“I don’t think there could be any alien influences, after you invoked the Library inside this place,” Bradamant said gently.
“Oh.” She must be more in shock than she’d thought. “All right, then. Kai, please help me stand.”
Kai slipped an arm around her, helping her to her feet. Under other circumstances she might have been more careful about leaning on him, but at the moment it really didn’t seem that important. So she was leaning on him. She was injured. He was her colleague. It was only sensible.
His clothing was disarranged but still there. So turning into a dragon didn’t mean that you lost all your clothing. This seemed unduly significant, and she filed it away so she could ask questions later. “Are you sure about this?” he asked in an undertone.
“I think it’s best that we’re out of here before any questions need answering.” That piece of wisdom was drilled into all Librarians very early on.
“Ahem.” Vale brushed at the trickle of blood on his collar, rather pointlessly, considering his generally dishevelled state. “While I am willing to abet Singh in, well, covering this up, I would also be interested in finding out more about this. Before you go, Miss Winters, all of you . . . can you tell me about the last story in that book?”
Bradamant opened her mouth, and the first word was obviously going to be No, and so were all the rest of them.
Irene held up one hand to stop her. “Mr. Vale, are you sure that you want us reporting to our superiors that you read it? Whatever it is?”
“I find it hard to believe that they will assume I didn’t read it,” Vale said drily.
That was true enough. “I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t look over our shoulders as we check that it’s the right book,” Irene said slowly. She cast a quick glance at Kai, but he had enough sense to keep his mouth shut and not mention they’d already done so. “Bradamant, you said to check the eighty-seventh story, correct?” She indicated the book, now in Bradamant’s possession. “I would open it myself, but my hands—”
Bradamant pursed her lips, then nodded. Perhaps she sympathized. Or perhaps she intended to blame every last bit of unauthorized exposure on Irene. She wiped her hands clean of dust and blood on the battered skirts of her dress and flipped the book open. “The eighty-seventh story, yes. ‘The Story of the Stone from the Tower of Babel.’” She breathed a deep sigh. “It’s here. Eighty-seventh of . . . eighty-eight?”
The silence hung in the room as they all considered that point. If it was unusual that an eighty-seventh story should exist, Irene thought, then what was the eighty-eighth doing there? Could Bradamant have been given a mere indicator, as opposed to the true reason why the book was so important . . . ?
“My German’s not very good,” Kai said plaintively.
Bradamant gave a put-upon sigh. “Once upon a time,” she began to translate, “there lived a brother and a sister who both belonged to the same Library. Now, this was a strange library, for it held books from a thousand worlds, but lay outside all of them. And the brother and sister loved each other and worked together to find new books for their Library . . .”
“No wonder your people didn’t want this one getting loose,” Vale said with satisfaction.
Bradamant paused to raise her eyebrows at him before continuing. “One day, the brother said to his sister, ‘Since this Library contains all books, does it contain the story of its own founding?’”
“No,” Irene said.
“Surely it must,” Kai said. “We probably just don’t have access to it yet.”
“If you don’t mind,” Bradamant said.
“I beg your pardon,” Kai said.
Bradamant nodded coldly and went on. “‘I suppose so,’ the sister said. ‘But it would be unwise to seek it.’ ‘Why?’ the brother asked. ‘Because of the nature of the Library’s secret,’ the sister answered, ‘that we both wear branded upon our backs.’”
“It has the proper cadence for a Brothers Grimm story,” Vale said helpfully. Irene felt her back itch.
“Now, the brother had never troubled to look at the mark upon his back,” Bradamant went on. “But that night he sought a mirror and read the writing on his skin, and what he read there sent him mad. He left the Library then and he colluded with its enemies against it. But most of all he swore vengeance against his sister, for she had spoken the words that set him on this path. A hundred years later, his sister returned to the Library following a quest that she had been set, and she was with child.”
“A hundred years?” Vale said.
“It can happen,” Irene said. “If she’d been in an alternate where there was some way to slow ageing—high-technology, or high sorcery. But the pregnancy would be the problem—”
“Yes, exactly,” Bradamant said. “And this caused great trouble, for there could be no birth nor death within the Library. Yet she feared to set foot outside it lest her brother should find her. So in pain she begged them to cut open her belly and take the child out and they did so, and she was delivered of a child. They sewed up her belly with silver thread and hid her among the deepest vaults for fear that her brother should seek her again.”
Irene could feel her stomach clench inside her in cold fear, very slowly and deliberately. “So that’s why he wanted this book,” she whispered. “It wasn’t because he could use it to gain power over this world. It was because . . .” She wasn’t sure how to say it. Because someone knew this about his secrets? If this was Grimm, then it would have been written centuries ago. But time meant nothing in the depths of the Library, as long as someone stayed there. And Alberich was . . . well, nobody knew how old Alberich was. But how old would his sister be? And was she still there?
“A sister,” Kai muttered. His eyes narrowed in thought.
“And his sister’s child. How does it finish?”
“That is how it finishes.” Bradamant slapped the book shut, hesitated, then slid it back under Irene’s arm again. “There. Now we must be out of here at once. Mr. Vale, I hope we can rely on you . . .”
“I don’t think it would do any good to make the matter public,” Vale said wryly. “I am sure I can find someone to blame for all this—the Iron Brotherhood, perhaps, or Lord Silver. He will be most unhappy to find himself without book, conclusion, or enemy.” The thought made him smile. “But I would value the chance to speak with you all again most highly.”
Irene pulled herself together. “That depends on our superiors.” A nagging honesty pulled at her. “But . . . if we get the opportunity, I would like that too. But for the moment—”
“Quite,” Bradamant said. She walked across to the far door. “Kai, carry her if she can’t walk.”
“Some brandy would have helped,” Irene complained as Kai steered her across the slippery floor. She hoped that Vale wouldn’t get any stupid ideas about trying to pursue them through the entrance. “And I’m quite capable of walking without being dragged.”
“Allow me this small service,” Kai growled in her ear. “After throwing me out and denying me the chance to protect you, and getting yourself quite this badly hurt, I must insist on it.”
Bradamant laid her hand on the door handle, murmuring in the Language, and the air shivered. The door swung open to show rows of shelves beyond.
“They do tell us not to get into arguments that we can’t win,” Irene whispered. She was weary now, and her hands were alive with pain.
They stepped through, and the door to the Library closed behind them.
CHAPTER 23
The door swung shut behind them with a clang, iron-bound and solid. Someone had upgraded the warning posters in the Library room. They were all red ink and Gothic font now, and as her thoughts drifted, Irene wondered if they had been printed or hand-lettered.
“Sit her down here,” Bradamant instructed Kai, pulling command around her like a cloak. “I’ll go and fetch some hel
p.”
“Just a moment,” Irene interrupted. She suspected that once Bradamant was out of here, she wouldn’t be back for quite a while, and there was something very important that she wanted to say to her first.
“You can barely stand,” Bradamant said dismissively. “You need help.”
Kai looked round for a chair, found none, and carefully lowered her until she was sitting on the floor. “Irene, Bradamant’s right,” he said in the patient tones that sympathetic men use to hysterical women. “You’re hurt.”
“Shut up,” Irene said, and watched his mouth drop open at her rudeness. She was dizzy, and her hands felt as if she’d dipped them in molten barbed wire. But she had to get this said before she lost the will to say it. “Bradamant. You cut in on my mission, drugged me and tried to steal my book, and generally broke quite a number of unwritten rules. True or not?”
Bradamant looked down at her. As usual, even in tattered clothing, her posture was effortlessly elegant, and Irene felt even scruffier than usual sprawled on the floor as she was. For a moment Bradamant was silent. Then, finally, she said, “True enough.”
“And?”
Bradamant shrugged. “I can apologize, but I hope you don’t expect me to say that I’m sorry.”
“I expect nothing of the sort,” Irene said carefully. “What I want . . .”
“Yes?”
“What I want is for us to stop despising each other quite so much. It’s a waste of time and effort.”
Bradamant raised her eyebrows. “My dear Irene, for me to despise you, I would have to bother to—”
“Oh, please,” Irene cut in. “You told me all about it, remember? You think I’m a spoilt brat and you’d be quite happy to have me fail publicly and obviously, even if you’d rather not see me dead for it. You wouldn’t bother putting an insult like that together if you didn’t want it to sting.” She saw the colour rising in Bradamant’s cheeks. Kai’s supporting arm behind her was a comfort that helped her hold herself together. “I think what you want—what we both want—is to genuinely serve the Library.”
“Split infinitive,” Bradamant spat.
“Put it in your report,” Irene said, tiredness dragging her down. “Just don’t waste time hating me anymore, all right? And I’ll try to stop doing the same. Because I don’t think it’s helping. I don’t think it’s helping either of us.”
“Get that help now,” Kai said sharply to Bradamant.
“Please?” Irene forced herself to look up and meet Bradamant’s eyes. “Think about it?”
“I thought you wanted us to stop thinking about each other so much,” Bradamant said coldly. She turned on her heel and walked away, skirts swishing.
Irene’s vision was narrowing, as Bradamant faded from view. “Think about it,” she mumbled, the words thick and heavy in her mouth.
Kai’s fingers bit into her shoulder hard enough to make her refocus. “If you pass out on me now, I’m going to kill you,” he said conversationally.
“A bit counter-productive,” Irene said.
“It’d cheer me up like nothing else.” He leaned in closer, his face inches away from hers. “You sent me away, you sent me away, and you nearly got yourself killed. Do you have any idea how stupid that was?”
Perhaps his control was slipping, because his skin was like blue-veined alabaster, and his hair seemed dark blue as well, so dark that it was nearly black. There was a deep fury in his eyes that was a long way from human anger. It was about possessiveness, pride, and a sort of ownership as well.
“It worked,” Irene said, managing to return his stare. His pupils weren’t human any longer either. They were slit like a snake’s, like that other dragon she’d met. But the person behind them was more real to her than Silver and his apparent humanity. Or whatever had looked out at her from Alberich’s stolen skin. She wanted to find the words to tell him as much. “We drove him out. Thank you.”
“He endangered you!” he broke in. “I shouldn’t have left any human alive in there!”
She could have thanked him for obeying or trusting her, or maybe because she could trust him. But for some reason, perhaps to divert him, she said, “For helping me save Vale’s life. I like him.”
To her surprise, that made Kai turn aside and duck his head, a scarlet flush blossoming on those pale high-boned cheeks. The fingers digging into her shoulder relaxed their grip, and there was something more human about his face.
“He is a man to be valued,” he muttered. “I am glad you approve of him as well.”
It might be a major concession for a dragon to admit he liked any human at all. “Right,” she muttered. “Definitely. Could you get me some cotton?” She realized that she’d used the wrong word. “Coffee. I mean coffee. Bit dizzy.”
“Stay still.” How stupid of him; did he really think she was going to go running off somewhere? “Bradamant will get help.”
“It’s just a flesh wound,” she murmured, then darkness came down over her eyes and swallowed her up.
Light came back grudgingly, filtered through long window blinds. Irene was lying on a couch, her heavily bandaged hands neatly arranged in her lap. She was in one of the rooms that overlooked the unknown city outside the Library walls. Someone had taken off her shoes and arranged the folds of her dress so that they covered her stockinged feet. That small thing, as petty as it was, allowed her to relax. There was only one person who’d go to that trouble.
“Coppelia,” she said, raising her head to look for her supervisor. The tension inside her uncurled a little. Coppelia had always been fair. She was other things as well, such as sarcastic. And her level of expectations would challenge an Olympic high jumper. But Irene could rely on Coppelia.
“Clever girl.” Coppelia was sitting in a high-backed chair near the couch. A portable desk covered her lap, stacked with hand-copied sheets of paper thick with the Language. She was sitting so the light fell across her desk but left her face and shoulders in shadow. She shifted, and her joints creaked. “Do you think you’re strong enough to give me a report?”
Irene rubbed at her eyes with her forearm. “Could we have a little more light in here?” The fluorescent panels in the ceiling were unlit, and the only meagre illumination came through the blinds. It left the whole room feeling dim and unreal, like a black-and-white film, where bleakness was a deliberate part of the artistry.
“Not quite yet,” Coppelia said. There was something guarded about her voice, although her face was as bland and unreadable as always. Her bright white hair was braided back under a navy cap, showing in stark contrast to her dark skin. In the dim light, it formed a pattern of brightness and darkness to Irene’s weary eyes. The artificial carved-wood fingers of her left hand tapped on the edge of her desk, something Irene found comfortingly familiar.
“You’ve put stress on your body in a number of ways that you don’t even understand. We’ve been bleeding off some of the excess energies, but for the moment you need to be strictly under-exposed to any sort of stimulation.”
Irene raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think that telling you my story is going to be stimulating?”
Coppelia chuckled a wheezing little laugh. “To me, perhaps. To you, it will merely be desensitization.”
“How dull,” Irene said. Then she sensed the gap at her side, the empty space between arm and ribs where she had been clasping the book. She flailed around with her bandaged hands, trying to find it. “The book—the Grimm—”
“Only seven out of ten for immediate reactions, I’m afraid,” Coppelia said happily. “Yes, we have it safe and Wyndham’s letter as well. I suppose it would be too much to hope that you didn’t read it? Of course it would. What on earth would anyone do under those circumstances?”
“Well, ah, yes,” Irene said, hoping that sympathy would translate into lenience. “Of course I had to check that it was the right one.”
Coppelia’s voice stayed merry, but her eyes hardened. “And you knew to check that it was the right one how, precisely?”
This was where she decided how much she wanted to sell Bradamant down the river. Well, Bradamant was trying to steal the book. Before I could bring it back, she poisoned me and left me in what she admittedly thought was a safe place. But she despises me, and I don’t like her much, either . . .
“I met Bradamant there,” she said, grateful that they were talking in English rather than the Language. She wasn’t actually going to lie, but there was . . . well, there might be an element of flexibility. She knew it, and Coppelia probably knew it, but that was best left unsaid. “When she discovered my mission, she provided some additional information that helped us identify the book. She helped us fight Alberich too.”
“Demerit for using the verb helped twice in succession,” Coppelia said. “And then? I take it she also read it?”
“Only as much as I did,” Irene said, feeling on metaphorically thin ice.
“Which was?” Coppelia pressed.
“The eighty-eighth story.”
She genuinely liked Coppelia, and she thought it was reciprocated. Not just the sort of friendship that could flourish between any mentor and student, but a real, honest affection. It caused her to bring books back from assignment merely because Coppelia might enjoy them. It saw her oiling Coppelia’s clock-work joints, or just spending hours talking with her in the timeless Library, where there were neither days nor nights. There was companionship under those constantly burning lights, as they observed the changing windows on the strange world beyond. She thought of all that and felt a barrier rise between them as Coppelia’s eyes narrowed.
“And your conclusions?” Coppelia said, entirely neutrally.
“Alberich had a sister,” Irene said. This was not the time or place to pretend to stupidity. “The sister had a child. And Alberich either wants to hide the information, or he’s looking for them, or both. Or perhaps it was just because the book was linked to the fate of that world, and so it could bring Alberich power. The story about the siblings and the child could be pure coincidence. But I don’t think that. And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I did.”
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