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‘All right,’ she said, bringing her hands firmly together. She could feel a solid strength growing in the back of her mind, which had been lacking earlier: the power to use the Language, and the force of will to command it. She’d exhausted herself against the Empress, but now her strength had returned, like rainwater collecting after a drought. ‘Kai, once we’re out of this cell, I’ll need you to find the shortest path towards the waterfront.’
‘Certainly,’ Kai said. ‘Is that how we’re leaving?’
‘Eventually. I’m assuming that you can command the waters, or the water-spirits, in the way you’ve done before. This world being a high-order world won’t stop you?’
‘It’ll make it easier, if anything. I won’t need to summon the local spirits.’ He sounded quite definite about that, and Irene wondered if they’d report on him to the local dragons. ‘But what about the book? It’ll be difficult getting up to the Empress’ bedroom, as security is bound to be on high alert . . .’
‘We’re leaving it behind.’
Kai stared at her, shocked. ‘But it was your mission. We have to get it—’
‘It’s even more important to find the link to Alberich,’ Irene said. She hated abandoning a mission, and hated abandoning a book even more, but the real threat was Alberich. If they went to grab the book and lost the chance of finding Alberich himself, then they’d have treated the symptom, but died of the underlying disease. ‘Our priority is getting out of here and finding Alberich’s accomplice – whether it’s Zayanna or anyone else – and using them to stop Alberich.’
‘Using them how, precisely? Alberich doesn’t seem the type to stop attacking the Library just to keep someone else safe. Shouldn’t we actually do our assigned job first?’
‘I could be wrong,’ Irene said. Her anger was still burning, making her want to spit out every word, to shout at someone who deserved it, to hammer against the cell door. She controlled it. Kai’s objections were reasonable and deserved an answer, even if the answer was going to be a flat no. ‘In which case I will have weakened the Library by not obtaining a vitally important book. And in which case I will take full responsibility, and I will feel every damn bit of guilt that I deserve to feel. But I don’t think I am wrong. I think Zayanna is part of Alberich’s plan. I strongly believe that at this precise moment getting our hands on her, or whoever’s helping him, is the most important thing we can do.’ ‘But what do we do when—’ Kai started.
‘We’ll work out the details when we’ve caught the accomplice,’ Irene said firmly. ‘Let’s do this in manageable stages. Are you ready?’
‘The sooner, the better,’ Kai said. He was still as tense as a stretched wire, his shoulders hunched and his expression guarded. Irene silently scolded herself as she became aware of at least part of the problem. He’d been imprisoned only a few months back, depending on others to rescue him. It was hardly surprising if being chained in a cell again left him on edge.
‘Right.’ She stood up, and he followed. ‘Shackles, unlock and fall off.’
The shackles were human magic, not Fae or dragon work, and they yielded to the Language like any other piece of mortal metalwork – falling to the ground in a clash of metal.
Irene stepped to one side of the door, leaving the path clear for Kai. ‘Door, unlock. Wards on door and entrance, fall. Door, open.’
Her head throbbed with the newly returned headache, which had apparently only left for a brief holiday. It had now come back with its friends to stay. But at least there was a convenient stone wall to lean on. She did that for a moment, while Kai exploded through the just-opened door and ‘reasoned’ with the guards on the other side. They didn’t even have time to level their crossbows.
When she followed him out into the guardroom, everyone was unconscious. This included a robed man, who was presumably the mage unfortunate enough to have been posted on guard duty. ‘A bit wholesale,’ she said mildly.
Kai shrugged. ‘None of them are dead. Besides, we don’t want them raising the alarm earlier than necessary.’
‘True,’ Irene admitted. She tugged at the mage’s heavy over-robes. ‘Give me a hand with these, please.’
Kai frowned for a moment, then looked at her bedraggled, bloodstained ballgown and nodded. When Irene had donned them she still looked badly dressed, but at least she might be a little less conspicuous.
‘The Neva river is that way,’ Kai said, pointing helpfully down the corridor.
Irene led the way, stalking along in a business-like manner and hoping that anyone they ran into would look at the robes and not at her face. Her personal worries drew her face into a scowl, and she saw no reason to attempt a smile. There was the threat to the Library. There was Alberich, who was an ongoing terror just as much as a current danger. There were all her friends and family who were in danger. And there was Zayanna who, barring a miracle and a very implausible explanation, had lied to her.
She’d liked Zayanna.
From the distance came the sound of running feet and a clanging bell. They were several corridors away from the cells by now, in a direction that Irene would have described as hopelessly lost, but which Kai claimed led straight towards the river. These passages, deep beneath the Winter Palace, were far from the glorious corridors of the upper levels – or even the prosaic but business-like archives beneath the cathedral. They were floored with flagstones, and walled with granite, clean but old. These passageways were cold with the deep bone-chill of freezing water seeping through earth and stone. Even the air felt damp.
‘The hunt’s up,’ Kai said concisely and obviously.
‘We knew it would be,’ Irene agreed. ‘Is it much further?’
‘A bit. I’m assuming that you want to get as close as possible?’
‘Right. The less wall and foundation I have to remove, the easier it’ll be.’
‘How are we leaving this world, after that?’
‘Through the closest library to the Library itself.’ She caught Kai’s frown. ‘I know it might be faster in some ways for you to carry us out as a dragon, but I need to leave word at the Library as soon as possible. If something does go wrong when we try to catch Zayanna, I don’t want to be the idiot who didn’t tell anyone where we were going or what we were up to—’
She came to a dead stop as a roar echoed through the passages. Panicked back-brain instinct urged her to cower and hide, or to look for a nice high tree to climb. ‘What the hell is that?’ she hissed.
