The Invisible Library

by Cogman, Genevieve

  Vale and Singh were also looking thoughtfully at each other. Then Vale leapt to his feet. ‘Well, then! I believe this calls for a visit to the Natural History Museum. Ladies, Mr Strongrock, I trust I can prevail upon you to accompany us. Inspector, do you have a cab downstairs? You can give us a lift there before going on to get your search warrant.’

  Singh looked at Bradamant, Irene and Kai with less than total enthusiasm, but controlled his expression. ‘I have one, sir, but I believe that we may require a second one if we are not to subject the ladies to unduly close quarters.’

  ‘I’d rather not delay,’ Irene broke in. A growing sense of urgency was pricking at her. Maybe the bank deposit box was the more likely possibility, but what if they were wrong? ‘Inspector, do you think you were followed here?’

  Singh frowned. ‘I can’t deny that it is possible, madam. Not that anyone would find it strange. A great many people from the Yard come to visit Mr Vale here, and very frequently at that.’

  Vale stepped across to the window, and stood to one side of it, peering down at the street below. ‘I can’t say whether they followed you, Inspector, or whether they’re watching me,’ he reported, ‘but Hairy Jimmy of the Whitechapel Roaring Boys is watching my front door.’

  ‘That’ll be Lord Silver, I believe,’ Singh said, slipping his papers back into his case. ‘The Iron Brotherhood wouldn’t have anything to do with werewolves.’

  Vale considered for a moment. ‘Well, with London traffic the way it is at this hour of the morning, even if they are going to the museum, we should still make it there before they do.’ He snatched a coat from the overloaded hatstand, flung it on, and caught up his hat and sword cane. ‘Let us be off.’

  Kai had also sprung to his feet in wild enthusiasm, and was busy finding his own hat and coat, which allowed Irene to tug Bradamant into the passage for a word in private.

  ‘What is it?’ Bradamant asked quietly.

  ‘What are the identifying marks for the book?’ She saw Bradamant begin to say something, and held up a hand to stop her. ‘Look. You said that you’ve already been fooled once with a fake. If it was your superior who sent you back – if you’re actually here with permission . . .’ She saw Bradamant’s eyes narrow in anger at that. ‘Then he wouldn’t have sent you back again without giving you some sort of way to identify the genuine article. Are you really going to risk losing the book because you’re not prepared to share that with me? A book which may be that important to this world?’

  Bradamant’s glare was pure poison. ‘Don’t rush me,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking.’

  ‘Think fast,’ Irene said. ‘Vale will be coming to find us in a moment.’

  ‘Tale eighty-seven,’ Bradamant said. ‘The Story of the Stone from the Tower of Babel. If it’s there, then it’s genuine.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Irene said. She picked up her hat and veil, and skewered them in place with a hatpin.

  Bradamant seemed about to say something but, with a visible struggle, managed to contain herself. She adjusted her own hat, then swept out, calling sweetly, ‘We’re coming!’

  A few seconds later they were jumbled together into a hansom cab and heading to the Natural History Museum. From what Irene could remember of London’s geography, it was at least half an hour away – more, if the traffic was bad. Singh had muttered the instructions to the driver rather than shouting them loud enough to be heard across the street, and was now brooding in the corner of the cab. Kai, Vale and Singh were all sandwiched onto one seat, while Irene and Bradamant shared the seat opposite and tried not to look too comfortable.

  ‘Do you know who we need to speak to when we get there, Inspector?’ Vale asked Singh.

  Singh nodded. ‘I have the name from last time – Professor Betony, and even if you can’t find her, then you can find her office in the Department of Cryptidology downstairs. With any luck, you can be in and out of there before anyone who might be following you catches up. We can then establish if the book’s here or not. And I’ll be getting that search warrant in the meantime.’ He gave Bradamant one of his flat looks. ‘And then this young lady can return the other books that she made off with.’

  Bradamant flushed, lowered her eyes, played with the strap of her handbag. She looked in every way like an innocent young woman who had been led into crime by bad company and wanted nothing more than to make amends. Irene had to admire the performance, especially given Bradamant’s probable feelings of rage towards her.

  ‘Do you often get sent on missions like this for this Library of yours, Miss Winter?’ Vale asked Irene. He tried to make it sound like casual conversation, but she could feel the deeper curiosity beneath his words.

  ‘This one is a bit more . . . ah, dramatic, than most of them,’ Irene said, a little relieved that Vale was asking her rather than Bradamant. And that was perfectly true. She’d had dozens of missions where she’d simply wandered in, quietly bought a copy of the book in question, and left without anyone so much as noticing her. And at least ten assignments where there had been some minor illegality involved, but none had featured chases through the streets, dangerously flamboyant personalities or cyborg alligators. ‘There was a time before this when I was in France.’ Well, a France. There were a lot of Frances. ‘I was trying to secure a copy of a book about alchemy by someone called Michael Maier, a few hundred years old. It was called . . .’ She frowned. ‘Something about nine triads, and it contained intellectual songs about the resurrection of the phoenix, or something along those lines. I ended up getting involved with a group of Templars and having to leave in something of a hurry.’ About five minutes before they’d broken the door down, to be precise, but no need to tell Vale that bit.

  ‘And then there was the cat burglar affair,’ Bradamant said sweetly.

  Irene felt her hands tighten in her gloves. She forced herself to stay calm. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘There was that.’

  Kai leaned forward. ‘What was this cat burglar affair?’ he asked.

  Bradamant smiled in a sympathetic, understanding, non-judgemental sort of way. ‘Oh, it was when I was mentoring Irene, when she was first working in the field. We were trying to locate a book which had been stolen by a notorious thief. Everyone knew who she was. The best police officers in the city were watching her every move and still they couldn’t catch her. And when Irene and I were trying to investigate her, well . . .’ She smiled again, tolerantly. ‘The lady in question was very charming. And it isn’t as if I was in any significant danger while Irene was so, shall we say, “preoccupied” with her. And I managed to find the book, so all’s well that ends well.’

  Irene looked down at her knees and bit her tongue. It hadn’t been like that at all, it hadn’t, but that was all the story that anyone would know now. Bradamant had cheerfully spread it all over the Library in murmured detail, and anything that Irene had said then, or could say now, would simply make her sound as if she was making excuses. The alternate had been one with a very specific set of social standards. Theft was a comparatively petty transgression there, even if it was illegal; immoral behaviour was the sort of thing which could entirely destroy a woman’s reputation. Bradamant had set the whole thing up, arranging an identity for Irene as a freelance thief herself, suggesting that perhaps the woman could be persuaded to hand the book over, and even fixing up an assignation. And then she’d simply burgled the woman’s house while Irene had been sincerely trying to talk her round. And Irene had been left floundering and making excuses, and trying to explain what had happened to the other woman’s house, and her possessions, and her reputation . . .

  She had come out of it with a bitter, lasting fury against Bradamant, and a resolution that she would never do the same thing to someone who actually trusted her. Never. Never.

  And if she tried to object now, it’d be just the same as before. She’d look as if she was trying to make excuses for something which must have been her fault if she was making excuses for it. She’d look guilty. She’d look petty .
. .

  She’d look like a child.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, with a smile as pleasant as Bradamant’s own. ‘All’s well that ends well.’

  Kai glanced from Irene to Bradamant, then back again. ‘Of course, this is the first time I’ve worked with Miss Winters,’ he said, a fraction too quickly. ‘I was rather hoping we might be sent to fetch some poetry at some point. I have a high regard for poetry. My father and uncles always felt that it was very important for anyone who had any claim to culture.’

  ‘Hm!’ Singh leaned forward, looking genuinely interested. ‘The epic poem, or shorter forms?’

  The conversation shifted, much to Irene’s relief, into a debate on poetry that lasted for most of the journey. She herself was mostly silent, being more used to acquiring it than reading it. Bradamant put in a word or two in favour of the Elizabethan styles, and fortunately there had been an Elizabeth on this alternate. Vale had a fondness for Persian poets, though his pronunciation of their names was bad enough that Singh twitched. Singh himself refused to consider anything shorter than an epic poem as worthy of serious study. And Kai, not too surprisingly, favoured classical Chinese modes, with a passing nod to constructions like the sestina and villanelle.

  It took a moment for her to realize that she was actually enjoying herself. Even if she wasn’t contributing much to the conversation, she was taking part in it. She was speaking her mind, she was having an honest exchange of opinion, she was . . .

  Among equals, the back of her mind supplied, with the unwillingness that came with the recognition of an unwanted truth. You are discussing a common interest without worrying about betrayal or about losing them, and you are enjoying it. How long is it since you did that?

  She looked around at her party’s various interested expressions and felt as if she had known them for years. It was ridiculous, and yet . . . it wasn’t unwelcome.

  The traffic outside had descended from merely bad to abominable, and their cab’s progress had slowed to a walking pace, with occasional jolts at the traffic lights.

  ‘There isn’t any risk of us being overtaken, is there?’ Irene asked nervously.

  ‘Very unlikely, madam,’ Singh answered. ‘For that, they would need to know where we’re going, and there are far too many places where we could be going for them to be certain.’

  ‘There is one thing that I’ve been wondering about,’ Kai said. ‘While I know that you have difference engines and calculating mechanisms, I have yet to see any sort of long-distance communication device. Now I – ’ He became conscious of Irene’s glare. ‘That is, hasn’t that sort of thing been investigated?’

  Vale sighed. ‘Another of your alternate-world advanced pieces of technology, Mr Strongrock? There has indeed been some research into the subject, but it proved simply too prone to demonic possession. While there have been a few successes with various forms of theologically based shieldings, on the whole the area cannot be said to reward investigation. Certainly it would be unsafe to put such things in the hands of the masses.’

  ‘But how do zeppelin pilots communicate with the ground?’ Irene asked.

  Vale sniffed, and Singh looked disgusted. ‘Fae magic,’ Vale said. ‘Another reason why Liechtenstein has so heavy an influence on the zeppelin industry. I believe they also make some machinery for submersibles, but of course the large quantity of iron reduces the magic’s efficiency.’

  Irene nodded, and wished that some of this had been in the information pack which Dominic Aubrey had provided. He’d completely neglected the subject: there had been plenty of material on the current non-Fae situation, but hardly any on the Fae themselves, their political implications, and their ongoing plans for world domination – since Fae always had plans for world domination. (It was more dramatic that way, after all.) Possibly he’d thought that she would be able to avoid Fae interference – though, given Wyndham’s involvement with Silver, that would scarcely have been possible. Could someone have managed to remove part of the information pack? And if so, how and when?

  She also wished that she was sitting on Kai’s side of the cab so that she could kick his ankle without it being obvious. Discussions along the lines of ‘so why haven’t you introduced this bit of technology in your alternate world’ rarely went well. Often there were perfectly good reasons why it hadn’t been introduced, and you opened a whole can of worms by just asking. And on the few occasions when it simply hadn’t been invented and you had indeed introduced the alternate to a whole new concept, you could end up with problems like cold fusion. (Not that she’d been involved in that one, but stories had got around.)

  The cab jolted to a stop, and the driver leaned down to the opening. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid as how traffic’s very bad today, it’ll be another ten minutes before I could reach the steps of the museum – though you can see its wall there. If it won’t be inconveniencing you, sir, yourself and your friends might be finding it easier to walk from here.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Vale exclaimed, flinging the cab door open. He glanced up to the driver. ‘Wait here. We shouldn’t be long. Here.’ He tossed a coin up to the driver. There was a keen energy driving his movements as they neared possible action. ‘For your time.’

  Kai assisted Irene out of the cab, giving a little extra squeeze to her wrist as he helped her down the step. ‘Almost there,’ he murmured.

  Bradamant coughed meaningfully. With an apologetic look, Kai let go of Irene and turned to help Bradamant down as well.

  The streets were full of traffic, moving slowly with a lot of shouting, and the air was full of smog. Irene folded her veil up across her face, and stepped over to the museum wall to let people hurry past. The others joined her, waiting for Singh, who was talking to the driver. The wall was stained a deep filthy brown from decades of ingrained smoke and smog. The surrounding buildings were old brick and marble, similarly smog-stained. Many of the people bustling by were carrying books or briefcases. From what she remembered of the geography of some Londons, there was a university near here, sited conveniently near the museum.

  A passing zeppelin high above caught the corner of her eye, and she glanced upwards. Several small zeppelins were moored to the roof of the museum, with pennants hanging from them emblazoned with the museum’s name. As she looked further down the street, she could see more of them moored to the roof of other large buildings.

  ‘Ah,’ Vale said, following her line of sight. ‘Splendid contraptions, aren’t they? And so much faster than a cab, but sadly not as controllable. One of those little skimmers can make it across the Channel and back without needing to refuel.’

  ‘Across the Channel?’ Irene asked. ‘Does the museum use them for such trips, then?’

  Vale nodded. ‘They can transfer important small items and particular rarities. I understand that most large museums keep a few these days. And of course, much less risk of theft.’ His narrow gaze shifted to Bradamant for a moment, and brooded on her oblivious back. It seemed that he hadn’t forgiven or forgotten any little details about cat burglars.

  ‘If you are from an alternate world yourself,’ Vale said, turning back to her, ‘what is it like?’

  Irene noticed that Kai had edged close enough to listen. The problem was that she didn’t have a good answer. ‘It was . . . well, it was just another world. The technology was a little more controlled than it is here. There weren’t so many zeppelins, and there weren’t any vampires or werewolves. My parents used to take me to the Library as often as they could, but I spent a lot of time in boarding school. It was in Switzerland, and very good for languages.’ She wasn’t going to mention some of the other things that they’d taught. The school had prided itself on sending out pupils who were ready for anything, and some parts of that world had been very dangerous.

  ‘I did visit other alternates with my parents too,’ Irene added. ‘Sometimes when they were on a mission, and they didn’t think that it was too dangerous. Sometimes I was even helpful.’ She found herself smiling.
‘And there were years in the Library, though there weren’t many other children there. But I had to grow up mainly outside the Library.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Vale asked. ‘Surely it would have been better for you to stay there and be tutored in safety, rather than taken into danger?’

  Irene knew she was on dangerous ground here. There were some things that she shouldn’t tell him. For his own safety. ‘Time passes differently in the Library,’ she eventually said. ‘My parents wanted me to grow up naturally. Well, moderately naturally. And if I was to be a useful Librarian, I had to know how to function outside the place.’

  ‘Is that why they usually recruit from outside the Library, rather than the children of Librarians?’ Kai asked.

  Irene nodded. ‘That, and . . . well, to be honest, I don’t think Librarians tend to have children very often, and even then there’s no guarantee they’d want to become Librarians in turn. I think I’m the only one in a generation or so.’

  She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Bradamant was turning away, but not quite fast enough to hide the expression on her face. There had been a corrosive jealousy in her eyes. Irene didn’t think that she’d seen it in the other woman before . . . or had she? She’d tried to forget so many other things about Bradamant, and failed so badly.

  Singh walked up to Vale, having finished his low-voiced conversation with the cab-driver. ‘I’ll send the cab back here for you, sir, once he’s dropped me off at the Old Bailey. It shouldn’t take you long to check whether the book’s here.’

  Irene controlled her impatience. It was a great relief to think that in half an hour she could even be heading back to the Library, book in hand, Kai in tow, Bradamant in . . . well, she didn’t consciously want to think about Bradamant in disgrace. After all, everyone had a failure now and again. Things like glamorous cat burglars. Whatever.