Kai frowned. ‘Sterrington worked for Lord Guantes once.’

‘She formally broke off their relationship when their plot to kidnap you and spark a war failed. Also, Sterrington serves the Cardinal now, and the Cardinal wants the peace treaty to succeed to benefit the Fae. It wouldn’t be in Sterrington’s interests to kill us.’

‘Unless someone made her a better offer,’ Kai said darkly.

‘I doubt she’d want to get on the wrong side of the Cardinal.’ And speaking of the Fae . . . ‘Catherine,’ she said, ‘it might be best for you to stay with your uncle until all this blows over.’

Catherine hesitated. ‘Irene, can I talk to you in private?’

‘Of course,’ Irene said. She glanced down; the beds were on wheels. ‘If I push your bed out of the room . . .’

‘Not necessary.’ Kai levered himself to his feet with a grunt, legs showing under his nightshirt. ‘I need to go next door in any case – I take it there is a next door?’

‘It’s just on your right,’ Irene said with gratitude.

When they were alone in the room, Irene turned back to Catherine. ‘What is it?’

Catherine grabbed her hands and clung to her like a limpet, her grip tight enough to hurt. ‘Don’t send me back to my uncle,’ she said. ‘Just get me into the Library and I’ll do whatever you want, say whatever you want.’

‘I don’t want a puppet!’ Irene exclaimed. ‘Surely living with him can’t be that bad?’

‘I just can’t stand him,’ Catherine said. ‘All he thinks about is one thing, and all I want is books. We don’t have any common ground at all. He knew I’d be happy in your Library – much happier than living with him as his ward. Part of this whole thing is propaganda anyway, right? Having a Fae work with you to counterbalance your relationship with him.’ Her eyes flicked to the door, indicating the absent Kai. ‘I don’t care about politics or the greater good or universal peace or whatever. I just want to be left in peace with books. The Library contains all the books I could ever need. Give me that and I’ll do whatever you want.’

Her voice had been slowly rising as she spoke, and her eyes begged Irene to believe her. And Irene wanted to. It was so close to what Irene herself once wanted from life. But the colder, more cynical part of her said: This is what she would tell you – if she wanted you to believe her. This is what she would say if she wanted to convince you she was just like you, to make you see yourself in her. You can trust Kai, and you can trust Vale, but can you really trust this woman? Are you really willing to let her into the Library?

Irene took a deep breath. ‘Catherine, I hear what you’re saying. I understand how you feel. Any Librarian would.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘But we’ve already been through this. I’ve tried to get you through this world’s permanent entrance to the Library. I’ve tried to get you through temporary ones. I’ve tried using the Language out loud. I’ve tried writing it down. I’ve even tried writing it in blood. The only time I’ve managed to get someone into the Library who was chaos-contaminated was by cleansing his system of the chaos first. And he was human.’ That had been Vale, under desperate circumstances. ‘I don’t think I should try that on you.’

Catherine gave her a mutinous glare. ‘They don’t train you in original thinking much, do they?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Irene said.

‘Why don’t you take a gateway to pieces or something, so you can work out its basic principles and then get me in?’

Irene took a breath, let it out. ‘Because there’s only one gateway to the Library in any given world. Nobody’s entirely sure how they come into existence, and I’m not going to destroy one. I sympathize with the scientific approach, but there aren’t enough of them to risk it. Coppelia’s collating all the research she can find to help.’ Though a worm of doubt at the back of her mind wondered if Coppelia was trying hard enough.

After all, one of the Library’s key safeguards was that Fae couldn’t enter. If Irene proved they could, then who – or what – might follow?

No. That was paranoia. Coppelia herself had said that Irene had to succeed, for the sake of the Library’s reputation and any future negotiations with the Fae. The problem with being too good at one’s job was that one saw schemes everywhere.

She looked Catherine in the eye. ‘I’m trying,’ she said. ‘I gave my word to your uncle – and to you – that I’d do my best to get you in there. Trust me.’

‘How can I, when you don’t trust me?’

Irene weighed that statement. Was it a teenage bleat of annoyance, or an accurate judgement? Or a mixture of the two? ‘I understand you’re impatient. So’s Kai. So am I. For the moment, stay in bed and recover. I’ll be back in a few hours.’

‘This isn’t fair!’

That was an inner teenager having a tantrum. ‘How old are you, Catherine?’ Irene asked pointedly.

‘Mid-thirties,’ Catherine muttered.

‘Right,’ Irene said. She rose to her feet and picked up the bundle with the laptop. ‘Keep an eye on that suitcase – I’ll return it to the Library later. Back soon.’

‘I thought you said getting it to the Library was a priority?’

‘It is,’ Irene agreed, ‘but staying alive is an even higher priority.’

Kai was waiting outside the door at a tactful distance, so if he had been listening it wasn’t obvious. He drew Irene into an embrace, and for a moment she was able to forget their current worries and take comfort in his strength. ‘So what now?’ he asked.

‘This is for you.’ Irene passed him the laptop. ‘You won’t be able to do anything with it on this world, because of this world’s magic – the moment you turn it on, a demon will attempt to possess it and it’ll blow up.’ She’d had that problem herself, last time she’d tried using a computer tablet from an alternate world in this one. ‘Or something else equally unhelpful. And given who owned it, it’s bound to be booby-trapped, password-protected, whatever. But can you take it elsewhere, get it analysed, and find out which world it came from?’

Kai’s face lit up with enthusiasm. ‘When we’re done with it, can I trade it to one of my kin? I have cousins and friends who’d be delighted to go through a Fae’s private files. I’m sure Lord Guantes isn’t signed up to the truce, so we’re well within the limits of the treaty.’

‘Isn’t it a lovely feeling to be operating within the law?’ Irene said, barely able to suppress her own smirk. ‘We’d better not get too used to it.’

Kai glanced towards the closed sickroom door, and raised an eyebrow. It said, What are we going to do about her?

Irene took him by the elbow and walked out of earshot. ‘We’re going to have to take her back to Lord Silver for the moment. It’s too risky for her.’

‘She’s trained,’ Kai said. ‘She handled herself well on Guernsey.’

‘She’s also going to be a target if Lord Guantes is back, or if Lady Guantes is out for revenge. They can get to us through her, as she’s my assistant. She could be used to get to Silver too. He’ll probably want to take her and flee the city.’