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She’d never thought of Alberich as a science-fiction reader before. ‘Maybe you’re right about the limitations of imagination – and not just for humans. I spoke with an elder Fae a few months back. She was encouraging the younger ones to leave humanity behind, to become defined by stories instead. She’d never consider anything outside that sphere.’

‘That’s where both the Fae and the dragons fail.’ Alberich’s eyes had that hungry look again, though it wasn’t directed at Irene. It was directed at the whole world. ‘They are defined either by narrative or by reality. They don’t go beyond that. The only person who can ever set bounds on you should be yourself.’

It all sounded perfectly reasonable, but from Irene’s perspective, the fact that Alberich was a murderer and traitor suggested there were flaws in his philosophy. ‘But you’re allied with the Fae . . .’ she said.

‘I use the Fae. Both sides in this struggle are ultimately doomed to failure. The dragons, the Fae – both of them incapable of coming to any agreement, blinkered by their own limitations. They’re sterile, Ray. Moribund. What’s the point of preserving a system where nobody wins? The most you can achieve is that everyone continues this stalemate for eternity.’

‘And neither side actually cares about the humans in the middle . . .’ Irene could see where this argument was going. She’d had it demonstrated to her only a few months ago, when Kai was kidnapped. Both sides had been on the verge of a war, and neither had seemed particularly interested in the worlds in the middle. The closest they’d come had been a suggestion that the humans would ultimately be better off under their control.

Alberich nodded. ‘You see my point. Humanity is the future. And the Library should be leaders in that future, rather than just collecting books. We should be uniting worlds, not keeping secrets from them. Building alliances. Recruiting the best and the brightest. Using the Language to change things for the better. How are you actually helping anyone by supporting the current status quo?’

She could have said I’m stopping things from getting worse, but she was sure he’d have a counter for that as well. This was like being in an argument with an older Librarian, where she knew she was going to lose and the only question was how . . .

Common sense kicked in. Why, precisely, was she trying to argue a point of logic with the person who was trying to destroy the Library? Did she actually think she was going to convince Alberich to change his mind? This wasn’t about winning an argument. It was about getting information out of him. Pride was not the issue. Stopping him was.

Of course, simply getting away from him right now would be game, set and match to her. ‘I do see,’ she answered, her voice barely audible above the murmuring of the reception crowd and the music. Let him think that she was considering. Let him think anything, as long as she had a moment to act. Because she’d thought of something to slow him down, just a little.

She broke away from him mid-twirl, wrenching herself out of his hands – and was that a faint stickiness that she felt against her skin, where he’d touched her? No, she wasn’t going to even consider that. She’d picked her location: they were barely ten yards from the Empress.

Her Imperial, Undying Majesty looked down at Irene from her chair on the dais, raising an eyebrow at this public display of bad manners. The advisors around her, in their sumptuous robes and their heavily medal-bedecked military uniforms, were looking at her too. Even the two white tigers that lay at the chair’s feet raised their heads to regard Irene with great yellow eyes.

‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ Irene cried out, ‘that man is an impostor!’ She dodged a grab from Alberich to stumble a few paces towards the dais. The music had come to a jangling halt, and the room was full of shocked whispers. Hands fell to the hilts of dress swords.

This had better work.

Irene focused on the Language. ‘Your Imperial Majesty must perceive that I speak the truth!’

The exquisite marble floor came up and hit her in the face.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The floor was such a pretty colour. The bit directly in front of Irene’s face was golden marble, though it was spattered with the blood that seemed to be dripping from her nose. She tried to work out exactly how that had happened, but her brain wasn’t cooperating, and all the screaming and shouting made it hard to think.

Fire blazed somewhere above her, reflected in the polished floor before her in a burst of rainbows. A woman shouted something, her voice a whip of command, and a choir of voices answered. And the fire lashed out again.

Then another voice spoke from behind her, in a tone that roused her to full consciousness like a cold shower in the morning. It wasn’t the voice of the man she’d been speaking with, the voice of the man whose skin he’d stolen. It was the voice of the real Alberich, the Librarian who had willingly contaminated himself with chaos and become something other than human. It sounded like buzzing wasps, like water on molten metal. The air boomed, and a gust of freezing wind washed over her and outwards. Then it switched to a hissing suction in the opposite direction that dragged at her clothing. Chaotic power throbbed against her bare skin, aggressive and growing.

Irene was almost certain she wouldn’t like the answer, but she had to know what was going on behind her. She rolled onto her side, her head still swimming, and turned to look.

There was a hole in the air where Alberich had been standing. It hung in empty space like an obsidian mirror twice a man’s height, blackness seething around its edges and struggling to expand. In its depths, Irene thought she could see a man’s figure, half-defined and obscured by the shadows. It was diminishing every second, as though it was somehow retreating from her without actually moving. It raised an arm in a beckoning gesture, and for one stupid moment she thought, Of course, this is how I catch Alberich – all I have to do is get up and walk forward . . .

Darkness boiled out of the hole in the air, reaching out in tentacles that curled towards the bystanders. And towards Irene. One shadowy tentacle coiled round her ankle, cool through the silk of her stocking, but with sparks of chaos fizzing through it like bubbles in champagne. She shrieked, momentarily unable to phrase anything in the Language through sheer terror and disgust. She struggled to pull herself away, flailing her feet wildly.

The woman’s voice spoke again, but this time it was like the first line of a psalm: other voices from around the floor chanted a response in thunderous unison, and the floating void in the air shrank as lightning crackled around it in a halo.

Irene’s conscious, professional mind was trying to take notes, even under the current circumstances. So this is what happens during a chaos incursion in a high-order world. It has significant difficulty in sustaining itself, and even local humans are able to force it shut – assuming they’re powerful enough. Of course it would be easier to be analytical if that damned tentacle wasn’t still trying to drag her towards the hole. And the beautiful marble floor was so smooth that there was nothing to halt her inevitable slide towards it. Even her fingernails could gain no purchase.

‘Chaos power, release me!’ she gasped, trying to project her words loudly enough to be heard. But this time the Language failed her. She knew she was forming the words properly, she could hear them, but there was no power behind them. She was a reservoir that had run dry. Her head ached as if someone was drilling screws into her temples, and she lost what little grip she had on the floor, slipping inexorably towards the hole in space.

Kai stepped between her and the void and went down on one knee, seizing the tentacle in both hands. Irene could see the scale-patterns showing on his skin in the flaring light of the shuddering chandeliers, as his nails lengthened into claws. The great choir of massed voices spoke again, and their force beat against the air like hammers in a foundry. Kai’s features were frozen in concentration, and his hands tensed with the effort as he wrenched them ferociously apart.

The tentacle spasmed between his hands, then snapped in a burst of shadow.

Kai dropped it, ignoring it, and swept Irene up in his arms. He swung her away from the rapidly closing abyss, carrying her effortlessly back towards the surrounding line of robed sorcerers. Irene didn’t have the strength to do more than hang onto him as her mind raced. She was aware that they needed to get out of here before attention shifted to them, but what about the book in the Empress’ quarters? And was there something useful in her conversation with Alberich that she’d missed?

The hole closed with a snap; and the howling of air, which had become a background noise, abruptly ceased. Irene took a shuddering breath of relief. The air suddenly seemed to taste so much cleaner. The room was still full of the gabble of voices and the shrieks of panicked civilians – but it was a human noise, and less apocalyptic. Kai backed a few paces towards the door, Irene still in his arms, then came to a stop as several military types shouldered into his path.

‘I believe Her Imperial Majesty would like a word,’ the oldest of them said. His hair and beard might be snow-white with age, but he had the build and muscle of a serving officer. And there was nothing elderly about his attitude. ‘This way, young man, if you please.’

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