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Irene nodded. ‘So, high chaos infestation.’ The thought clearly worried her far more than it did Kai. Possibly because she’d had experience with a chaos infestation before and hadn’t enjoyed it at all.
Chaos made worlds act unreasonably. Things outside the natural order infested those worlds as a direct result. Vampires, werewolves, faerie, mutations, superheroes, impossible devices . . . She could cope with some spirits and magic, where both operated by a set of rules and were natural phenomena within their worlds. The alternate she’d just come from had very organized magic, and while she hadn’t actually practised it, it had at least made sense. She hoped that she could cope with dragons too. Again, they were natural to the order of all the linked worlds, a part of their structure rather than actively working to break down order.
She had no idea where to start coping with chaos. No one knew exactly how or why chaos broke through into an alternate – or maybe that knowledge was above her paygrade. But it was never natural to that world and seemed drawn to order so it could break it down, warping what it touched. It created things that worked by irrational laws. It infected worlds and it broke down natural principles. It wasn’t good for any world it entered, and it wasn’t good for the humanity in that world.
Even if it did make for good literature.
The Library had a whole set of quarantines for chaos infestations. But the one on this particular alternate was one of the most extreme she’d ever seen, while still permitting entrance. She wasn’t happy about taking a student along on the job, however well he thought he could handle things.
‘Pity Madame Coppelia didn’t give us more information,’ Kai remarked. ‘And don’t look at me like that. We’re both thinking the same thing, right? I’m just saying it so that you don’t have to.’
Irene nearly laughed. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We agree on that one. And we both agree it’s going to be bad, and neither of us really knows each other either. So it’s probably going to be messy, nasty and dangerous. Then if we do manage to get the manuscript, I’m sure it’ll be top-secret and we’ll be lucky to get any sort of mention of it on our records at all because everything will be buried in the files.’
‘Remind me why I took this job,’ Kai muttered.
‘People pointed guns at you. Right?’ ‘Yeah. Something like that.’
‘And you like books.’ She glanced sidelong at him.
He flashed a quick, genuine smile at her. ‘Yeah. That would be it.’
They exited their latest corridor to find themselves overlooking a large hall. Their route continued along a wrought-iron bridge with ornate railings, which arced grandly from side to side above the open book-lined space, staircases winding up the walls to meet it at various points.
‘Hey,’ Kai said in pleased tones, ‘I’ve been in this one before. There were a load of Faust variants down there.’ He pointed over to the lower right corner of the room. ‘I was cross-correlating versions from different alternates for Master Legis. It was a training exercise, but it was one of the better ones, you know?’
Irene nodded. ‘Could’ve been worse. Schalken had us looking up illustrations of mosaics when we were doing training. Far too much time spent sitting with a magnifying glass and a scanner trying to work out if there was a difference or if there was, um,’ she tried to remember the turn of phrase and tone of voice, ‘“a comprehensible yet tolerable deviation from the norm, as expressed in the chosen world, given natural variations in the availability of minerals and colour . . .”’
A soft round of applause made her break off. Both she and Kai turned to look at the far end of the bridge. A woman in light robes was leaning against the railings, skin pale as ice and hair like a dark cap.
She smiled.
Irene didn’t.
CHAPTER THREE
‘You’ve captured him exactly,’ the woman said. ‘Not surprising, given how often you had to listen to him say it until you got it right.’
‘Bradamant,’ Irene said calmly. The back of her mind noted that her stomach was twisting, and that she felt sick, and that she was not going to show it. ‘How nice to see you. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?’
‘You can always tell when she gets annoyed,’ Bradamant said confidingly in Kai’s direction. ‘She gets so very correct.’
‘I don’t think that we’ve met,’ Kai said. Irene was conscious of him at her elbow, though her attention was fixed on Bradamant. ‘I assume you’re one of Irene’s colleagues.’
‘Precisely, dear.’ Bradamant stepped away from the railings. Her dark hair was cut smooth and short, like black silk against her skin. ‘I’m here for that assignment you were given, Irene. There’s been a change of plan.’
‘What? Within the last ten minutes?’
‘Plans change so quickly,’ Bradamant said without blinking. ‘Be a good girl and hand it over.’
‘You don’t seriously expect me to believe that.’
‘It’d make life easier for both of us, dear.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’ Bradamant smiled. ‘It’d mean that the mission was actually completed, for a start.’
‘And leaving aside any questions of your competence or my lack of it,’ Irene said, calmly, so calmly, ‘what could I possibly say to my supervisor?’ She was certainly not going to lose control, especially not in front of a student, just on this level of provocation. But she knew from bitter experience just how poisonous Bradamant could be, and there was always politics under the surface.
