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‘But I had to, you threatened to kill me . . .’ Zayanna protested.
‘Whatever. You did tell us, and he won’t care why. Now we know what’s going on; and if he finds out, he’ll find some way to stop us. And your life will probably be short and interesting, but mostly very, very short.’ Irene turned to the others. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think we have a choice. Zayanna’s going to have to take us here and now.’
‘Irene,’ Zayanna said quietly. ‘I think this is an absolutely thrilling idea, darling. And you’re absolutely right that Alberich will kill me horribly, if he realizes I’ve talked – or even that I might tell you anything at all, once he realizes I’m not already dead. But there is one tiny little problem with your plan.’
‘Which is?’ Irene said through gritted teeth.
‘It’s the us idea. I can get to Alberich’s sphere, and I can probably take one person with me, but that’s all.’ She spread her hands in apology. ‘Darling, I’m not Lord Guantes or Lord Silver, or anything like that powerful.’ If I was, I wouldn’t be in this situation went unsaid but understood.
‘Then you take me,’ Kai said, stepping forward.
Li Ming’s, ‘No, your highness!’ clashed with Irene’s, ‘Certainly not!’ and Zayanna’s own, ‘Impossible.’
Irene gestured at Kai to stop him protesting, and said to Zayanna, ‘Why impossible?’
‘He’s a dragon,’ Zayanna said. ‘He’s harder to move. I don’t even know if I could take him at all. And I don’t think he’d like the level of chaos there, anyhow.’ Her smile wasn’t pleasant.
‘So I go there myself—’ Kai started, then came to a stop. Irene remembered how he’d travelled between worlds. It was entirely different from the way they’d travelled with the Fae before, and he knew it. How would his method of travel mesh with Zayanna’s own technique – and how would he know where to go, without her leading the way?
Kai and Vale exchanged glances. Singh saw it and said, ‘Mr Vale, surely you can’t be considering—’
‘He won’t,’ Irene said. ‘Vale, I value your abilities, but if only one of us can get to Alberich’s sphere, then I’ll be able to do more there than you will. I’m the one who’s going.’ She offered Zayanna her hand. ‘And we’d better be going now, rather than standing around talking.’
Kai stood there fuming, obviously considering the idea of simply knocking Irene over the head or holding her down, rather than letting her waltz off on such a suicidal proposition. ‘This is quite possibly a trick, so that she can lure you out there and claim credit for your capture,’ he said, with surprising control.
‘Is it?’ Irene asked Zayanna.
‘I won’t deny that I thought about it,’ Zayanna said. ‘But would Alberich actually believe it, or would he simply kill us both on general principles? Darling – darlings—’ Her gesture took in the whole room. ‘I swear that I’ll just take Irene here to Alberich’s sphere and I’m not planning to sell her off to him, or anything.’
The word sell drew a twitch from Kai. No surprise, given how it had nearly once happened to him. ‘And are you telling the truth about only being able to take one person?’ he demanded.
Zayanna put one hand on her heart, and took Irene’s hand in the other. ‘I am. I swear it.’
While the two of them were glaring at each other, Irene had formulated a plan. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it would have to do. ‘Kai, there is something I specifically need you to do.’
‘What?’ Kai asked suspiciously.
‘This isn’t just me trying to get you out of the way so I can run off into danger,’ Irene said. The way he avoided her eyes told her that he’d been imagining exactly that. ‘I need to get this information to other Librarians. You can do that for me.’
‘But I can’t reach the Library,’ he pointed out. ‘You’ll need to get me in there.’
‘Kai, you’re being deliberately obtuse.’ Irene could hear the edge to her voice and made herself calm down. It wasn’t easy. Panic at what she was about to do was nibbling at the edges of her control. ‘You said you could find me in different alternate worlds, a few days back. Well, you know Coppelia, and Bradamant told us she was out on assignment. Go find her. Go and find all the Librarians possible, whether they’re students or full Librarians.’
‘I know you better than them, so you’re easier to find,’ Kai said flatly. ‘You are deliberately trying to get me out of the way. I won’t accept this.’
‘Do you have a better idea?’
‘I’m sure she can work out some way of taking me along.’ Kai’s glance at Zayanna was almost as unfriendly as the look she gave him in return. ‘Just because she says I’m harder to move doesn’t make it impossible. The important thing is to reach Alberich’s sphere.’ ‘Which is high-chaos by its nature,’ Irene burst out in exasperation. ‘Weren’t you listening? Kai, you’re a dragon, that is the last place you can go.’
‘Miss Winters is quite correct.’ Li Ming had come up to flank her supportively. ‘Your highness, surely you must see how it would look if Miss Winters took you into a high-chaos world. You’d barely be able to maintain your true form there, let alone help her. Worse still, she’d be doing it purely in order to support her own faction. Your uncle would disapprove. Your father would condemn it.’
Kai opened his mouth, then shut it again. Vale and Singh were talking in the corner, their voices lowered, and even though she couldn’t make out what they were saying, it was fairly obvious that Singh was doing his best to talk Vale out of a proposition, and it wasn’t hard to guess what.
Sorry, Vale. This is one trip that you can’t secretly infiltrate in disguise.
‘We have to go,’ Irene said. She was trying not to think about the main reason she was hurrying: the longer she delayed, the more reasons she’d find why this was a bad idea. All the words she’d thrown at Bradamant earlier came back to echo at her now. Reckless. Foolish. Dangerous. Running off solo with a Fae whom she knew was untrustworthy, all the way into the private turf of the Library’s worst enemy, who already had a grudge against her . . . Possibly two grudges, depending on how Alberich felt about that business at the Winter Palace. It could hardly be worse.
No, that needed rephrasing. It could be worse. This was a chance, an opportunity, but only if Irene took it now. She reached out to take Kai’s hand and squeeze it. ‘I trust you. Warn Coppelia, warn the others. When I get to Alberich’s sphere I’ll either force a passage to the Library so that we can bring in reinforcements, or I’ll find some other way to mark it and bring people back.’ She was aware that it might be impossible to reach the Library from high-chaos worlds, but that was just one more of the things she was trying not to think about. Another was whether she’d be able to function there herself. She’d soon find out.
