The Lost Plot

by Genevieve Cogman

Irene abruptly found it very easy to disregard her softer emotions, as she was now boiling over with embarrassment and longing to push Kai over the nearest convenient precipice. Unfortunately he’d probably turn into a dragon and fly away. “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  Kai released her, letting her step back. “Irene,” he said carefully, choosing his words. “Just because you’re my superior in the Library doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. You’ve seen me at my weakest. I’m not going to say anything now—”

  You are saying it, right here and now, Irene thought sourly. She could guess where this was going. He was always a perfect gentleman in his suggestions that she expand their relationship to include the bedroom, but that didn’t stop him making them.

  “—but I am an adult and I can make my own decisions, and if you don’t believe that, then you shouldn’t be letting me risk my life while we work together. Please bear this in mind next time I suggest we share a bed.”

  Irene felt the flush mounting on her cheeks again. “Your opinion is noted,” she said as flatly as she could.

  Did Kai think it was easy for her to keep on saying no to him? She was his friend. It would be so very straightforward to let it be more and simply say yes. Didn’t he realize she was saying no for his own sake? She was in a position of authority. From the bits he’d let slip about dragon culture, she suspected that a dragon’s liege-lord or liege-lady had pretty much any rights they cared to exercise over their servants. She wasn’t going to take advantage of him like that.

  She turned away and pushed the Door Open button hard enough that her finger hurt.

  Irene stepped out into the foyer beyond. It was a large room, covered from floor to ceiling in smooth white tiles, with a heavy steel door at the far end. A couple of armchairs in daffodil-yellow upholstery sat next to the lift entrance. There was no way of knowing how far below ground-level they were. She looked around, then up towards a whirring noise near the ceiling. A camera focused on the two of them.

  “Hello,” she said, raising a hand in greeting. “I’m Irene, and this is Kai, my currently assigned student. I’m here to speak with Library Security.”

  Next to the steel door, one of the tiles at waist height slid to one side, revealing a flat metal pad. “Please place your right hand on the reader by the door,” an anonymous voice intoned from the direction of the camera.

  A little reluctantly, Irene walked across and put her palm against the metal pad. She’d had a number of bad experiences from touching things and then regretting it later, and the scars to go with them. Still, she should be safe in the Library . . .

  A searing wave of electricity rippled across the pad, stinging her palm like a lash of nettles, and she yelped and jerked her hand back.

  Kai looked down at his own hands and sighed. “My turn now?”

  “Identity confirmed,” the voice droned. The steel door in the wall slid back. Beyond it was a small airlock-sized room, with another steel door on the far side. “The Librarian is to step into the waiting area. The student will wait outside.”

  “But I—” Kai started, then stopped. “Security. Right. Okay.” His glance up at the low ceiling was distinctly unhappy.

  “I’m sorry,” Irene said. “If I’d known, I’d have left you upstairs.”

  She realized half a second too late where that statement led to, and she could see the same thought going through Kai’s head. Fortunately he didn’t make any witty comments about not wanting to miss that lift. He simply nodded and dropped into one of the armchairs. “Be quick?” he said plaintively.

  “I’ll try,” Irene reassured him.

  Still shaking her hand to dispel the pins and needles, she stepped inside the airlock. The door slid shut behind her. She looked around for cameras but couldn’t see any. In fact, there wasn’t anything visible except the flat metal of the walls. It wasn’t even clear where the dead white light was coming from.

  Of course there had to be some sort of ventilation. Common sense demanded it. Or else anyone trapped inside would simply suffocate . . .

  “Please show your Library brand,” the disembodied voice said. It was more human now, and Irene was fairly sure it was a woman speaking.

  “This is going to take a moment,” she warned, starting to pull her coat off. She would have preferred a method of identification that didn’t involve her stripping down to show her bare back.

  “Oh, I’m in no hurry,” the voice said. “Take your time.”

  Irene took a deep breath, reminded herself that Library Security presumably had reasons to be paranoid, and unbuttoned her dress at the back. She slipped it down to show the Library mark across her shoulders. “Should I turn any particular way so you can see it?” she asked politely.

  “That’ll do nicely.” There was a flash, and Irene flinched. For a moment the Library brand seemed to vibrate, and her bones ached in response, like the thrumming of tracks when the train was a long distance away. “Thank you. You can cover yourself again now. State your name and Library position. In the Language.”

  Irene pulled her dress back up, doing up the buttons. “I am Irene; I am a Librarian; I am a servant of the Library,” she said. “And I did say earlier who I was.”

  The door in front of Irene slid open at last.

  She picked up her coat and quickly stepped through. Then she stopped, looking around.

  The primary word that came to mind was cave. It was spacious but low-ceilinged, and the shelving only went up to four feet high on the surrounding walls. Several computers and monitors were netted together with a web of cabling on the central table, amidst a sea of scribbled notes and highlighted sheets of paper. The walls were lined with books, heavy volumes in thick leather binding; they were too far away for Irene to read the titles or authors. Doors at the far end of the room suggested further recesses. The light came from various points in the ceiling, where wide pale lampshades glowed like insectoid eyes.

  The woman sitting in a wheelchair next to the computers lifted her head to inspect Irene. “I like to confirm these things,” she said, her gaze assessing and uncomfortable. “Welcome to my retreat.” She had mouse-blonde hair trimmed close to her head, and was dressed for comfort in a plain checked shirt and jeans. Her wheelchair looked high-tech and modern, but the tartan rug thrown over her lap was battered and threadbare.

  “Melusine.” Irene recognized her from a previous encounter, during Alberich’s attack on the Library. Melusine had been with the senior Librarians delivering the briefing.

  “Correct. Kindly forgive the precautions.” It was a demand rather than a request. “If anyone was trying to betray the Library, we’d be a primary target.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” Irene said cautiously. Paranoid, but reasonable. “And I’m assuming Coppelia forwarded my email about our problem? It could be extremely serious.”

  “Indeed it could—if you have your facts straight.” Melusine tapped on the keyboard and examined the computer screen. It was out of Irene’s line of sight, so she couldn’t see whether Melusine was viewing a message from Coppelia, checking related evidence, or looking up information on Irene.

  After a moment Melusine said, “You have an interesting record.”

  Saying I’m delighted that you think so would be satisfying but rude. Irene shrugged. “I’m not sure I can claim that much credit. It mostly involved just responding to events as they happened.”

  “Child of two Librarians,” Melusine said, apparently reading from the screen. “Raziel and Liu Xiang.” She paused for a moment, just long enough for Irene to relax, then added, “Adopted.”

  Irene felt her mouth go dry. “What . . . Are you absolutely sure—about that last part?”

  “Why?”

  “Because they never said so.” A few months ago Irene had been told that two Librarians couldn’t have children. Which had left
her whole parentage in doubt. But the person who’d told her had been Alberich, the Library’s worst enemy. It had been easy, after the fact, to write it off as a lie meant to distract her. She’d avoided thinking about it. She hadn’t even asked her parents.

  And was that because, in the deepest part of her mind, she’d been afraid of what they would say?

  Melusine shrugged. “What they may or may not have told you isn’t my business. My job is Library security. Are you disputing what I’ve just said?”

  Irene wanted to dispute it. She wanted to stamp out of the room and slam the door behind her. But most of all she wanted to find her parents and shout, Why didn’t you tell me?

  She wanted to cry. Her eyes were hot with unshed tears.

  “Just go on,” she said, hearing the strain in her own voice.

  Melusine didn’t change her tone. It remained light, uninflected, dispassionate. “Educated at boarding-school, owing to your parents having growing problems with your behaviour.”

  “It was nothing like that!” Irene protested.

  Melusine gave her a pale-eyed stare. Her eyes were as cold and distant as the winter sky at dawn. “Who’s reading this record, you or me?”

  “Well, you are, but—”

  “Put your complaint in writing.” The older Librarian looked back at the screen. “The usual sort of apprenticeship. Mentored by Bradamant for a while, but that was dissolved at your request. Though you weren’t the only junior to do so.”

  “No, I don’t think I was,” Irene agreed blandly. She was mostly over her tendency to twitch at any mention of Bradamant—a competent Librarian, but also manipulative, ambitious, and prone to blaming any failures on her students. It seemed that Library Security had noticed.

  Melusine nodded. “Appointed as Librarian-in-Residence extremely early in your career, for good performance. Placed on probation after you abandoned your post without orders, in order to retrieve your apprentice, Kai. Yes, I do know what he is.” She looked up from the screen. “And yes, I do realize that the whole probation business was political—despite his successful retrieval, we had to be seen to be taking steps.”

  “I didn’t get into this job to play politics.” Irene tried not to let too much resentment slip into her voice. “Is there a point to this career review?”

  “I’m trying to get a better understanding of you.” Melusine didn’t smile. She inspected Irene as though she were a substandard essay. “You’ve associated with Fae and dragons. You survived two encounters with Alberich.” Her tone shifted from bland to corrosive at the name Alberich, and Irene nearly flinched. “This isn’t standard practice. At all. Most Librarians manage to get through their careers without anything half as dramatic. I was . . . curious.”

  “If the Library didn’t want me to associate with dragons, then they shouldn’t have assigned me to be Kai’s mentor,” Irene snapped. “And the Fae just happened to me. You know, like cockroaches. Have I answered all your questions?”

  “Are you in a hurry?”

  “Actually, yes.” Irene thought of Kai, outside on his own, trapped in a small room fathoms underground. “We have a possible crisis on hand. And my student’s waiting outside. As you know.”

  “Only authorized Librarians are allowed in here.”

  “It’s less than a year since Kai was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Fae. He doesn’t like being shut in small places, and I don’t see why I should keep him waiting any longer than necessary.”

  “I can send him back up in the lift,” Melusine offered.

  “I’m not sure he’d go,” Irene said reluctantly. “He’s a bit protective.”

  “Then I suppose we should probably take his comfort into consideration.” It wasn’t clear whether Melusine was joking or serious. “Explain everything, as though I hadn’t seen your email to Coppelia. I want the details.”

  Wishing there were a second chair in the room so that she could sit, Irene ran through the sequence of events again. She started with the conversation with Jin Zhi and continued to her own research in the Library, with Kai’s comments included.

  Melusine paused her from time to time to ask a question, but otherwise her reactions were hard to read. She folded her hands in her lap, leaving her computers alone, and didn’t even twiddle her fingers. Irene would have been encouraged by some sort of response, rather than this stillness.

  Finally Irene ran dry of information. “I don’t want to sound as if I’m panicking,” she finished, “but I think this could be very serious. Librarians in the field depend on the Library’s neutrality to survive casual encounters with Fae and dragons. If that’s gone, then we’re all in danger individually—and it can only be a matter of time till the Library itself is under threat.” She stood there, feet aching, waiting to be asked more questions.

  Melusine nodded. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I think we may have a problem here. A big one.”

  “You believe me, then?”

  “Oh, I always believed you, but it was possible that you’d been deceived. But this is sounding uncomfortably plausible. The book is on A-658, you say.” She tapped in a query on her computer and inspected the result. “No Librarian-in-Residence, and no authorized or requested activity there for fifteen years now, though the last Librarian who was sent there did leave a cache behind for emergencies. Current activity . . . hmm. Let’s have a look.” She turned her wheelchair and it glided across to one of the low shelves of books. Irene realized, a little belatedly, that everything in the room was set up to be reachable from Melusine’s chair.

  “Do you have anything on Qing Song or Jin Zhi?” Irene asked. “Anything that’s not in the general records, that is.”

  “Only their names, families, and court affiliation,” Melusine said. “Nothing more than what your apprentice told you. No—what’s the right term?—‘hot gossip.’ I can and will make enquiries, but that’ll take time.” She tapped the edge of the shelf. “A-658, please.”

  The books began to slide smoothly along the shelf as if it were a conveyer belt, vanishing into the wall at each end of the room. After about twenty seconds they came to a stop, and Melusine pulled out the one next to her hand. It was bound in red leather, with A-658 on the spine. Irene went to peer over Melusine’s shoulder.

  “This records all transit to and from that world,” Melusine explained. She didn’t command Irene to stand back or look away, to Irene’s relief. “If a Librarian has been visiting the place, then it’ll show on the records here.”

  Irene watched as Melusine flipped through the thin pages. The entries were somewhat like passport stamps, showing the names of the Librarians involved and the internal Library date when they used the Traverse. It was fascinating to have this highlight on Library history. While Irene had a reasonable grasp of the history of a number of alternate worlds—all right, a vague grasp—she knew very little about the Library itself. It had always been there, and presumably it always would, and nobody had more than speculation about how or why it was first created. And junior Librarians were not encouraged to ask questions.

  Alberich might have known more, but Alberich was dead.

  Probably. Hopefully.

  “Here.” Melusine ran her finger down the list of names. “Evariste. Now that is interesting.” But her tone suggested she’d just discovered a nest of bookworms in a favourite novel.

  “He entered that world a month ago,” Irene noted. The previous entry caught her eye and she frowned. “But . . .”

  “Yes, precisely,” Melusine said. “Evariste entered that world from the Library a month ago. That was two days after he entered the Library from that world, going in the reverse direction. But there’s nothing in the record here about how he got into that world in the first place.”

  “Which means that he reached that world through either Fae or dragon transport,” Irene said slowly, thinking it through. “So Jin Zhi might hav
e told the truth and he was working for Qing Song. If so, Qing Song could have brought him to that world, but then Evariste would have needed to enter the Library through that world’s Traverse—in order to work out what the world’s designation was. Then he could research the book before going back there—”

  “Yes, quite so,” Melusine agreed, cutting off Irene’s increasingly long string of speculation. She passed the book to Irene. “Put that back on the shelf. I’m about to look up Evariste’s record, and this time you don’t get to lean over my shoulder.”

  Irene re-shelved the book, feeling a frisson of excitement. She shouldn’t feel pleased at the growing mass of evidence—quite the opposite—but at the same time there was a certain satisfaction that she hadn’t been wasting her efforts.

  Melusine grunted softly to herself. “Oh, did he, now . . . All right, Irene, we have some more information. Evariste is on compassionate leave. The Librarian who recruited him died last month of a heart attack, and Evariste was allowed some time off to sort out the man’s affairs and so on. No record on where he was going to spend his leave, though one would assume it would be his recruiter’s assigned world, G-14. No reason to assume anything odd there.”

  Something about the time factor was nagging at Irene. “Who was his recruiter?”

  “Julian. Librarian-in-Residence to G-14.”

  And now the nagging was turning into a full-blown alarm bell. “Not the Julian who”—Irene pulled out her notes and checked them—“made a comment in the Library Encyclopaedia about the Winter Forest family of dragons, Qing Song’s family—saying that they were reliable and consistent and open to negotiation?”

  Melusine tapped some more keys and then stopped. “The very same,” she said softly. “The very, very same. And now we have Minister Zhao assassinated, the Queen of the Southern Lands scrambling to fill her position, and the Fae testing their boundaries. And the Library may be about to be dragged into the middle of the whole conflict zone. While Julian’s protégé has wandered off course, and is possibly playing very dangerous games with one of the Winter Forest’s most aggressive scions.”