For a long moment there was no answer, and Irene was able to consider all the ways in which she’d bollixed up the plan. Then Zayanna’s voice called from beyond the inner door, ‘In here, darling!’
Irene advanced cautiously, looking through into the room beyond. It was the heat that hit her first. The large space beyond the door, nearly one-third of the warehouse interior, was as warm as a greenhouse. Thick black cloth had been nailed up against the walls and across the ceiling, covering the windows and blocking draughts. Cages and terrariums stood at careful intervals, interspersed with large electrical-coil radiators and blazing ether-lamps. It all looked vastly unsafe. At the centre of the room were a couple of divans, with a small table between them.
Zayanna had made herself comfortable on the further divan, leaning her chin on one hand as she contemplated Irene. She was in clinging black satin that trailed over the edge of the divan, giving her a serpentine air. ‘Do come in,’ she murmured, her eyes mocking. ‘My pets are all perfectly safe.’
‘I remember you used to look after snakes for your patron.’ Irene wasn’t quite certain that she wanted to walk between those cages to reach Zayanna. The scorpions in the closest terrarium looked too active for Irene to be comfortable anywhere near them. And far too big.
‘I do prefer snakes,’ Zayanna admitted. ‘But I like other pets, too.’
‘This many of them?’ Irene indicated the cages and terrariums with a gesture.
‘Oh well, I might have got a tiny bit carried away there. I just went to do a teeny bit of shopping, to get a few little ones to start with, and you know how it is.’ Zayanna shrugged. ‘Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said that nothing succeeds like excess? I thought I’d try it with giant hornets and see if it was true.’
‘Sadly – well, I suppose it’s sadly for you, not me – it didn’t quite work,’ Irene said. She ignored the impulse to ask exactly where Zayanna had read Oscar Wilde. ‘I’m here, after all.’
‘I did hope you’d make it, darling.’ Zayanna reached across to pick up one of the bottles that stood on the table. ‘Can I offer you something to drink? Strictly no obligations, my word on it.’
‘And no poison?’
‘My word on that, too,’ Zayanna promised. ‘Darling, I do realize you might be a tiny little bit suspicious of me at the moment, but we’re not going to have a proper conversation if we have to keep on shouting at each other across the room like this. Won’t you come and sit down? I’m not going to try to kill you while you’re walking over here – it’d spoil everything.’
It was the same logic that Irene herself had used, after all – she won’t kill me because she’ll want to gloat at me – but it was a little less comforting when she was face-to-face with it. ‘All right,’ she agreed, knowing that her caution was audible in her voice. ‘But you must understand that I’m rather annoyed with myself at the moment.’
‘Why?’ Zayanna asked. ‘And what would you like to drink?’
Irene began to walk carefully between the cages and heaters, holding her full skirts close to her legs. Her multiple layers of clothing – overcoat and ballgown – were swelteringly hot. ‘Well, I am supposed to be good at my job, rather than falling for the first sob story that comes along.’
‘But I was convincing,’ Zayanna said smugly. ‘And let’s be fair, darling, we had history and I was well prepared.’
‘Oh?’ Irene tried to make the question sound only mildly curious. ‘And do you have any brandy there?’
Zayanna shook her head vigorously, her dark curls tousled over her shoulders. ‘Brandy’s so dull. I’ve got tequila, absinthe, jenever, baijiu, vodka—’
‘Brandy is not dull,’ Irene protested. The feeling of time running through her hands like sand gave her a nagging ache of urgency. But the more Zayanna relaxed and focused on Irene, the easier it would be for the men to break in unobserved. Thinking of it as a military operation helped Irene suppress her own anger. ‘And aren’t you hitting the spirits a little bit heavily?’
‘Who needs a liver?’ Zayanna picked up a bottle whose label proclaimed it as Best-Quality Amsterdam Jenever and splashed clear liquid into two glasses. ‘Now then, darling. Sit down and we can talk. I’m sure you have lots of questions for me.’
Irene seated herself on the divan opposite Zayanna’s, with the table between the two of them. ‘I should probably get to the point. Zayanna, you are the person who’s been trying to kill me, am I right?’
‘I’m definitely one of them,’ Zayanna said. She pushed one of the glasses across the table to Irene. ‘There may be other people, too. I wouldn’t necessarily know.’
‘Why?’ Irene tried to keep her tone level, to treat the subject as casually and lightly as Zayanna, but the word twisted in her mouth and turned sharp. ‘Perhaps it was stupid of me, but I hadn’t realized we were on those terms.’
‘Which terms?’
‘The terms that involved trying to kill each other.’
Zayanna tilted her head, looking puzzled. ‘Well, on a practical level, we are, but that doesn’t mean we have to be unpleasant to each other. It’s been such a challenge!’
‘A challenge,’ Irene said flatly. The stings on her hand throbbed as she reached across to pick up the glass.
Zayanna nodded. ‘You were an inspiration to me, Irene darling. When we met in Venice, you were so calm, so controlled, such a perfect agent! I did tell you at least a bit of the truth. My patron threw me out. He showed me the door. He turned the metaphorical dogs loose on me. And the real dogs, too! He said I should have been more proactive, more aware. So when Alberich offered me a job, I thought, I can do better. I can be just as good as you were!’
Irene stared into the jenever. She couldn’t quite bring herself to take a sip, even though alcoholic oblivion was oh-so-very-tempting at that precise moment. ‘You know, Zayanna, usually I’d be pleased and proud to think that I was an inspiring teacher, but right at this precise moment I’m feeling a bit conflicted on the subject.’
Zayanna took a swig of the jenever and licked her lips. ‘I can understand that you’re feeling a bit depressed about losing. But do cheer up! Maybe next time you’ll win.’
‘There won’t be a next time, if I’m dead,’ Irene felt the need to point out. ‘And I’m not dead yet, so saying I’ve lost seems somewhat premature.’
‘It’s like having the king in check in chess,’ Zayanna said. ‘When the next move is going to be checkmate, you can say you’ve won, even if the other person hasn’t agreed to it yet. The front door locked itself behind you. I’ve got men next door, and they’ll come running if I shout. There’s a button under my foot, darling. It’s wired to all the cage doors. If I press it, then everything gets opened – and I promise you some of my pets have very fast-acting poison. And I’ve taken the antidotes. So you see, I have won.’
It was an interesting theoretical situation. Irene would prefer to avoid the practical experiment. ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Technically, I suppose that does count as check, and I can’t immediately move my king out of the position. It’s a pity. I’d hoped I could get the answers to some questions before, well . . .’ She wiggled her fingers in a manner suggestive of poisonous snakes.
‘Hmm, we might be able to come to an arrangement,’ Zayanna said. There was a sly, bargaining note to her voice. ‘Technically my contract said “kill or otherwise take out of circulation”, so as long as I keep you out of the way, darling, I think that fulfils it.’
‘Your contract with Alberich.’ Irene nodded knowingly.
Zayanna smiled. ‘I couldn’t possibly tell you, darling. That’d be betrayal and . . . let’s just say that would be bad for me.’ She tried to make a joke of it, but there was a flutter of nervousness behind her voice.
‘How bad?’
‘Permanently bad.’ Zayanna sighed. ‘One would almost think he didn’t have faith that we’d stay loyal or avoid being captured. Speaking of which, how did you find me here? I was expecting you, but I still don’t
know how you did it.’
Irene needed a plausible reason that didn’t draw Zayanna to any conclusions about possible allies showing up. ‘I used the Language,’ she lied, gambling that Zayanna wouldn’t necessarily know everything it could or couldn’t do. ‘I was able to track one of the giant Asian hornets from the British Library to here.’ And where had the men got to, anyhow? She could use a rescue, or at the very least a diversion.
‘Oh,’ Zayanna said. She looked around at the cages and terrariums. ‘Drat. I hadn’t thought of that. I’m so glad you didn’t try it with the spiders. It would have absolutely spoiled things if you’d caught up with me that early.’
Irene wanted very badly to grab Zayanna by the shoulders and scream at her that this wasn’t some sort of game – that the Library might be destroyed, that Irene could have been killed. That things didn’t just happen in a vacuum, but that cause led on to effect. She saw that her hand was shaking, and she put the glass of jenever down before she spilled it. ‘I can see that would have cut things short,’ she agreed. Why aren’t the men here yet?
Zayanna sighed. ‘Darling, I’m not getting much of a sense of engagement from you here. You’re being very analytical about it all. Don’t you want to swear vengeance or anything? I did betray you, after all. I knew that you’d be protective if you thought I was in trouble, just like you were with that dragon you saved . . . Where is he, by the way?’
‘I sent him home,’ Irene said. She’d been expecting that question. ‘It was too risky for him to stay in this world.’
‘Probably a good thing. I’m certainly not in this to start a war with his family.’ Zayanna poured herself more jenever. ‘And he’s so incredibly possessive. Such a bore.’
‘Some people might say that was the pot calling the kettle black,’ Irene remarked drily.
Zayanna pouted. ‘Irene, you’re being unfair. I don’t want to keep you out of danger or stop you doing your Librarian thing. Totally the contrary. That’s why I don’t want . . . anyone to kill you.’
‘But if Alberich destroys the Library—’ Irene tried.
Zayanna looked blank. ‘You can find another patron, can’t you? You won’t stop being what you are.’
‘And nor will you, it seems.’ Regret fought with anger, and for a moment Irene wished she could be stupid enough to drink that glass of jenever. It might help her feel a little better about the fact that Zayanna wasn’t, and didn’t want to be, anything other than a manipulative Fae who was far more interested in playing the game than in why it was being played. Irene thought of that list of destroyed gates and dead Librarians. They were real. Compared to that, the fact that she’d once liked Zayanna and thought of her as a friend was as important as . . . well, as a dead giant Asian hornet.
‘So what now?’ Zayanna leaned forward eagerly. ‘Do tell me, darling. Are you meditating a simply devastating countermove? Will you leap across the table and attack me? Or are you going to flee into the London night?’
‘Fleeing wouldn’t work very well,’ Irene said. ‘You’d probably have the werewolves hunt me down.’
‘Oh, drat – you guessed that one. I could drop you into a pit of snakes, maybe? We always used to do that back home. And then we’d have cocktails.’
‘You have a pit of snakes?’
‘Next door,’ Zayanna confirmed. ‘Or I can keep you in chains or something.’
‘Which you also have next door?’ Irene leaned forward, resting her hands on the drinks table, casually sliding her thumbs under its lip. ‘Don’t worry. I do understand that you don’t have a choice in the matter. Being what you are.’
Zayanna looked hurt. ‘Irene darling, that didn’t sound very kind.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be.’ Irene gave up trying to categorize her feelings, and settled for the fact that she could feel both anger and pity for Zayanna without them being mutually exclusive. ‘It really wasn’t.’
‘But we’re friends.’ Zayanna gave her the most human smile she’d given yet that evening. ‘Don’t you remember? We went swimming together in Venice, and you told me about your old school?’
‘And you got drunk and complained about how you always had to milk the serpents, and you never got to seduce any of the heroes,’ Irene agreed. This conversation had reached the point where awkward choices were going to have to be made, and she couldn’t wait for the men any longer. ‘I’m sorry that you lost your patron.’
‘Bah,’ Zayanna said dismissively. ‘I’ve had more fun in the last few months than I did for decades before that! This is what I was meant to be, darling.’
Irene nodded understandingly. And then she thrust the table upwards, bottles and all, dumping them all over Zayanna.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The table went over in a crash of bottles and glasses. Zayanna cried out in anger, shoving it off her, but she was well doused in a spray of vodka, gin and other expensive spirits. The floor was littered with broken glass. Irene sprang to her feet and took advantage of the other woman’s confusion to grab her by the shoulders and drag her off the divan, dropping her on the floor. ‘No pressing any buttons,’ she said. ‘No releasing any snakes or scorpions, or whatever.’
‘Guards!’ Zayanna shrieked. There was an undertone of panic to her voice. ‘Guards! Get in here now!’
The far door swung open. Kai was standing there, with Vale and Singh. ‘I’m afraid they’re not available,’ he said. ‘Will we do?’
Irene was just starting to enjoy the look on Zayanna’s face when a single click sounded. She half-glanced sideways, not taking her attention off Zayanna for a second. A cage door had swung open, and a long green serpent was tentatively wriggling out of its enclosure. More clicks sounded, like a house of cards ever so slowly collapsing, as other cage doors opened.
‘It was a dead man’s switch,’ Zayanna spat. She touched her throat nervously. ‘It was supposed to activate if I took my foot off it. Do you think I’m stupid? Now let me go!’
‘No,’ Irene said firmly. ‘Not an option. You’re going to tell me the truth.’
Zayanna came to her feet in a sudden motion, but instead of charging towards Irene, she bolted away. Irene had been expecting some sort of reaction, but the other woman’s sheer speed took her by surprise. So she ended up rugby-tackling Zayanna, rather than anything more elegant. The two of them went down together, rolling across the alcohol-splattered floor. Little scratching noises of skittering insect feet sounded uncomfortably close.
Irene managed to hold Zayanna down, getting a knee in the small of her back and twisting an arm behind her. ‘You’re not getting away,’ she grunted. ‘Stop wasting time—’
Zayanna started to choke, and she scrabbled at her neck with her free hand as she gasped for breath. A string of words in the Language was appearing around her throat, dark characters rising to the surface of the skin and stamped there like a tattoo. Irene could make out odd words through the coils of Zayanna’s hair as she struggled. Betray. Captive. Die.
That would be bad for me, Zayanna’s voice echoed in Irene’s memory. Permanently bad.
Irene abandoned her grip on the Fae and rolled her over onto her back, tilting her head back to get a better view of the Language. It was tightening like a noose, and the words were growing from thin sketched outlines to full shaded images, stamped as black as bruises on Zayanna’s throat. Zayanna clawed at them, but her fingers found no purchase, and her chest heaved as she struggled for breath.
‘What’s going on?’ Kai demanded from behind Irene’s shoulder.
‘A trap from Alberich to stop her talking. Keep the snakes off us,’ Irene said. She sorted through her mind for words in the Language to block this. She could read the full sentence now, clasped in a deadly circle round Zayanna’s neck. Before I should betray you, or be forced to speak, or be made captive, I shall die.
Irene opened her mouth, but a sudden thought stopped her, before she could try using the Language to break Alberich’s death sentence. Alberich had sent Zayanna
– and other Fae – out to kill Librarians. He’d expect Librarians to be trying to question them. He’d expect people to use the Language to save Zayanna.
She ignored the thuds and crashes from behind her and fumbled in her pocket for a spare coin, pulling out a silver shilling. That would do. If she couldn’t break the Language with the Language, then she’d have to find another way to damage that sentence. Running more on instinct than with a plan in mind, she folded her coat cuff around her fingers and grasped the coin.
‘Silver shilling in my hand, rise in temperature to red-hot heat,’ she ordered.
Coils of smoke rose as the hot metal charred the fabric of her coat. Zayanna was barely struggling now, her eyes glazed and her breath coming in tiny whistling gasps. Irene put one knee on Zayanna’s left wrist to hold her arm down, grabbed the other woman’s hair with her free hand to drag her head back and bare her neck, and pressed the red-hot coin against the word die on her neck.
Zayanna screamed. Irene gritted her teeth and held the coin against Zayanna’s flesh, watching as the circle of burned flesh blotted out the word below it.
The noose of Language around Zayanna’s throat twisted like a living thing, baulked of its final verb and forced into incoherence. Then it snapped, and the words dissolved into swirls as they faded. Zayanna could suddenly breathe again, and she gulped down great swallows of air, tears running from the corners of her eyes as her body went limp.
‘Irene,’ Kai said urgently. She turned to see him stamp on a scorpion. He pointed at blue flames rising from where a pool of alcohol had reached one of the flaming heaters. The fire was starting to spread across the floor, and Irene flinched back away from it. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘I can put that out,’ Irene said, controlling herself. She dropped the coin. A red brand marred Zayanna’s neck where it had burned her. ‘Give me a moment . . .’
‘It might be easier to let the place burn down,’ Singh suggested. ‘I’m not generally in favour of arson, but given the number of deadly creatures loose in this place, one might call it public sanitation.’
The Burning Page Page 26