‘Get that help now,’ Kai said sharply to Bradamant.
‘Please?’ Irene forced herself to look up and meet Bradamant’s eyes. ‘Think about it?’
‘I thought you wanted us to stop thinking about each other so much,’ Bradamant said coldly. She turned on her heel and walked away, skirts swishing.
Irene’s vision was narrowing, as Bradamant faded from view. ‘Think about it,’ she mumbled, the words thick and heavy in her mouth.
Kai’s fingers bit into her shoulder hard enough to make her refocus. ‘If you pass out on me now, I’m going to kill you,’ he said conversationally.
‘A bit counter-productive,’ Irene said.
‘It’d cheer me up like nothing else.’ He leaned in closer, his face inches away from hers. ‘You sent me away, you sent me away and you nearly got yourself killed. Do you have any idea how stupid that was?’
Perhaps his control was slipping, because his skin was like blue-veined alabaster, and his hair seemed dark blue as well, so dark that it was nearly black. There was a deep fury in his eyes that was a long way from human anger. It was about possessiveness, pride and a sort of ownership as well.
‘It worked,’ Irene said, managing to return his stare. His pupils weren’t human any longer either. They were slit like a snake’s, like that other dragon she’d met. But the person behind them was more real to her than Silver and his apparent humanity. Or whatever had looked out at her from Alberich’s stolen skin. She wanted to find the words to tell him as much. ‘We drove him out. Thank you.’
‘He endangered you!’ he broke in. ‘I shouldn’t have left any human alive in there!’
She could have thanked him for obeying or trusting her, or maybe because she could trust him. But for some reason, perhaps to divert him, she said, ‘For helping me save Vale’s life. I like him.’
To her surprise, that made Kai turn aside and duck his head, a scarlet flush blossoming on those pale high-boned cheeks. The fingers digging into her shoulder relaxed their grip, and there was something more human about his face. ‘He is a man to be valued,’ he muttered. ‘I am glad you approve of him as well.’
It might be a major concession for a dragon to admit he liked any human at all. ‘Right,’ she muttered. ‘Definitely. Could you get me some cotton?’ She realized that she’d used the wrong word. ‘Coffee. I mean coffee. Bit dizzy.’
‘Stay still.’ How stupid of him; did he really think she was going to go running off somewhere? ‘Bradamant will get help.’
‘It’s just a flesh wound,’ she murmured, then darkness came down over her eyes and swallowed her up.
Light came back grudgingly, filtered through long window blinds. Irene was lying on a couch, her heavily bandaged hands neatly arranged in her lap. She was in one of the rooms that overlooked the unknown city outside the Library walls. Someone had taken off her shoes and arranged the folds of her dress so that they covered her stockinged feet. That small thing, petty as it was, allowed her to relax. There was only one person who’d go to that trouble.
‘Coppelia,’ she said, raising her head to look for her supervisor. The tension inside her uncurled a little. Coppelia had always been fair. She was other things as well, such as sarcastic. And her level of expectations would challenge an Olympic high-jumper. But she could rely on Coppelia.
‘Clever girl.’ Coppelia was sitting in a high-backed chair near the couch. A portable desk covered her lap, stacked with hand-copied sheets of paper thick with the Language. She was sitting so the light fell across her desk, but left her face and shoulders in shadow. She shifted, and her joints creaked. ‘Do you think you’re strong enough to give me a report?’
Irene rubbed at her eyes with her forearm. ‘Could we have a little more light in here?’ The fluorescent panels in the ceiling were unlit, and the only meagre illumination came through the blinds. It left the whole room feeling dim and unreal, like a black and white film, where bleakness was a deliberate part of the artistry.
‘Not quite yet,’ Coppelia said. There was something guarded about her voice, although her face was as bland and unreadable as always. Her bright white hair was braided back under a navy cap, showing in stark contrast to her dark skin. In the dim light, it formed a pattern of brightness and darkness to Irene’s weary eyes. The artificial carved-wood fingers of her left hand tapped on the edge of her desk, something Irene found comfortingly familiar. ‘You’ve put stress on your body in a number of ways that you don’t even understand. We’ve been bleeding off some of the excess energies, but for the moment you need to be strictly under-exposed to any sort of stimulation.’
Irene raised her eyebrows. ‘You don’t think that telling you my story is going to be stimulating?’
Coppelia chuckled a wheezing little laugh. ‘To me, perhaps. To you, it will merely be desensitization.’
‘How dull,’ Irene said. Then she sensed the gap at her side, the empty space between arm and ribs where she had been clasping the book. She flailed around with her bandaged hands, trying to find it. ‘The book – the Grimm – ’
‘Only seven out of ten for immediate reactions, I’m afraid,’ Coppelia said happily. ‘Yes, we have it safe, and Wyndham’s letter as well. I suppose it would be too much to hope that you didn’t read it? Of course it would. What on earth would anyone do under those circumstances?’
‘Well, ah, yes,’ Irene said, hoping that sympathy would translate into lenience. ‘Of course I had to check that it was the right one.’
Coppelia’s voice stayed merry, but her eyes hardened. ‘And you knew to check that it was the right one how, precisely?’
This was where she decided how much she wanted to sell Bradamant down the river. Well, Bradamant was trying to steal the book. Before I could bring it back, she poisoned me and left me in what she admittedly thought was a safe place. But she despises me and I don’t like her much either . . .
‘I met Bradamant there,’ she said, grateful that they were talking in English rather than the Language. She wasn’t actually going to lie, but there was . . . well, there might be an element of flexibility. She knew it, and Coppelia probably knew it, but that was best left unsaid. ‘When she discovered my mission, she provided some additional information that helped us identify the book. She helped us fight Alberich too.’
‘Demerit for using the verb “helped” twice in succession,’ Coppelia said. ‘And then? I take it she also read it?’
‘Only as much as I did,’ Irene said, feeling on metaphorically thin ice.
‘Which was?’ Coppelia pressed.
‘The eighty-eighth story.’
She genuinely liked Coppelia, and she thought it was reciprocated. Not just the sort of friendship that could flourish between any mentor and student, but a real, honest affection. It caused her to bring books back from assignment merely because Coppelia might enjoy them. It saw her oiling Coppelia’s clockwork joints, or just spending hours talking with her in the timeless Library, where there were neither days nor nights. There was companionship under those constantly burning lights, as they observed the changing windows on the strange world beyond. She thought of all that, and felt a barrier rise between them as Coppelia’s eyes narrowed.
‘And your conclusions?’ Coppelia said, entirely neutrally.
‘Alberich had a sister,’ Irene said. This was not the time or place to pretend to stupidity. ‘The sister had a child. And Alberich either wants to hide the information, or he’s looking for them, or both. Or perhaps it was just because the book was linked to the fate of that world, and so it could bring Alberich power. The story about the siblings and the child could be pure coincidence. But I don’t think that. And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I did.’
‘And that’s all you think?’ Coppelia pushed. The dry twist at the corner of her mouth showed tacit agreement with Irene’s last statement.
‘That’s all I can be sure of.’ There was a spike of pain in Irene’s temple, and she raised a bandaged hand to rub at it. ‘I can’t
see why Alberich would have gone to so much trouble to find the book, if it had just been some kind of diversionary tactic to distract from some larger plot. And he’d gone to such efforts merely for some scheme relating to that alternate – but hunting the book seemed so very personal to him . . . But if Kai hadn’t been with me, I’d have died.’ She did her best to give Coppelia a reproachful glance. ‘You knew about Kai.’
‘What you can work out in a few days, I have at least a sporting chance of noticing over several years,’ Coppelia said smugly. But there was still that edge of caution behind her eyes. ‘Does he know I’m aware of his nature?’
‘I don’t know,’ Irene said. ‘He knows I know.’
‘Well, clearly,’ Coppelia said. ‘And does he know that you’ll tell me what you know?’
‘He’d find it astonishing if I didn’t,’ Irene said, after a moment’s thought. ‘His views on loyalty are very definite.’ She noticed that Coppelia wasn’t asking whether or not she liked Kai. And seeing that she did, she felt it was best kept to herself. If they were looking for an excuse to assign him elsewhere, which was the last thing she wanted, acknowledging that she was less than objective about him would certainly do it. Which would be bad. So she would avoid subjectivity, or at least being caught at it.
‘Well, he is a dragon.’ Coppelia nodded. ‘Kindly don’t speculate too much to him about how much we already comprehend about him, unless the situation requires it. You’ll know when. For the moment, we’ll have to assume he understands that we know all.’
‘All?’
‘We are the Library,’ Coppelia pointed out. ‘What we don’t know, we research. Now tell me the rest.’
Irene gave a brief, factual report of the details . . . and then there was Alberich. Alberich took up a great deal of the report. Even then, Irene found it not only easier, but essential to her sanity, to be minimalist in her descriptions.
Probably her current urge to grab everyone she met and check that they weren’t Alberich in disguise would eventually go away. She hoped so.
Finally she trailed off. It seemed that they had slipped back into the casual banter of previous assignments. Everything had been simpler then, and arrogance had made it easy for Irene to talk glibly about secrets, about how elder Librarians could use her as a pawn. Now that that had probably happened, it was much less intriguing. It was like a splinter in her mind, which ached when she considered it. ‘Could you have given me more information?’ she finally asked.
‘You were warned about Alberich as soon as we were certain he was within that alternate,’ Coppelia said gently. ‘Before that, you might have been able to complete the mission on the information given. Do you actually feel any safer, with your current knowledge, understanding he suspects that you have it?’
She was about to reply, No, not really, but there was more to the question than that. ‘I feel better able to handle matters now I’ve an idea about what’s going on,’ she said. ‘People having nervous breakdowns due to knowledge that man isn’t meant to know – that happens in horror literature. Not real life.’
‘Yes.’ Coppelia sighed. ‘And yes, I know you prefer crime literature.’
‘Detective stories,’ Irene corrected her.
Coppelia raised an eyebrow. ‘And is there anything else?’
Irene tried to guess her meaning, then gave up. ‘Like what?’
‘This from someone who claims to be an investigator.’
‘But I didn’t ever claim—’ Irene tried to put in.
‘I must say that I think you could have done a better job as an undercover agent.’
‘But it was a very complex scenario, with limited information,’ Irene blurted out. This was like an examination from her nightmares. She could feel herself cringing back against the couch.
‘Oh?’ Coppelia folded her arms in a manner that practically telegraphed stern judgement. ‘Young woman, even though you’re my student, you have overstepped a number of lines on this occasion. You’ve revealed facts about the Library to at least two uninvolved parties.’
Irene decided to just give up.
‘You encouraged the manifestation of a dragon in public.’
‘Excuse me.’ That was a bit too much. ‘I wasn’t aware that was an offence against Library rules, and the Library sent him with me in the first place!’
‘Your comments have been noted,’ Coppelia said. She was sounding almost bored, but there was a spark of amusement in her eyes. ‘Naturally I shall give them full consideration. I will also try to present them in a proper and reasonable light to the elder Librarians, should I need to justify your actions. Rather than treating them as a pitiful string of excuses.’
Irene glared at her. This was beyond unfair. This was outright unreasonable.
‘I had expected better. Such a pity.’ Coppelia tapped her fingers against each other. They clicked like death-watch beetles. ‘Fortunately, as your mentor, I am competent to deal with this matter and there is no need to refer it up higher.’ Now the message in her eyes was clearer. It was a warning. Irene just wished she had a better idea what it meant. ‘As I said earlier, we are Librarians. What we don’t know, we research. And you, my dear Irene, have a great deal to research.’
‘I do?’ Irene said, feeling her way carefully. ‘I suppose that perhaps I do.’
Coppelia nodded. ‘Yes. Exactly. In fact, I believe I am within my rights to place you on location duty in that alternate. That is until you’ve cleared up a few loose ends in the investigation. Your apprentice will stay with you, of course.’
Irene had an extraordinary sense of being on a lift in free-fall. ‘But – I – Alberich – ’
‘Him at least you don’t need to worry about,’ Coppelia said. ‘Quite without any sort of proper training, you’ve actually managed to banish him from that alternate. I’m impressed. Nine out of ten for inductive reasoning. What you have done will have set up a resonance in the interworld barriers which will stop him from entering it again via chaos-linked magic. And of course he can’t use the Library itself. It will also cause serious inconvenience to local Fae, but I don’t consider that particularly important. At least, not to the Library.’
‘You’re wanting me to go back?’ Irene squeaked. She took a deep breath, and forced her voice lower. ‘That is, you want me to go back there on detached duty?’
‘Precisely,’ Coppelia said. She smiled warmly, in much the same way that an alligator, cyborg or otherwise, might smile after a full meal of whatever alligators ate. Librarians, maybe. ‘I think that, at this moment, it’s the best possible place for you. There is also a Librarian-in-Residence position vacant and you are familiar with the world.’
‘That could almost sound as if you think it safer than the Library,’ Irene said tentatively.
‘You might very well think so,’ Coppelia said. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’
Freefall had given way to an enormous vertiginous drop, but it wasn’t actually that frightening any more. It was even exciting. ‘I’ll need an expense account to support myself and Kai, of course, and identity papers.’
‘Irene,’ Coppelia said severely, ‘I expect you to manage your own identity papers. Really. Here.’ She reached for a small leather briefcase, and offered it to Irene. ‘This contains Dominic Aubrey’s full particulars, including his bank accounts. See about getting the money transferred. Have Kai pose as his long-lost cousin or something. I’m sure your friend Vale will be glad to help.’
Irene flushed. ‘You think so?’
‘He sounds a practical man. I think he’ll prefer to have you on his side.’ She paused for thought. ‘You probably won’t get Aubrey’s office, so you must notify us once you have lodgings. That way any future visitors to the alternate will know where to find you. You will be the Librarian-in-Residence, after all.’
‘I will?’ Irene said, and blushed again, this time out of genuine humility rather than simple embarrassment. Librarian-in-Residence was a post of some responsibility. It was
something she hadn’t even thought about handling for decades yet. Excitement began to give way to panic. ‘I don’t know what to say – ’
‘Thank you and goodbye should cover it,’ Coppelia said briskly. ‘Come now. Here you are, sitting around, with Kai fretting over you and worrying himself. A word of advice. Don’t get yourself hurt if there’s a possibility of him throwing himself in the way. He’ll be far more upset about it than you will.’
‘Coppelia.’ Irene took a deep breath. ‘Why?’
The old woman closed her eyes for a moment. She was frail, even for the Library, and her wooden arm and legs were the only solid things about her. The rest was all fragile flesh, spiderweb white hair and eyes as cold as black stars. ‘Don’t ask,’ she said, her voice tired. ‘Don’t say anything, then I won’t need to reply. And then later on, we can both answer truthfully that nothing was shared. You’ve always avoided asking questions in the past, but we’ve run out of time for that. It’s true that we need to know more. You know the questions. Go and find answers, and let me report back that I sent you to investigate. It’s true that you’ll be safe there from Alberich. He’s got bigger fish to hunt, that one. Let him do it. Let the rest of us throw ourselves in the way this time. Go and play detective, Irene, and do a good job of it. Make me proud of you.’
There was a rustle at the door, then a brisk rapping.
‘That will be Kai,’ Coppelia said. She opened her eyes again. ‘You’d better be going. He knows the way from here to the alternate’s entrance.’
Irene swung her feet down from the couch, and stood up. ‘Thank you,’ she said. It came out grudgingly, and she tried again. ‘Thank you, Coppelia. I do appreciate it. That is, I am grateful.’
‘You don’t, but you will,’ Coppelia said. She sighed again. ‘Your hands have been pieced together – I dragged old Wormius away from his runes to reattach all the bits and pieces. Another reason for you to be out in real time. They’re not going to heal here in the Library.’
The Invisible Library Page 30