The Burning Page

by Genevieve Cogman

  ‘And someone tried to kill me just last night,’ Irene added, aware that it sounded a bit weak, tagged on the end like that. ‘Though that could have been a coincidence.’

  Kostchei looked at her, his eyes liquid ice, and Irene found herself stuttering to a halt and closing her mouth. He had more presence in that glare than some Fae lords she’d faced down. It wasn’t psychic powers, as some people would have described them. It was simply Alpha Teacher, channelled with a side order of extra ice and public humiliation, and it worked far too well.

  Nobody else raised any questions. Penemue’s drive appeared to have fizzled out with that interruption, and she was now pointedly not looking at Irene. I’m guessing that the post-meeting coffee has been cancelled, now that I’m not quite so useful.

  Kostchei swept his gaze across the group of Librarians. ‘For the moment, the policy is to strengthen the Library’s ties to the alternate worlds. As usual, this will be accomplished by gathering books important to those worlds and bringing them here. This means that you will all be getting urgent assignments, now or in the near future. Do the job, get the book, bring it back as fast as possible.’

  ‘What of our more prolonged missions?’ Gwydion asked. ‘Several books have I now sought for years, and I would not set those tasks aside and waste my effort.’

  Irene resisted the urge to cover her eyes and sigh. Had she ever been that stupid? Possibly, but she liked to think that even when she was younger, she would have known better than to ask a question like that.

  Kostchei glared at Gwydion. ‘Get your priorities right, boy,’ he growled. ‘This is not some sort of casual diversion. This is an emergency. The Library is in danger. Forget the damn long-term projects. What we are doing, right this minute, is shoring up our defences and making certain that our gates and links stay solid.’

  Irene glanced at the other Librarians out of the corner of her eye. Nobody was actually raising their hand to ask the ten-million-dollar question, namely: Isn’t this a very short-term approach? Aren’t we just treating the symptoms, rather than the underlying problem? Shouldn’t we be thinking about a long-term strategy, or attack, not simply defence? What if this doesn’t work?

  Kostchei took a deep breath, visibly composing himself. ‘Any further developments or information should be reported immediately. Take all due precautions. Bear in mind that you are valuable resources and that the Library prefers you to stay alive. Get out there and do your job.’ He rapped on the table with his knuckles. ‘You are dismissed.’

  Irene had to push past a few other Librarians on her way down towards Coppelia. A couple of them gave her semi-friendly nods or sympathetic glances, and both Gwydion and Ananke muttered something about staying in contact. Irene made a mental note that she should probably make the effort. Assuming they all survived this. Penemue and Kallimachos both looked right through her, the sort of deliberate ignorance of her presence that would have been called the cut direct in certain times and places. Well, fine, she thought. Thanks for making it so very clear why you were interested in me, and why you aren’t now. It saves time. A background murmur of debate rose behind her, far more tense than the earlier chat before the meeting.

  She let Coppelia lead her into a small side office. Coppelia was in her usual dark blue, with a white lacy shawl round her shoulders, and her wooden hand was newly polished till it almost glowed. But she looked tired. There was a hollowness around her eyes, and a sense of strain to the way she moved. Irene was reminded that senior Librarians became like this because they’d worked out in the field until they were old, and then finally retired to the Library – where nobody aged and no bodily time passed – to become positively ancient. At this precise moment, Coppelia looked ancient too, and weary.

  The office was sparsely furnished. Coppelia settled into one of the flimsy-looking glass chairs with a sigh, and gestured Irene into the other. ‘Briefly, who’s trying to kill you, and why?’

  Irene gave a rundown of the last couple of days’ events, trying not to imagine her chair collapsing beneath her. ‘I don’t know who is responsible,’ she finished. ‘But Lady Guantes has an obvious motive. So does Alberich, but I don’t think he can reach me in my current posting. Not after he was banished from there previously.’ The mere thought that he might be able to left a sour taste in her mouth. ‘And even if he did, he wouldn’t just leave poisonous spiders in my bedroom.’

  ‘Venomous,’ Coppelia corrected her absently. ‘A spider is venomous: it creates the poison and delivers it by biting. Minus a point for incorrect terminology.’

  ‘Is this really the time to—’ Irene started angrily.

  ‘Yes,’ Coppelia snapped. ‘Yes, it is and it always will be. You use the Language, child. You have to be absolutely precise or you will get hurt. I have not invested all this time and effort into you to lose you now.’

  Irene took a deep breath. ‘How nice that I matter to you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Irene. I haven’t time for you to be juvenile. Can you behave like an adult, or should I have you wait outside while we take the next briefing?’

  This was the second time inside half an hour that she’d been scolded as if she was still a teenager. It hit nerves already frayed from assassination attempts and threats from Alberich. ‘People are trying to kill me,’ she said, controlling herself with an effort. ‘The Library’s been threatened by Alberich. Gates are being destroyed. Alberich sent me a personal message. I haven’t time for you to treat me like a child. Is this really the moment for power games?’

  Coppelia tapped a wooden finger on the table. ‘Just because you’ve stayed out of Library power games in the past doesn’t mean that you’ll always be able to do so. Do you have any relevant questions?’

  ‘Yes. What should I do if Alberich tries to contact me again?’

  Coppelia hesitated. ‘I would like to tell you not to bother answering him. But we desperately need further information. If you think you can get anything out of him, try it.’

  ‘Answer him?’ Irene hadn’t thought it was possible to respond to that sort of message. It was yet one more thing that junior Librarians didn’t ‘need to know’. The thought rankled, another brick on top of a growing construction of annoyance. Just think, if she’d been able to respond before, after receiving other emergency messages . . . ‘How?’

  Coppelia pursed her lips as if she was considering reproving Irene for her tone, but her answer was mild. ‘You need to overwrite the written material with your own message, using the Language. The person who sent the first message should still be focused on the link to your general area and will perceive it. The link doesn’t last long, so you’ll only have a chance to exchange a few lines.’

  ‘How safe is this?’ Irene asked.

  ‘Nothing’s totally safe. What sort of guarantee are you looking for?’

  Irene spread her hands. ‘Well, are we talking about me being led into sedition by his hypnotic messages unsafe, or Alberich using this theoretical link to drop a rain of fire on my head unsafe?’

  ‘Well, the Library couldn’t drop a rain of fire on your head through that sort of link,’ Coppelia said. ‘So Alberich probably can’t. It interests me that he can make the connection at all.’

  ‘It surprises me that he’d bother, given our previous British Library confrontation,’ Irene said. She wasn’t entirely reassured by the use of probably. ‘Other Librarians must have managed to dodge him before. I can’t be the first one.’

  Coppelia reached across the table and tapped Irene’s forehead with her finger – one of the flesh ones, thankfully. ‘Use your brain, child. You read that book he was hunting for. He knows you’ll have read it – and it was only a few months ago, so he won’t have forgotten.’

  Irene frowned. ‘But it only told me that his sister had a child who was raised in the Library. It didn’t . . . Oh.’ It came to her what Coppelia was saying. ‘But maybe he doesn’t know that. Or at least he doesn’t know how much I know, or what the book said.’


  ‘I’m tempted to order you to stay here,’ Coppelia mused out loud. ‘It might be safest for you.’

  Irene blinked. ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m quite serious. As Kostchei said, we don’t want to waste you.’ She sighed. ‘That man has never liked chairing meetings. You can watch his level of patience go down like a thermometer being hit by a blizzard.’

  ‘Well, I’m being serious, too. I’m not sitting in here when there’s work to be done.’ She leaned forward, trying to impress Coppelia with her determination and focus, then stiffened as she heard the chair creak under her. It spoiled the effect. ‘And why are we having meetings, anyhow? Why aren’t you just broadcasting the news to all the Librarians as fast as possible?’

  ‘It takes energy.’ Coppelia shrugged. ‘The Library’s resources are not infinite. We’re informing people who come in first, and we’ll be broadcasting warnings to anyone who hasn’t shown up or been in contact within twenty-four hours. And as for work to be done, I have a job for you. It’s in a different world from your Residency post – but since Alberich won’t know to look for you there, you should be as safe as if you were here. Safe from Alberich, at least,’ she corrected herself.

  ‘What sort of job?’ The very concept of a simple book-retrieval brought a welcome normality into the discussion, and Irene relaxed.

  ‘The usual,’ Coppelia said. ‘But under the current circumstances, we need the book as fast as possible. You won’t have your usual time for preparations. We do know where you can find a copy of it, but it may be a little difficult to extract.’

  Which meant that it was probably going to be hideously difficult and dangerous. Still, at least Irene would be doing something to help.

  Coppelia reached down painfully and flipped open the leather briefcase beside her chair. She slid out a thin folder of papers, offering them to Irene. ‘The book we want is The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, by Jan Potocki. He was Polish, but the manuscript was written in French. In a lot of alternates it was published without any problems, but something was different about it in this world, B-1165. The book was mostly destroyed. A few copies showed up in private collections. We have a lead on one of them, and since we’re short on time, you’d better try for that one. Don’t think you’re being given an easy job to keep you occupied. This one’s going to be difficult to acquire. We would have liked to get hold of it some time back, but it was judged to be too difficult a mission. But under the current circumstances . . .’

  Irene took the papers. ‘If it’s a beta-world, then it’s magic-dominant?’

  Coppelia nodded. ‘The major power is Tsarist Russia. The book’s in the restricted collection in the Hermitage at St Petersburg. There isn’t a Librarian-in-Residence on that world, so you’ll have to operate without backup.’

  Irene’s feeling of relaxation was ebbing rapidly. ‘What do I do about Kai?’ she asked. ‘I’m nervous enough about leaving him alone in Vale’s world while I come in to report. Should I leave him here in the Library while I’m collecting this Potocki manuscript?’

  Coppelia apparently considered, but she had a particular set to her lips. Irene recognized it as meaning that the older Librarian had already made up her mind. ‘You’d better bring him with you. The world’s disputed ground, not high-chaos or high-order – but it is more order than chaos, so it shouldn’t be too risky for him. And you might find his help useful.’

  Irene nodded. ‘All right. It’ll certainly make him happier. But level with me on this one, Coppelia, please. I didn’t ask this outside, in the meeting, but what are we going to do if this stabilization approach doesn’t work?’

  ‘Think of another one,’ Coppelia said. She cracked her wooden knuckles. ‘Melusine is correlating reports from Librarians across all the alternates, as they come in. Once we get a lead on where Alberich’s hiding out, we can move in a strike force.’

  ‘It’s amazing how Alberich threatening to destroy the Library suddenly gets everyone interested in locating him and hunting him down,’ Irene said. She couldn’t stop a certain amount of sarcasm seeping into her voice. ‘Rather more serious than just killing individual Librarians.’

  ‘Individual bias is fine in private,’ Coppelia said gently. ‘But be careful what you say in public.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ll do my job.’ Irene realized she was echoing Kostchei, and was reminded of another question. ‘Did Kostchei deliberately play down my report?’

  ‘He gave it what he considered the appropriate level of significance.’ Coppelia shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘He may follow it up later, but at the moment we’re rating the destruction of Library portals and the deaths of Librarians as more significant than one threat to your life.’

  Irene hadn’t wanted to ask, but she couldn’t force the thought away any longer. ‘Has this affected anyone I know? My parents—’

  ‘Not your parents.’ Coppelia met Irene’s gaze. ‘Nobody you know. Some Librarians just haven’t been in contact yet. We’re trying to reach them. At least a couple are known to have died. So far they were on worlds where the gates have been destroyed. We think at least one was caught in a gate going up in flames.’

  Irene thought of how nearly the same thing had happened to her. ‘I understand you don’t want to start a panic,’ she said. ‘But I’m wondering if this news perhaps justifies a bit of panic.’

  ‘Panic is the last thing we can afford,’ Coppelia said. ‘Panic will have everyone rushing off in different directions to try to “save the Library”. Panic is the antithesis to good organization. Panic is messy. I am against panic on a point of principle.’ She checked her watch. ‘Do you have any other questions? The next briefing’s in a few minutes, and it’s my turn to chair it.’

  Irene had been carefully putting her other problem to one side, balancing it against her professional responsibilities and her duty to the Library. But that didn’t make it go away. And Coppelia, an elder of the Library, might have an answer. ‘How would you recommend cleansing chaos contamination from a human’s system?’ she demanded.

  ‘Dear me.’ Coppelia frowned thoughtfully. ‘Vale, I take it? Yes, I did wonder how he’d coped with that version of Venice . . . Don’t look at me like that, Irene; chaos contamination wasn’t a certainty, and in any case he isn’t a Librarian. For a start, you won’t be able to bring him in here.’

  Irene mentally cursed. ‘Why not?’ she asked.

  ‘The obvious reason – if he’s reached too high a level of intrinsic chaos, the gate won’t let him through, just as it wouldn’t have let you through while you were contaminated yourself. But you know that. Why bother to ask me?’

  ‘I was hoping I was wrong,’ Irene admitted. ‘What about moving him to a high-order world?’

  ‘By other methods of transportation, I assume.’ Coppelia made a wiggly gesture in the air that might have been meant to mimic dragon flight. ‘Yes, that should work in the long term, assuming he survives it. If it’s too deep in his system, he might simply calcify, the way that the high Fae do in such worlds. You’d need somewhere mid-order, and you’d be looking at a long-term convalescence. Or you could take him to another high-chaos world.’

  ‘How would that help?’

  ‘It’d set his nature.’ Coppelia shrugged. ‘Again, if he survived. He’d acclimatize to being the same chaos level as other denizens of that world. Of course there would probably be some personality changes, and he’d be more vulnerable to Fae influence, but he’d live. You might do best just to take care of him as he is, and hope that he can ride it out. Eventually his body will resettle to a more normal level for his world.’

  Her Library branding had shielded Irene, of course. But that wasn’t an option for Vale. He’d gone to that high-chaos Venice of his own will, in spite of all the warnings, to save Kai. Even though he’d known he would be risking his life. Even though he might have suspected he’d be risking his sanity. Irene found herself turning cold at the thought that she might lose him. Vale
wasn’t simply a civilian casualty. He was someone she cared about, someone who had a place in her life.

  There had to be a way to save him. She would not accept otherwise.

  Irene rose to her feet with a nod. ‘Thank you for the information,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back with the book as soon as possible.’

  ‘Irene . . .’ Coppelia looked for words, then spread her hands again. ‘Be careful, girl.’

  ‘You too,’ Irene said. ‘After all, if nowhere’s safe . . .’ She gestured at the walls, at the wider Library around them. ‘Then this isn’t safe, either.’

  Coppelia’s mouth quirked into a smile. She nodded, and Irene left, making her way through a new group of Librarians waiting to be briefed.

  She fretted all the way through the transfer shift and back to the portal to Vale’s world, trying to think how best to handle matters. Assuming that this gate remained stable – and should she set up some sort of warning system, in case it caught fire? – she needed to ask those Fae she knew about Alberich. Zayanna. Silver. Anyone else she could find. Perhaps Vale could suggest a few names, if only from his local list of Dangerous Fae Malefactors. And she needed to watch out for any further messages from Alberich. She also needed to talk with Kai about Vale, and discuss where to take him, and if he’d agree to go. Oh, and she needed to find out who left those spiders. Though when compared with everything else, someone trying to murder her so inefficiently was a minor concern.

  And she needed to go and steal a book.

  She left the British Library in the middle of a jostling group of young students, mentally preparing an argument for Silver. He had to believe that it was in his interests to cooperate. But the sudden pain of a needle stabbing her hand broke her concentration. She looked up in shock to see one man sliding the hypodermic back in his coat, as another slipped an arm round her waist, gathering her to him as she began to sag. She opened her mouth, trying to speak, but she couldn’t focus and her sight was darkening. She choked on the smell of sweat and hair and dogs.