Guantes shrugged. “I lied.”
“And you trust Alberich?”
“I’m not so foolish as to rely on trust—”
But Irene had done her part and Vale’s wrist had finally slipped free. He locked his hand around the Fae’s, gripping until his knuckles showed white, and tilted her gun away from his temple. Her finger tightened reflexively, and the gun fired: the bullet ricocheted off one of the pillars.
“Gun, heat up!” Irene ordered, running forward to grab Lady Guantes’s other hand as she struggled in Vale’s clasp. Kai and Shan Yuan were also rushing forward to seize and immobilize the Fae.
Lady Guantes screamed as the gun in her hand burned red hot, still locked in position by Vale’s grip. Pain gave her the strength to drag herself free from Vale, but she couldn’t keep hold of the gun. It clattered to the floor with a clang, leaving scorch marks on her glove.
Kai grabbed her left arm and twisted it behind her in a half nelson. “Don’t try anything,” he advised her, voice cold. “There are limits to what I can pardon for the sake of love.”
“The dragon’s the one who has pity on me?” Hysteria cracked the polished tones of her voice for a moment before she suppressed it again. “Very good, Miss Winters. Have your little triumph.”
“Table restraints, open,” Irene commanded, and watched with relief as the bindings holding Vale to the table snapped open. Vale swung himself off the table with a nod of thanks.
She glanced at the Language-decorated door. Now that she was close enough, she could read some of the words. One was Alberich, positioned right in the centre, in the same shade of dried blood as the circle upstairs. And running out from the centre to the edges were dense patterns of words speaking of openings, portals, and secure passages. Perhaps it would slow Alberich down if she tried to destroy it—or perhaps it would just set off another trap. She couldn’t risk it.
Shan Yuan, meanwhile, was poking at one of the tablets. “As I thought,” he said, watching lines of code and diagrams flash across the screen. “When a body used for the programme is present in this world, its personality matrix is supported and maintained by this AI infrastructure.”
“Can you sabotage it?”
He hesitated. “We shouldn’t be too quick to destroy this. It may have been put to evil uses, but this project has led to huge scientific advances; it would be a terrible waste to lose such significant discoveries—”
One of the cathedral bells began to ring, a single deep note that hummed in the throat and chest, counting out strokes that pulsed like dying breaths.
“It’s not midnight yet!” Catherine shouted, as though her complaint could stop the tolling bell.
Lady Guantes began to laugh. “Do you think I’m the only one who’s been monitoring this cathedral? Alberich’s been with us all this time. He’s just . . . next door.”
Irene opened her mouth to tell the others to run, but the room blurred around her. It was as though she was standing in two places at once, where one location was real and the other was a watercolour overlay. But impressions from the second place were growing stronger with every moment. She suddenly found it impossible to coordinate her steps, and her brain was telling her opposing truths: that she was standing on smooth paving stones and upon a rough, fire-ravaged floor. She was breathing cool, book-scented air and air dirty with ash and foul with decay. She was in a low-ceilinged room and also in a vast chamber, surrounded by scorched ranks of bookshelves that reared up to impossible heights. And she couldn’t move. Her brain wouldn’t let her.
With the slowness of terror, as the bell counted out another stroke, she realized not everyone was with her. There was Catherine. Vale. Lady Guantes. The latter had staggered forward as she wrenched herself free from Kai. But Kai and Shan Yuan were fading, the two of them becoming shadows in this new post-holocaust landscape. Shadows that were gro
wing fainter with every second.
The air is thick with chaos and they are dragons. Maybe they can’t survive in this place, Irene thought, her mind racing. Alberich has brought us here without needing a door, his link to this place is so strong. Is he overlaying his own world onto this one? This wasn’t like any story she’d ever read, any myth she’d ever been told. She couldn’t even deduce; she could only guess.
Irene deliberately bit her tongue and tasted blood, wrenching her mind from the whirlpool of panic that was trying to claim it. The bell rang out one final shuddering time, and the second world came into full focus around them.
They were in a burned-out ruined library, with teetering shelves that loomed high above their heads. The ceiling was barely visible, so far above that it seemed to somehow blend with the sky. It was an impossible place—even more so now than the last time she’d invaded Alberich’s realm. It appeared to be on the edge of collapse and final destruction, but somehow it still held itself together through sheer determination and spite.
The only figure in the whole blasted landscape, besides themselves, sat at a fire-scorched desk in a comfortable chair. He was wrapped in a monk’s robe, his face lean and near skeletal. And he was watching them. Irene was reminded of a judge waiting to give a group of convicts his final ruling—and their death sentence.
“Welcome to my kingdom,” Alberich said.
CHAPTER 24
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate,” Irene quoted from Dante’s Inferno. All hope abandon, ye who enter here . . . She had to say something to stem her horror, as her guts were knotting with fear. This was her very-worst-case scenario—coming face-to-face with Alberich, on ground of his choosing and with her friends as hostages.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Vale looking around speculatively, Catherine inching away from Alberich, and Lady Guantes distancing herself from her “hostages.” But ninety per cent of her attention was on Alberich. “Where are we?” she asked.
“Why, my kingdom, my library. You’ve been here before, Ray. You do remember that, don’t you?” His tone was teasing. He knew perfectly well she’d never forget it as long as she lived.
But the question Irene was most curious about was If you’re going to steal my body, why haven’t you done it already? Any information on that would be useful.
“Are we somehow in two locations at the same time?” she asked him. As long as he was talking, he wasn’t killing anyone—and surely all villains loved to show off their plans? Even Alberich. “Have you really managed to superimpose your kingdom over the Sagrada Familia archive? I’ve travelled between connected worlds, of course, but I’ve never heard of two worlds coexisting without one being displaced or destroyed. In fact, you were trying to replace the Library, using your realm, when we last met.”
Alberich gave her a look that chilled her to the bone. She suddenly realized that she was doing the talking, and she should never have mentioned that failure—seeing as she’d orchestrated it.
But Vale stepped in. “Science tells us that two objects cannot exist in the same place at the same time,” he said. “So logically we must now be in one place, not in the other.”
“Logic has its uses,” Alberich mused. “However, you’re not in full possession of the facts. Do you know who I am, Peregrine Vale?”
“You are the ex-Librarian known as Alberich,” Vale answered. “I trust you will forgive me for not recognizing you instantly—the last time we met, you were inhabiting the skin of a young woman. Is this your original face and body?” There was a curious intensity in the way that he was staring at Alberich, as though he seemed to know the other man from somewhere.
“It is indeed. Well . . . a projection of the original, at least. I’m less physical than I used to be. You can blame your friend Irene for that.”
“So you’re the famous Librarian traitor,” Catherine said, with an attempt at bravado. Irene realized with a sinking feeling that Catherine had an important lesson to learn. One didn’t insult an enemy when one was in their power.
“I am,” Alberich replied, and he crooked a finger.
A book tumbled down from far above, slicing through the air spine-first. It hit the ground like a brick a mere foot away from Catherine, then fell open to reveal pages full of incoherent words. Many were written crosswise to each other and seemed to promise unwholesome secrets—if only one could decode them. Another book slammed into the floor just in front of Catherine, making her flinch. She looked up at the impossibly high burned shelves, with their tottering piles of decaying books, and wisely bit her lip. She didn’t look inclined to say anything further.
Alberich nodded. “Good decision,” he said. Then he turned to Irene. “Don’t let that give you ideas either.”
Irene had just been pondering ways of toppling the nearest cliffside of shelving onto Alberich. But his ability to control the landscape—or bookscape?—around them, with no apparent effort, gave her pause. And unlike in their previous encounter, he now had hostages—Vale and Catherine—to use against her. “I’d rather not start a fight,” she said carefully, “but if you endanger me or my friends, I’ll have no choice but to finish what I started last time.”
All above and around them the shelves creaked as though stretching themselves. It wasn’t reassuring. The scent of ash and mould in the air strengthened until it was nearly a physical presence.
“Don’t waste my time with your pointless threats. Last time you escaped by the skin of your teeth, and only because you set fire to my collection.” He waved a hand at his blackened shelves. “And you have the gall to call yourself a Librarian . . .”
“Much as I hate to disturb this conversation, aren’t we wasting time?” Lady Guantes interrupted. “We have an agreement.”
“We do indeed,” Alberich said. “We’ve sworn oaths that you can’t break by your nature and I won’t break because they’re in the Language. And you’ve done a great deal to keep up your end of the pact.” His tone developed an edge. “But a Fae who has failed in the most important part of the deal shouldn’t push her luck . . . Don’t take it as an insult.” He met her eyes. “But do take it as a warning.”
Lady Guantes tilted her head, the picture of control. “I brought her here, didn’t I? She managed to escape from your circle, true. But I was still the one who brought her to the cathedral, then lured her to the archive—ensuring that you could bring her here. I’ve done my part, and I expect my payment.” Her eyes flicked to Vale.
Vale didn’t even flinch. “I must decline,” he said instead. “My presence is required back in London.”
“I will, of course, consider your request,” Alberich said to Lady Guantes. He didn’t bother answering Vale. “But you must understand that my own affairs take priority.”
“Of course.” There was a momentary flash of poison—no, of murder—in Lady Guantes’s eyes as she took a step back. “I can wait.”
That was acceptance . . . but not obedience. Irene wondered if she might have found a weakness in their alliance. Lady Guantes was an experienced schemer and a meticulous planner, just as Vale had commented earlier. She might have made a deal with Alberich, but an old hand like her wouldn’t have relied on trust. Surely she’d have made a backup plan, in case Alberich tried to double-cross her . . .
Irene tensed as Alberich turned his attention back to her. “Why me?” she asked, her hands clenching nervously.
He understood her question without her needing to explain, and the light seemed to dim. “Why you? Because, Ray, you’ve put yourself at the centre of this treaty—and have become invaluable to the Library itself. Possessing you will make it easy to bring them both down.” As he spoke, his fingers curled inwards, drawing into fists as tight as Irene’s own. “I don’t deny that personal vengeance will be very sweet. But frankly, I might have forgotten about you, if you hadn’t become such a perfect tool. Possibly.”
&n
bsp; Irene swallowed, her throat dry, as a thousand nightmare scenarios played out behind her eyes. And she had no leverage. If Irene argued that he had her now, so he could let her friends go, she’d just be inviting him to hurt them. She desperately tried to think of some way out of this, anything she could use to bargain with him . . .
Her mouth settled into a thin line. “Very well,” she said. “Let’s talk.”
“Talk?” Alberich said lightly. “I’m the one talking, Ray. You’re the one listening. Or do I need to remind you who’s in charge here?”
“I apologise.” Lady Guantes wasn’t the only one who could bite her tongue and be polite. “Please go on.”
“It really is a pity. You’re cunning, duplicitous, and capable of surprising feats with the Language. You would have made an excellent student.”
Irene shrugged. “There’s no point in insulting you while I try to find a way out of this. The fact that I can’t find one is, well . . .”
“Horrifying, I hope.”
“Perhaps you have a better vocabulary than I do.” Irene cast a sidelong glance at Vale, as though weighing her options, before turning back to Alberich. “Can we talk—in private?” she asked.
“Ah.” A narrow smirk crawled across his face. “To convince me that you’re ready to betray your friends? Lovely. Have you any comment to make, Peregrine Vale?”
“I’m merely watching with interest,” Vale answered. His gaze moved between Alberich and Irene again. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
Alberich raised his hand and the shelves shifted position, gliding across the floor as though on hidden tracks. Lady Guantes was herded to one side, Vale and Catherine to the other. Then he and Irene were facing each other, in a narrow corridor lined with burned and decaying books on either side. “Well?” he said.
The Dark Archive (The Invisible Library Novel) Page 27