The Invisible Library

by Cogman, Genevieve

  Maybe an hour. She didn’t want to be too optimistic.

  Inside the museum, the building widened out into a glorious cathedral-like hall, with a high curving ceiling inset with windows, and a mosaic-inlaid floor. A diplodocus skeleton leered down bonily from high above the heads of the onlookers, and some harassed-sounding mother implored her little darling not to try and climb on its foot. A white marble statue at the head of the room’s main stairway overlooked the whole thing with an air of dignified approval. It was about the only piece of non-smog-stained marble that Irene had seen in this alternate London.

  She supposed that it was interesting enough. But it was sadly lacking in books.

  Vale clearly knew his way around and led them up one of the staircases, through several minor rooms of exhibits, then past a wide range of stuffed animals, stuffed plants, and possibly stuffed mineral deposits (she didn’t have time to check). Next they hurried down another staircase and into an even more cluttered and confused set of corridors, which was clearly where work actually got done. Crates were stacked against the walls, many with notes attached saying OPEN THIS TODAY. The only things that weren’t dirty or dusty were the office doors’ brass nameplates. These gleamed with a rather desperate shine, as if trying to compensate for their surroundings.

  ‘Here we are,’ Vale said, pausing before one which apparently belonged to Professor Amelia Betony, MSc, PhD, and Doctor of Divinity. ‘This was the person to whom the crate was addressed. Let’s see if we can eliminate this possibility.’ He shoved the door open without bothering to knock.

  Inside, the low-ceilinged office was larger than expected. The small desk in the corner was piled high with unopened envelopes and packages, and the large table in the middle of the room was strewn with bones, gluepots and measuring devices. The air smelt of dust and drying solvent. Then a young man entered from a side-door, a steaming mug of tea in his hand. He stood there, blinking at the four of them.

  ‘Mr Ramsbottom, I presume?’ Vale said, stepping forward briskly. ‘Professor Betony’s secretary?’

  The young man nodded and peered at Vale, and his eyes widened in recognition. ‘Ah, I’m so terribly sorry, but the Professor is away on the Egypt expedition, if you were wanting to consult her over a case – ’

  ‘Fortunately, I believe that you will suffice, Mr Ramsbottom,’ Vale said. ‘We are here to look into the matter of a parcel that may have gone astray.’

  Ramsbottom glanced guiltily at the stacks of incoming mail on the corner desk.

  ‘We are looking for a crate from Lord Wyndham,’ Vale said. To his side, Irene could see Kai tense with excitement, watching Ramsbottom with a glare of anticipation that was probably unnerving the nervous-looking fellow. ‘It would have been delivered about five days ago.’

  Was it really that short a time since Wyndham’s death, since Irene and Kai had arrived here? It felt so much longer, Irene thought.

  ‘Ah,’ Ramsbottom said, sidling towards the desk. He abandoned his mug and selected a ledger. ‘Actually, I think I do remember that one.’

  ‘You do?’ Vale asked.

  Ramsbottom nodded. ‘There were particular instructions enclosed with it. Please, um, gentlemen, ladies, Professor Betony will no doubt answer everything with full dispatch as soon as she returns.’ He glanced guiltily at the pile of post again. ‘But she does have a very specific dislike of anyone else reading her post, and when she left, she told me that unless a letter or package specifically said that it should be opened . . .’

  ‘The crate, man!’ Vale snapped, striding forward. ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘Ah, ahem.’ Ramsbottom twitched at his collar. ‘The accompanying note stipulated that if Professor Betony did not return to open it within three days of its receipt, then her assigned subordinate, which is myself, was to open it and take all necessary actions with the contents.’

  Irene swallowed. To one side, she could see Bradamant going white. To her other side, she could hear the hoarseness in Kai’s breathing. This must have been some sort of last gambit by Wyndham, in case he wasn’t able to collect his prized book . . . In expectation of his murder?! As just one more step in whatever relationship he’d had with Silver? As a deliberate ploy against Silver getting his hands on the book, or to hide it from someone else?

  ‘The package contained an Archaeopteryx skeleton,’ Ramsbottom went on, more nervous by the second, ‘and another parcel, to be forwarded elsewhere – ’ He stuttered to an anxious stop.

  ‘And where would that be?’ Vale prompted.

  Ramsbottom hesitated. ‘This is a matter of confidentiality, Mr Vale, and while I do know your connections with the police, I, ah, that is . . .’ He trailed off, apparently unable to utter the words I’m not going to tell you.

  ‘Mr Ramsbottom.’ Vale stepped forward. ‘Naturally I will not press the matter. But I would be grateful if you could reassure me that there will be no difficulty in tracing the package, should such a thing prove necessary.’

  ‘Of course!’ Ramsbottom exclaimed, looking deeply relieved. He tapped a small blue ledger. ‘I have full details here of where the package went.’

  Then the door in the opposite side of the room slammed open, and Silver strode through, followed by his bland-looking manservant and half a dozen hairy men in cheap suits and bad hats. ‘At last!’ he declaimed, pointing dramatically. ‘I have you now, my dear enemy!’

  He was pointing at Bradamant.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘What?’ Bradamant said, then quickly converted it to, ‘But, ah, how did you find us so quickly?’

  Silver laughed merrily. His hair, loose over his shoulders, tossed in a wind which somehow blew around him and ruffled his clothing, but failed to stir a single hair on the louche, bearded thugs who crowded in behind him and leered at the room in general. Their clothing was as dirty and unkempt as Silver’s was elegant and stylish, and they all had eyebrows which met in the middle.

  ‘Hah!’ Silver preened. He pointed his cane at the unfortunate Ramsbottom, who was trying to retreat into a corner. Any corner. ‘You! Hand over the book at once, and your rewards will be beyond your imagination!’

  ‘Careful, Silver,’ Vale said. His grip on his swordstick was no longer quite as casual as it had been a few seconds ago. ‘You wouldn’t want to have any witnesses to illegal actions on your part, would you?’

  ‘Illegal actions?’ Silver turned to his manservant. ‘Johnson! Have I committed any illegal actions?’

  Johnson checked his watch. ‘Not within the last three minutes, sir.’

  Silver turned back to Vale. ‘There you have it. Rest assured that I am not at the moment committing any illegal actions. I am merely promising this hireling here that if he hands over the book I am looking for, then he will receive rewards beyond his wildest imaginings.’

  ‘Well, if there’s nothing illegal in it . . .’ Ramsbottom said vaguely. His eyes followed Silver dreamily, watching his every gesture, his every breath. Irene remembered the glamour that Silver had tried to lay on her, back in Wyndham’s study.

  ‘My dear sir,’ Bradamant said, with a nerve that Irene wasn’t quite sure she’d have managed to muster, ‘you still have not explained how you managed to track us here.’ She stepped to her left, forcing Silver to take his attention off Ramsbottom if he wanted to keep his eyes on her.

  Silver waved a hand vaguely. ‘The simplest of matters. I subcontracted. Knowing that I could not track an agent of the Library – ah, you fooled me once, but not again! – I approached the elder Miss Olga Retrograde.’

  Irene and Bradamant exchanged quick shocked looks. It was one thing to think that Silver might be aware of the Library – many Fae and dragons were, after all, just as the Library was aware of them – but to have him say it so baldly and in front of witnesses was rather worrying, in that it suggested there would shortly be no witnesses. And how had Silver known, in any case? What had he seen? How much did he know about the Library?

  Vale, meanwhile, loo
ked outraged. ‘You dealt with her?’

  ‘Merely a matter of convenience,’ Silver said airily. ‘Normally she is far too sordid for me to do more than invite her to my parties. I don’t suppose you would care to comment on that, would you, my dear private detective? From a, shall we say, family perspective?’

  Vale looked even more furious, if that were possible. ‘I have nothing that I would wish to say about her,’ he spat.

  ‘Then allow me to clarify,’ Silver said with great satisfaction. ‘Her scrying attempts proved useless until you left your lodgings this morning. She caught the directions given to the cab-driver. From then it was simply a matter of reaching this museum first, and having my minions here locate your destination.’ He smiled at the hirsute thugs.

  ‘We know Mr Vale’s smell,’ one of them growled, his tongue coming unsettlingly far out of his mouth as he panted. ‘We all know Mr Vale’s smell. There’s a lot of us want to have a nice quiet little chat with Mr Vale down some dark alley sometime.’

  ‘There, there,’ Silver said. ‘I’m sure you’ll get your chance some day very soon now – if Mr Vale doesn’t advise his Library associate to comply with my requests.’ He smiled at Bradamant dazzlingly. Irene felt a little of the overspill of it, the burning surge of slavish desire and passionate adoration, and felt the brand across her back burn like raw ice in reaction. She also felt a quick burst of relief that apparently Silver hadn’t recognized her as a Library agent. She was still incognito for the moment.

  Ramsbottom’s hands fell to his sides, and he gave up all attempts to be helpful to stare at Silver in mute fascination. Vale didn’t seem to be affected. Irene was tempted to look behind her to see what Kai was doing, but as a dragon, he should surely be immune to anything that Silver could throw at him. At least, she hoped so.

  Silver thought that the book was still here. There had to be some way that they could use that. At least Bradamant was playing along and keeping Silver occupied.

  ‘But how did you know I was from the Library?’ Bradamant asked, edging still further to the left.

  One of the thugs twitched forward as if to make a grab for her, but Silver shook his head. ‘No, my adversary deserves to know at least that much. How well you fooled me, my dear! I was quite distracted by your mousy little minion over there in her drab dress,’ he gestured at Irene, ‘and by your cunning thefts. How could I have realized that you were the mastermind behind it all? It was only after I put it all together that I saw you in your true light.’

  Irene was torn between relief that he wasn’t focusing on her, and a certain amount of irritation that she was apparently a mousy little minion unworthy of his attention. Was she so utterly unnoticeable? Why wasn’t he pointing a finger at Irene and declaiming about her being an impressive mastermind? In fact, why was Silver claiming that there was a mastermind at all?

  Part of her was aware that this was an incredibly stupid attitude to take, a reaction to his Fae charm or something. The same thing that was making her want to pout and preen at him. Maybe bare a shoulder or breathe deeply or somehow get him to notice her. To have him touch her with those beautiful long hands, his body pressing. . .

  Right.

  A thought at the back of her head was trying to get her attention. This is the problem with interacting with the Fae. An instructor’s voice from back at the Library, talking to half a dozen trainees while they made notes (or surreptitiously tried to plot out best-selling novels), droning away while rain spattered against the window that looked out onto a deserted grey stone square full of empty market stalls. They see everything in terms of their own personal drama. If you are not careful, they will drag you into it. This is in fact a problem and a risk with all chaos-infected alternates . . .

  ‘I see.’ Bradamant did a good job of drooping in response to Silver’s accusations. ‘Then you know everything.’

  ‘Everything!’ Silver declared. ‘I am not surprised that Aubrey should have called for reinforcements from the Library with such a prize at stake, but now he will have to admit that he has failed. Our long rivalry is at an end!’

  Irene blinked in shock. No. No. That couldn’t be right. If Silver had known Dominic Aubrey, and had learnt that he was a Library agent, then Dominic should have known about Silver being a threat. But Dominic hadn’t said a single word about Silver being an enemy of his, or warned them about him, or even told them that Silver existed . . .

  . . . and why was Bradamant nodding? What did she know? ‘Aubrey warned me about you,’ she said, ‘but I believe he did not prepare me enough.’

  No, surely this was impossible. There was no conceivable reason for Dominic to warn Bradamant, but not her or Kai. They could well have come into contact, as the only door to the Library was in Aubrey’s office. But there had been no sign that they had exchanged this sort of intelligence. Of course Dominic might have had his own patrons in the Library, who wanted Bradamant to find the book first. That was entirely plausible, and wasn’t even an offence as such. But deliberately hiding the threat of Silver from her and Kai wasn’t just a casual slip, it was a betrayal. If she’d got back and told her superiors, then Dominic might well have been removed from his post.

  Could Bradamant be lying? Her thoughts rattled in her head like computer keys. And the tension in the room escalated as Silver considered his next dramatic reply, as Vale and Kai shifted their positions behind her, and as the werewolves panted and waited to lunge.

  No. It didn’t fit. Oh, all right, maybe Bradamant and Silver might be secret allies staging an argument to convince her. But that was taking paranoia too far. So if Dominic knew about Silver and considered him significant enough to warn Bradamant – but didn’t even bother mentioning him to Irene on the next day, when he knew Irene was on a confirmed mission – then what did that imply? What had changed?

  She thought back to her brief contact with Dominic Aubrey. His use of the Language was strangely old-fashioned. And then there was Dominic Aubrey’s disappearance and skinning, which left his library tattoo intact but no sign of his body at all. And how did Alberich operate in this alternate world? Alberich, who had lived for long enough to be a legend even among the Librarians . . . but nobody knew how, and nobody even knew what he looked like.

  An idea was forming, an idea that she mentally flinched from, but one that answered a lot of questions. Stealing someone’s skin and identity was covered in obscure folklore treatises, but it wasn’t something that she ever expected to be real. She didn’t want it to be real.

  Silver had advanced on Vale and was flourishing his cane menacingly. ‘Wyndham only wanted the book because of information I gave him. Then he thought he could bargain for it. With me! Why, if the Iron Brotherhood hadn’t disposed of him, I might have been forced to do so myself . . . But all is not lost, my dear.’

  So it was the Iron Brotherhood that had killed Wyndham. Assuming Silver was correct about it, that tied off one loose end. Good, Irene thought, at least that’s one less unidentified group of assassins running around the place.

  Silver took a step forward, smiling brilliantly. Irene felt the air tingle with suppressed longing again. ‘Hand over the book and I will be glad to agree to any terms that you might desire.’

  Over by the desk, Ramsbottom seemed poised to tell all. His hand wavered towards the small blue ledger.

  Kai was the one who moved. He sprang forward like a leopard, and threw himself into a running dive across the desk, snatching the incriminating ledger out of Ramsbottom’s hands. He tossed the ledger across the room to Irene and it spun through the air in a flutter of pages.

  ‘Get that!’ Silver shrieked.

  Irene caught it.

  ‘Back, ladies,’ Vale snapped, as a swift twist of his hand revealed the sword inside his walking cane. The length of steel glittered in the burning glow of the lamps, and with a sudden crack sparks cascaded down it, flaring up harshly between them. ‘Lord Silver, restrain your dogs!’

  Kai was pushing Ramsbottom back against
the wall, getting between him and Silver’s snarling minions. Good for Kai, keeping the civilians out of it. Silver’s minions were getting hairier by the second. Irene could see the spreading patches of iron-grey and black matted fur on their hands, their lengthening nails, their bulging jaws with sprouting teeth . . .

  ‘Come on!’ Bradamant grabbed Irene’s shoulder, pulling her towards the door.

  Pure animal terror at the thought of being torn apart by half a dozen large wolves voted in favour of escape. Explanations could wait.

  She stumbled out into the corridor behind Bradamant. If they ran to the right, they’d be leading the chase back towards regular museum visitors. And that would not only be morally invidious, but would probably put them off museums for life.

  Irene tucked the ledger under one arm, picked up her skirts, and sprinted leftwards. She heard a muffled curse as Bradamant followed.

  Two junctions later, she paused at a spot where two corridors crossed. The place was a rabbit-warren. The air to the right smelled fresher, which argued a way out to the ground floor, or at least a fire escape of some sort, but the passage to the left was better lit. The passage directly in front had nothing to recommend it.

  ‘Keep going,’ Bradamant ordered, pausing to catch her breath. ‘The werewolves are right behind us – ’

  But the floor was shuddering violently underneath them. It felt like a passing underground train, but more worryingly close to the surface. Then the floorboards directly ahead buckled upwards in slow motion, and something clawed and dark tore its way up and through. It dragged itself up into the passageway in a vast clashing of gears and clinking of metal. It was all oil-smeared steel except for the head, which was glass-panelled on either side to make two huge flat translucent eyes. It was clearly from the same root design as the metal creature that Kai and Vale had fought two nights ago, but smaller and faster.

  ‘What’s this?’ Bradamant asked calmly, her words oddly distinct against the sound of splintering wood, grinding metal and distant howling.