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Coppelia apparently considered, but she had a particular set to her lips. Irene recognized it as meaning that the older Librarian had already made up her mind. ‘You’d better bring him with you. The world’s disputed ground, not high-chaos or high-order – but it is more order than chaos, so it shouldn’t be too risky for him. And you might find his help useful.’

Irene nodded. ‘All right. It’ll certainly make him happier. But level with me on this one, Coppelia, please. I didn’t ask this outside, in the meeting, but what are we going to do if this stabilization approach doesn’t work?’

‘Think of another one,’ Coppelia said. She cracked her wooden knuckles. ‘Melusine is correlating reports from Librarians across all the alternates, as they come in. Once we get a lead on where Alberich’s hiding out, we can move in a strike force.’

‘It’s amazing how Alberich threatening to destroy the Library suddenly gets everyone interested in locating him and hunting him down,’ Irene said. She couldn’t stop a certain amount of sarcasm seeping into her voice. ‘Rather more serious than just killing individual Librarians.’

‘Individual bias is fine in private,’ Coppelia said gently. ‘But be careful what you say in public.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ll do my job.’ Irene realized she was echoing Kostchei, and was reminded of another question. ‘Did Kostchei deliberately play down my report?’

‘He gave it what he considered the appropriate level of significance.’ Coppelia shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘He may follow it up later, but at the moment we’re rating the destruction of Library portals and the deaths of Librarians as more significant than one threat to your life.’

Irene hadn’t wanted to ask, but she couldn’t force the thought away any longer. ‘Has this affected anyone I know? My parents—’

‘Not your parents.’ Coppelia met Irene’s gaze. ‘Nobody you know. Some Librarians just haven’t been in contact yet. We’re trying to reach them. At least a couple are known to have died. So far they were on worlds where the gates have been destroyed. We think at least one was caught in a gate going up in flames.’

Irene thought of how nearly the same thing had happened to her. ‘I understand you don’t want to start a panic,’ she said. ‘But I’m wondering if this news perhaps justifies a bit of panic.’

‘Panic is the last thing we can afford,’ Coppelia said. ‘Panic will have everyone rushing off in different directions to try to “save the Library”. Panic is the antithesis to good organization. Panic is messy. I am against panic on a point of principle.’ She checked her watch. ‘Do you have any other questions? The next briefing’s in a few minutes, and it’s my turn to chair it.’

Irene had been carefully putting her other problem to one side, balancing it against her professional responsibilities and her duty to the Library. But that didn’t make it go away. And Coppelia, an elder of the Library, might have an answer. ‘How would you recommend cleansing chaos contamination from a human’s system?’ she demanded.

‘Dear me.’ Coppelia frowned thoughtfully. ‘Vale, I take it? Yes, I did wonder how he’d coped with that version of Venice . . . Don’t look at me like that, Irene; chaos contamination wasn’t a certainty, and in any case he isn’t a Librarian. For a start, you won’t be able to bring him in here.’

Irene mentally cursed. ‘Why not?’ she asked.

‘The obvious reason – if he’s reached too high a level of intrinsic chaos, the gate won’t let him through, just as it wouldn’t have let you through while you were contaminated yourself. But you know that. Why bother to ask me?’

‘I was hoping I was wrong,’ Irene admitted. ‘What about moving him to a high-order world?’

‘By other methods of transportation, I assume.’ Coppelia made a wiggly gesture in the air that might have been meant to mimic dragon flight. ‘Yes, that should work in the long term, assuming he survives it. If it’s too deep in his system, he might simply calcify, the way that the high Fae do in such worlds. You’d need somewhere mid-order, and you’d be looking at a long-term convalescence. Or you could take him to another high-chaos world.’ ‘How would that help?’

‘It’d set his nature.’ Coppelia shrugged. ‘Again, if he survived. He’d acclimatize to being the same chaos level as other denizens of that world. Of course there would probably be some personality changes, and he’d be more vulnerable to Fae influence, but he’d live. You might do best just to take care of him as he is, and hope that he can ride it out. Eventually his body will resettle to a more normal level for his world.’

Her Library branding had shielded Irene, of course. But that wasn’t an option for Vale. He’d gone to that high-chaos Venice of his own will, in spite of all the warnings, to save Kai. Even though he’d known he would be risking his life. Even though he might have suspected he’d be risking his sanity. Irene found herself turning cold at the thought that she might lose him. Vale wasn’t simply a civilian casualty. He was someone she cared about, someone who had a place in her life.

There had to be a way to save him. She would not accept otherwise.

Irene rose to her feet with a nod. ‘Thank you for the information,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back with the book as soon as possible.’

‘Irene . . .’ Coppelia looked for words, then spread her hands again. ‘Be careful, girl.’

‘You too,’ Irene said. ‘After all, if nowhere’s safe . . .’ She gestured at the walls, at the wider Library around them. ‘Then this isn’t safe, either.’

Coppelia’s mouth quirked into a smile. She nodded, and Irene left, making her way through a new group of Librarians waiting to be briefed.

She fretted all the way through the transfer shift and back to the portal to Vale’s world, trying to think how best to handle matters. Assuming that this gate remained stable – and should she set up some sort of warning system, in case it caught fire? – she needed to ask those Fae she knew about Alberich. Zayanna. Silver. Anyone else she could find. Perhaps Vale could suggest a few names, if only from his local list of Dangerous Fae Malefactors. And she needed to watch out for any further messages from Alberich. She also needed to talk with Kai about Vale, and discuss where to take him, and if he’d agree to go. Oh, and she needed to find out who left those spiders. Though when compared with everything else, someone trying to murder her so inefficiently was a minor concern.

And she needed to go and steal a book.

She left the British Library in the middle of a jostling group of young students, mentally preparing an argument for Silver. He had to believe that it was in his interests to cooperate. But the sudden pain of a needle stabbing her hand broke her concentration. She looked up in shock to see one man sliding the hypodermic back in his coat, as another slipped an arm round her waist, gathering her to him as she began to sag. She opened her mouth, trying to speak, but she couldn’t focus and her sight was darkening. She choked on the smell of sweat and hair and dogs.

Oh yes. And I was going to be more careful about travelling through a portal known to my enemies, wasn’t I?

Whoops.

She sagged forward into sleep.

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