And chaos answered. It fizzed in the air like the tension climbing before a storm; it was a physical heat against the skin, an aftertaste in the mouth, a heaviness in the lungs, a weight across the shoulders, a sensation that was impossible to describe except that it was wrong. Librarians around Irene staggered, going down to their knees. But the Princess and the Cardinal and the other Fae stood there, their faces exultant, transcendent. The world was suddenly hospitable to them, where before it had been only neutral—or increasingly unfriendly. Now they were at home, and the universe bent itself around them in an attempt to make their lives more convenient.
Irene had never wasted her time asking local chaos to decrease before. She’d been told as a student how stupid and pointless such a thing was. One human being couldn’t change the power level of an entire world. One Librarian couldn’t alter reality that much. And she’d never even considered trying to tell it to increase. After all, why would any sane Librarian want to do such a thing? (Besides Alberich, of course, but he wasn’t sane. Everyone agreed on that point.)
But sometimes the stupid, pointless, impossible option was the only one available.
The dragons around her were collapsing, curling up on themselves; only a few were still conscious. Kai was on his feet, though only barely. Now he was the one clinging to her for support.
The air pulsed. An invisible wave of power rippled outwards from the group of Fae, moving through living beings and walls alike, and swelled out into the icy streets with the growing, unstoppable force of a tidal wave, spreading through Paris. It came in an ever-thickening swell, one that lured Irene with a sense of possibility even as it made her tremble and shake with a kind of spiritual sickness.
It was answered by a roar. The sound was even louder than the earlier thunder or the noise of collapsing buildings. And for a moment Kai was able to hold himself up straight again, his legs steady, and the snow blew in like a thousand diamond-edged fragments, driven by a will that desired to scour Fae, Librarians, and dragons alike from the surface of this earth.
The two forces strained against each other . . .
And the snow gave way. The roaring fell silent. Lesser things were audible once again. The snow drifting in through the windows was pretty—romantic, even—a drift of flakes, a charming sign of winter rather than a lethal weather condition. Snow still fell, and the storm still danced through the streets of Paris and along its boulevards, but now the whole perspective seemed to have changed. A little more of this influence, Irene thought sourly, and there would probably be art students out sketching naked women in it. The crowd had quietened to some degree, probably because most of them had evacuated the room for upper floors or cellars, and one could actually hear other people speaking now.
But the immediate danger was gone. Admittedly they were still in a collapsing hotel that had been struck by lightning and might be on fire, but things could be worse. She bent down to check Coppelia’s pulse, then Kostchei’s. Both of them were unconscious but breathing. Azevedo and Prutkov were down too, and Sarashina, and a couple of other Librarians Irene didn’t recognize: Bradamant, Medea, and Rongomai were all still upright, though none of them looked happy or healthy. Generally the older Librarians hadn’t been able to tolerate the strain, while the younger ones were affected but conscious.
“I feel as if I’ve gone too deep underwater,” Vale commented. “Are you all right, Strongrock?”
“Coping,” Kai said through gritted teeth, only barely on his feet. Each breath came with an effort, and he had to lean on her and Vale to hold himself up. Whether it was his royal blood, his strength, his youth, or painful experience in other high-chaos areas, he was still functioning, though the other dragons were out for the count. “Frankly, I’d rather be deep underwater. How much longer will we have to abide this abom—” He caught Irene’s eye. “Unnatural state,” he corrected himself.
“I don’t know,” Irene had to admit. “But as long as we keep this up, Ao Ji can’t use the storm to kill us.”
Kai swallowed, looking sick to his stomach, and as if he was strongly considering being killed by the storm as the lesser evil. But he nodded.
“Miss Winters.” The Cardinal’s voice carried across their murmuring. “Perhaps you could come here and explain precisely what is going on?”
“I’m looking forward to hearing all the details myself,” Silver said. He was positively glowing. His mouth was a temptation, his cheekbones were a mortal sin, his hair begged to be stroked, and in every way Irene wanted to throw herself into his arms and let him do as he wished with her body. Fae attraction, she reminded herself desperately. Every single Fae within range has been strengthened, not just the Cardinal and Princess. I have to remember all the many reasons why I don’t want to let him take advantage of me, which is difficult when I can’t think of them right now . . .
Something about that thought rankled at the back of her mind, with the nagging ache of an unextracted splinter. She let it marinate for the moment, focusing on what she was going to tell the Fae; she needed a version of the truth that would allow for future negotiations. “Vale, I think I’m going to need your help.”
“Of course,” Vale said. He paused, tilting his head. “But can you hear something?”
“Hear what?” Irene said, tilting her own head as she tried to listen.
However, Kai had heard something too. He visibly pulled himself together, forcing his sickness down and dragging himself back to focus. “To arms,” he shouted at Hsien and his group. “Attackers are approaching!”
A silence seized the room. The few remaining normal Parisians were gripped by it, falling away from the inner entrance to the hotel like grains of sand in a river current, shifting back against the walls. A new flavour touched the chaos of the room. I need a better word for this, Irene thought. But she recognized it. It smelled—tasted—of blood, pain, and fear. It was the Countess.
Damn. It didn’t cross my mind that when we empowered the other Fae, we’d empower her too. Damn, damn, damn.
Men leaked into the room, cats mingling around their feet, drifting in silently, their eyes—human and feline—avid and hungry. They must have come up from the cellars, and the sewers beyond. None of them spoke. They clustered at the far end, around the inner entrance, like an honour guard.
Irene didn’t want to be the first to break the stand-off, especially as she couldn’t think of any use of the Language that would neutralize the enemy. Instead she leaned down and grabbed Coppelia’s shoulders, pulling her towards the inner ring of Fae, past the mingled line of Erda’s guards and Hsien’s followers. Out of the immediate line of attack. From the corner of her eye she saw those Librarians who were still mobile doing the same with the others who were unconscious or incapable. She racked her brain for what to do. If I try to lower the chaos level again, assuming that even works, Ao Ji can raise another storm. But if I don’t, the Countess can turn her followers loose on us . . .
A click. The lights went out.
“This is my Paris now.” The Countess’s voice came from the darkness, echoing in the room and seeming to rebound from every wall—as though she was surrounding them on every side. The wind was a mere whisper in the background, drowned out by the power of her presence. “And now I settle things once and for all. Little Princess, your time has run out . . .”
Irene found herself shuddering—not from the cold, but from a fear she couldn’t shake loose, a horror that was rooting itself in her bones. She couldn’t see. She was trapped in the darkness together with that voice, with a woman who was going to take a very long time to make everyone present die, just because she’d enjoy Irene’s pain. And all her friends were trapped there with her. They were all going to die, in fear and pain and blood, and Irene’s parents and the Library would go down with them, and it had all been for nothing in the first place . . . and Irene knew that all of this was the counsel of despair, that she was the vict
im of a Fae controlling her emotions and will, and yet she could not, could not break free . . .
“I think not!” It was the Princess who spoke. The leash of terror that had held the room in thrall snapped. Moonlight impossibly pierced the clouds and came driving in through the window to halo her in silver, casting long shadows across the floor. She shone. Her hair was a torrent of brilliance down her back. Her dress was as white as snowdrops. Her voice was a singing trumpet calling everyone present to arms, inspiring them to courage and honour. “Men of Paris! Defend me against this evil woman!”
And as the Fae on both sides stood back and watched, their human servants threw themselves into battle.
Irene had no room left in her head for some clever use of the Language; she was too busy trying to stop herself from diving into the erupting fight. The room was a morass of moonlight and darkness, full of people struggling in silence, a half-glimpsed nightmare. Cats bit at ankles or sprang at faces. Knives flashed momentarily in the light before disappearing into the shadows again. It wasn’t even just devotees on both sides doing the fighting—ordinary Parisians and hotel staff had been pulled into the fray, swayed by either the Countess or the Princess, their faces full of blind faith and passion. The two Fae were focused on each other, barely conscious of others in the room except as servants or tools. Rongomai was clutching his head and swaying; Bradamant had drawn a pistol and was firing into the press, choosing her shots carefully. Irene’s own conscious thoughts were at war with her urge to protect the Princess at any cost. The whole situation seemed somehow formalised and theatrical, a scene being played out by humans in front of the appreciative observing Fae.
Ao Ji’s earlier words whispered at the back of Irene’s head. Is this really better than letting the dragons take control? Being toys for the Fae instead?
She clenched her fist. No. That was the thinking of despair, the easy attraction of false binaries. She wasn’t fighting for either side. The Library was fighting for the right of humans to exist in the middle—to make their own mistakes, perhaps, but to have the choice to do so.
With returned clarity, she was able to think. This was wrong. The Countess didn’t stage frontal assaults. Her modus operandi was to create diversions while her attack came from an unexpected direction . . .
And at the moment, everyone was looking towards the interior of the hotel, and nobody was looking outside.
Supporting Kai and dragging Vale, Irene edged along the wall to the door, grateful for the concealing shadows. They broke out into the snow outside, and Kai turned his face to it, breathing in the bitter air with a sigh of relief.
Vale scanned along the rue de Rivoli, then raised his cane to point. “There—down, Winters!”
They hit the snow together as bullets cracked against the wall behind them. From her position on the icy pavement, Irene could see the shadows approaching through the falling snow. There were only half a dozen of them, but they had guns. Dorotya’s hunched silhouette was recognizable, her voice a yammer of encouragement and threats as she goaded them on.
An attack from behind with guns could have done serious damage to the defending Fae—and to the Librarians, the dragons, and everyone else. But guns were vulnerable to the Language, and the attackers were now within scope of Irene’s voice.
She spat out snow. “Vale, you’re not carrying a gun, are you?”
“Absolutely not,” Vale answered. “Do your worst, Winters.”
It was nice to be appreciated. She rolled to the side as another bullet whistled through the falling snow, and shouted, “Guns, jam!”
A high-chaos environment was very sensitive to the Language, even if it was uncomfortable for Librarians. Irene couldn’t clearly see what had happened, but she could hear the yells of confusion and fury. Above them, Dorotya’s voice carried. “Curse you, Librarian!”
Irene pulled herself up into a crouch, assessing the situation. There were half a dozen men. Possibly lethal with guns. But without them? She and Kai and Vale could take them. “Dorotya,” she called, “I’d get out of here while you can. You’ve lost the advantage of surprise. Save us the trouble of killing you and your men.”
“You expect me to leave my mistress in danger?” Dorotya whined. She was a scuttling blotch against the whirling snow, a dark tangle of shawls and skirts. “Tell you what, dearie, why don’t you run for it and we’ll give you a ten-minutes head start?”
“Stop bluffing.” Irene was tired and angry, and she’d been on the verge of panic for so long that it had nearly burned her out. Dorotya won’t understand mercy, so perhaps I need another angle . . . She rose to her full height and stepped forward, ignoring Kai’s hiss to stay back. “You don’t get it. Your mistress is already losing; she’s going to have to retreat. I am offering you a chance to escape, and in return you will owe me a favour. Otherwise you can stand there and I’ll turn all my allies loose on you. The ball’s in your court, madam. But don’t waste my time.”
The wind hissed down the street, driving the snow with it. Dorotya hesitated, and then, to Irene’s immense relief, she nodded. “It’s a deal, dearie. I owe you one, you little bitch, but you’d better be damned careful if you try to collect it. Take yourself home, boys—the show’s over for tonight.”
She faded backwards into a gap between two buildings. The men stumbled after her, leaving the wide street empty. Inspector Maillon would just have to deal with them later. With Dorotya and the Countess gone, the men should go back to their normal patterns of behaviour. And the sound of fighting from inside the hotel was quietening down, which—hopefully—meant that was under control. For a moment, Irene dared to believe it might be over.
Then she turned to Kai and Vale, saw where they were staring, and knew that it wasn’t. And she knew why Dorotya had chosen to run.
Ao Ji was in partly human form—his skin was ice-white and scaled, and his eyes pure blood-red, and two horns stood out on his forehead. The light around him owed nothing to the street lights or the fragile moonlight. The shadow that he cast was long and serpentine, very far from being human.
It wasn’t enough, the chaos didn’t last long enough, ran through Irene’s head, in a futile repetition building towards panic. How can we stop him now? But chaos and order were still unbalanced; she had more power to change things than usual, until Ao Ji’s mere presence forced more order back into the world. Then he’d harness the weather again and they’d all be dead.
Either she despaired and gave up here and now, or she found some words that might yet save them.
Kai straightened and put himself between her and Vale and Ao Ji. There was no convenient water here to aid him—the nearest quantities were in the sewers, locked under stone and pavement. He had nothing except his own strength—and it wouldn’t be enough. “Uncle, you cannot do this.”
“Nephew,” Ao Ji answered, “I regret your sacrifice. But if your father truly understood the danger of the Fae, then he would do no less than I.”
He tilted his head in a gesture that was curious rather than immediately lethal. “You have seen how chaos turns on itself,” he said, his voice echoing in a way no human voice could. “You have seen the Fae fighting each other and using humans as tools. Do you not see that you are mistaken in opposing me?”
“No,” Irene said. “I don’t.” Her throat was dry with fear. She still had the Language, but what could she say that would stop him? “Human beings need both order and chaos.”
“Nephew?” Ao Ji honestly seemed to want some sign of approval—or at least understanding.
“You have ignored my father’s wishes,” Kai said coldly. “You have chosen to disobey your elder brother’s command. You may claim he would approve of your actions, but I disagree.”
“And you?” He looked at Vale. A flicker in his crimson eyes suggested that he truly wanted Vale’s opinion. That even if he was a dragon monarch, and thus the only one who would ever be qu
alified to judge, he still sought some kind of approval from the ordinary humans he claimed to protect. “You are the only true human here. You are neither dragon nor Librarian but mortal. What would you choose?”
Vale tapped his cane against the icy paving stones. “As far as I am concerned,” he said, his voice as calm and dry as if he had been in his rooms and giving an opinion on a newspaper article, “you and the Countess are both murderers.”
Anger flashed across Ao Ji’s face at the comparison, clearer than it had ever been before, and Irene knew with a sick chill that though Kai might possibly survive this, and she had gained his mercy before, Vale had just doomed himself. Those words had just tipped the balance. “Insolence and folly!” the dragon said, his attention now fully on them rather than the hotel beyond. “You will be little loss.”
Inspiration came. Irene flung herself forward, clasping Kai from behind and pressing herself against him. She saw Ao Ji’s lips twist at the emotional, human gesture, and she knew that he wouldn’t be able to hear her at this distance as she whispered, “Buy me what time you can,” into Kai’s ear.
Kai stiffened in her clasp and his head jerked in a nod of understanding. She released him and stepped back.
“Very well,” Ao Ji said wearily. He raised his hand to point at them. Snow blossomed out towards them in a pattern as intricate as a mandala or an unfolding camellia, but pitiless and lethal. The petals were edged with ice, lethal claws reaching out to scythe them down. It was slow. It had no need to hurry. There was nowhere for them to run.
Kai crossed his arms in front of him, his feet shifting as he steadied himself with a huge effort. The road beneath them trembled and then split apart, and a gush of filthy water rose before him from the sewers, a fountain climbing towards the rooftops. It was too cold to smell it properly, and in the moonlight and snow it looked almost charming, a moving sculpture of ebony that curved to come down towards Ao Ji.
The Mortal Word Page 38
