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And what did he want to do with that continued existence? The Library could use unique books to connect and bind itself to particular alternate worlds. But what could someone else – someone from outside the Library – do with those linking books? It wasn’t an area within which junior Librarians had been encouraged to speculate. The best answer she could come up with at the moment was something bad.
After all, what might it imply if Alberich could influence whole worlds simply by owning certain key texts . . . ?
Irene seriously considered another brandy. This was all growing overly complicated. Bradamant wanting to take over the mission, the Fae involvement, Alberich . . . and then there was Kai.
She looked across at his sleeping form. He didn’t snore. Kai breathed gently and regularly, like an advertisement for particularly comfortable pillows. And he’d managed to fall asleep in just the sort of position that might require her to smooth his brow or wake him with a kiss. As for that earlier shift of persona from street punk to semi-aristocrat – he’d handled that detective like a gentleman born. And his current interest in wardrobe, seduction and general adventure really didn’t fit the young man who’d introduced himself to her as Coppelia’s latest student. There was something off. Coppelia had to have noticed it herself.
Irene realized that she was tapping her finger against the papers. She deliberately stopped herself. Habits were dangerous; they could get you killed.
Had Bradamant’s interest in Kai been suspicious?
Irene had her own history with Bradamant, which she certainly wasn’t going to discuss in front of Kai, or behind Kai, or in any place where Kai might end up hearing about it. The woman was a poisonous snake. No, that was unfair to snakes. Irene had been Bradamant’s student once, and she knew exactly what it meant. Get used as a live decoy, somehow miss any of the credit but catch all the blame. Then spend years putting your research credentials back together again, after the blot on your record caused by rejecting an older Librarian’s offer to take you out on another mission.
With an effort, she stopped herself tapping on the papers again.
It was just three in the morning; she could hear distant church bells and clock chimes, drifting through the fog outside. Another hour of study, then she’d sleep and Kai could keep watch. She was paranoid enough to want someone keeping watch, however unlikely it was that Alberich or anyone else could find them here. Paranoia was one of the few habits that was worth keeping.
At eight o’clock the next morning, the doors of the combined British Museum and British Library opened. Irene and Kai joined the crowd of people heading in. Luckily nobody was in the mood for talking at that hour of the morning. People kept their gazes fixed on their boots, stared blankly ahead, or buried themselves ferociously in notebooks.
The Department of Classical Manuscripts was open, but Dominic Aubrey’s office was closed. The door was locked, bolted, and possibly even barred on the inside, for all that Irene could tell. She didn’t remember noticing a bar when she’d been inside, but she might have missed it.
‘Shall I pick the lock?’ Kai asked as they (not for the first time) straightened from peering at it and did their best to imitate hopeful students, just in time to smile at passing staff.
‘I’ll do it,’ Irene said. ‘He may have put some sort of wards up against physical or sorcerous lockpicking, but he can’t ward against the Language.’ She paused. ‘Stand back.’
‘Oh?’ Kai said, doing as she’d told him.
‘Well, wards are one thing, but traps and alarms are something else.’ She ignored Kai’s expression of sudden dismay (really, he should be grateful, he was getting an excellent education) and quickly went down on one knee. There she informed the door in the Language that all seals and bars on it were undone, all locks and bolts opened, and all wards gone.
It swung open quietly when she set her hand on the handle. She beckoned Kai in quickly after her, and closed the door behind him.
The room was just as it had been yesterday. Early morning sunlight came in dimly through the windows, muffled by the fog beyond, and gleamed on the gold leaf and glass cases. The Library door itself was secured by means of a chain and padlock, the chain running through both the door handle and a metal link set into the wall. It would be useless to prevent anyone coming from the other side, as the power of the Library would prevail, but it was efficient enough to stop people trying it from this side.
‘Irene,’ Kai said uneasily.
‘Yes?’
‘If the door out was bolted from this side, and if the door to the Library was padlocked from this side too, how did anyone leave the room?’
‘A good point,’ Irene said. Encourage useful habits of thought. ‘There must be a secret door here somewhere. Or he left through sorcery.’
‘So can you use the Language to find the secret door?’
Irene sat down on the chair behind the desk. It was clearly Dominic Aubrey’s personal chair. It yielded with the ease of long use with a single graceful creak, and smelled of snuff and coffee. ‘Not exactly. Field exam; tell me why.’
‘Oh, that’s not fair . . .’ Kai started, then looked at her expression and shut his mouth to think. ‘Okay,’ he said a moment later. ‘Sorry. I think I’ve got it. Everything within range of the Language reacts to it unless the command or sentence specifies otherwise, right. So if you just tell everything within range to unlock . . .’
Irene nodded. ‘Then I’ll end up opening the cases, the drawers, the cabinets along the wall there, the padlock on the Library door, and quite possibly my handbag and your wallet and the windows while we’re at it. It’s a reasonable suggestion, but it won’t do unless we have absolutely no other choice. Now tell me why I’m not going to use sorcery.’
Kai thought, then shrugged. ‘Because Dominic may have put wards on any secret door which will blow up when you use sorcery to detect them?’
‘Actually, no.’ Irene leaned her elbows on the desk. ‘It’s because I’m bad at sorcery.’
‘What? But anyone can do sorcery!’
She lifted her eyebrows.
‘Seriously,’ Kai said. ‘You must be joking. Sorcery’s one of the simplest skills around. Even my – my youngest brother could command the simpler spirits and invoke the elements. You’re not telling me that . . .’ He ran out of words mid-sentence, with the uneasy look of someone who’d spotted that he’d said the wrong thing.
