‘Do you realize that Lord Guantes has affected your mind?’

‘He only did it because he cares about me – and he respects me,’ Catherine said. ‘He’s just helping me see things more clearly.’

‘But do you remember he and his wife were trying to kill both of us, before?’

Catherine shrugged. ‘Everyone makes mistakes.’

‘But what about the peace treaty, and their attempts to destroy it?’ Irene tried. ‘And just a few days ago, Lord Guantes had you poisoned?’

Catherine sighed. ‘Like I said, everyone makes mistakes. If you’d done the sensible thing in the first place, they wouldn’t have tried to kill you.’

‘Just what would the “sensible thing” have been?’

‘Obeying Lord Guantes’ wishes, of course,’ Catherine said, in tones that suggested nothing could be simpler. ‘It was very rude of you to try to kill him.’

‘Catherine, you dropped a book on him. From a great height.’

‘I’ve apologized for that, and he’s forgiven me. I feel much better about my future now.’

‘And how do you feel about our futures – where Kai, Vale and I are prisoners, or worse?’

‘You never really cared about me anyhow,’ Catherine said, still composed, still smiling. ‘You were just using me.’

‘What precisely was I using you for?’

‘You wanted to seduce my uncle.’

Irene just looked at Catherine for a moment, speechless. Then she started laughing hysterically, the breath coming out of her in thick hiccupping gasps that she couldn’t stop. ‘I wanted to seduce him?’

‘Stop that!’ Catherine stormed forward, nearly to the edge of the circle. ‘How dare you laugh at me like that? I know perfectly well that he’s right.’

Irene forced herself to stop laughing, sensing a tiny opportunity at last. It seemed Catherine was far more vulnerable to emotions than swayed by facts. ‘I see Lord Guantes isn’t bothering to tell you the truth. Perhaps he doesn’t trust you as much as you think.’

Catherine jerked up her chin in a familiar stubborn gesture that gave Irene a surge of hope. ‘I’m his loyal and faithful servant. I don’t need him to tell me every little thing, just to make me feel more secure.’

‘So tell me, what next?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, after horrible things have happened to me and I’m out of the picture—’ Ah, sweet euphemisms, what would we do without you? ‘What then? Will you trot around behind Lord Guantes for the rest of your life? Or will you be locked away with his books, permanently, wherever they are? I thought you wanted to explore different librarian archetypes, to see which you wanted to be?’

‘I’ll do what he wants,’ Catherine said stubbornly. ‘He knows best.’

‘And what about your uncle?’ Irene left the question hanging, pregnant with possibility.

‘I’ll just leave him alone. Lord Guantes says that’s the best thing to do. Lord Guantes says that he isn’t going to be drawn into petty feuds. Lord Guantes says—’

‘Lord Guantes will probably have you kill your uncle yourself,’ Irene interrupted. ‘He and your uncle hate each other, you know this – and you’d be the perfect assassin. Why would your uncle ever suspect you? A few more words dropped into your shell-like little ear, and you’ll cut your uncle’s throat with a smile.’

‘That’s not true.’ Catherine was nearly shouting now. ‘He wouldn’t make me do anything like that.’

‘Catherine, sweetheart, darling, if you stay with Lord Guantes for much longer you won’t just do it, you’ll thank him for the opportunity.’ Irene saw that fragmentary uncertainty in Catherine’s eyes again and pressed further. ‘And what next? Lord Guantes isn’t the sort of person who likes to share. You’ll never leave his private book collection again. You’ll spend the rest of your life fossilizing there with nothing new to read, nothing new to do. Is that really how you see your future?’

‘He’s giving me what I’ve always wanted,’ Catherine answered, the words a little too automatic, too programmed. ‘Of course I’m grateful.’

‘Except that it isn’t what you want, is it?’ Irene pulled at her chains, leaning forward for emphasis as if that would help her words penetrate. ‘You told me how you wanted to be a librarian, Catherine. But there’s more to that than just sitting on a pile of books in some private archive, isn’t there?’

Catherine raised a gloved fist in protest. ‘Shut up!’

‘Come on, Catherine, listen to me.’ Irene wished she could use the Language, but she had nothing but her own voice now and her understanding of the girl facing her. ‘We both know what you told me, what you confessed to me, because you trusted me. You wanted to work in a library built to store and preserve books and knowledge. And you wanted to share that knowledge. You wanted to be right there at the heart of it, helping people find books they could love. Or information they really needed. And as part of all this, you’d go out to find new books, new stories, to make the library even better. You must have imagined what that would feel like. Finding a new book which nobody who visited had ever read before. Sharing it with new readers. You’d have felt the library itself accepting you, knowing you were a crucial part of how it worked.’

‘SHUT UP!’ Catherine screamed, anger and bitterness turning her face ugly.

‘You’re going to be something different now, though. Lord Guantes will never give you that. What he means by “librarian” isn’t what you mean. He doesn’t love books the way you and I do – he’ll never understand. You’ll grow old behind locked doors, never leaving his private collection, never reading anything new. But you’ll be happy. He won’t let you be anything else.’

‘You’d do it too . . .’ Tears were leaking from the corners of Catherine’s eyes, trickling down her face. She brushed them away with one gloved hand. ‘Don’t . . . don’t try and act as if you’re somehow better than me—’

‘I have absolutely no delusions about myself,’ Irene said flatly. ‘The Library steals books and keeps them for itself – but it does share them. Eventually. And by holding books for different worlds, it keeps those worlds stable. That way, their people can read stories and dream about them – without being forced into either living them or having to do without those stories. And I have free will. You won’t. Your dreams are going to rot away, inch by inch and moment by moment. Then some day you won’t even remember what you meant by “librarian” and everything that went with it. Maybe you’ll be happier that way. I don’t know. I’ll be dead, after all. But what about you, Catherine? Some people would say that was worse than death.’

Catherine pushed both gloved hands against her face, rubbing at her eyes, her whole body trembling. ‘I – I want – I don’t want that – please, Irene, help me.’

‘Catherine.’ Irene lowered her voice, but the acoustics of the cathedral meant that it still carried down the long aisle and into the vaults. She could feel success or failure poised on a knife edge. There would be failure, utter failure, if this thin connection between her and the Fae girl snapped. This is a church and I’m literally arguing to save her soul. If anyone’s listening, help me . . . ‘Catherine, I’m here. I’m here. The Library’s here. I’m not going to let you go. Just listen to me. You can say no.’