Silence.

She looked up.

Zayanna lay pinned beneath the edge of the bookcase, half her body trapped underneath it, in a spreading pool of blood.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Irene scrambled across to where Zayanna lay. Everything was quiet, apart from the clock’s remorseless counting of seconds. No further bookcases fell. The ground didn’t open under her feet. Nothing tried to kill her.

Of course it won’t, she thought from somewhere in the depths of her rage and grief. Not yet. Not till after Alberich has seen me watch her die.

‘Zayanna,’ she whispered, touching the other woman’s wrist. There was still a pulse there. But the pool of blood was spreading, black in the red light. ‘Zayanna, hold on, let me get that off you. I’ll pull you out and then . . .’ And then what? The Language could temporarily seal a wound or set a bone, but it couldn’t heal, and it couldn’t bring back the dead.

‘Darling?’ Zayanna’s eyes fluttered open, but her gaze was unfocused. She coughed a little, trying to breathe, and reached for Irene’s hand.

‘Yes, I’m here.’ Irene tried to keep her voice reassuring. ‘I’m sorry I dragged you into this. Just hold on. Let me—’

‘Don’t waste your energy,’ Zayanna murmured. ‘You’ll need it.’ Her hand tightened on Irene’s, a silent we both know I’m dying. ‘The funny thing is?’

‘Yes?’ Irene prompted, as Zayanna’s voice faded for a moment. Her eyes were dry. Fury was building inside her, hot as lava, and it left no space for anything that would blur her vision or distract her from her aim.

‘I didn’t have to push you.’ Zayanna blinked, like a child going to sleep. ‘I could have been lying to you all along. I could have let him kill you.’ Her voice was barely audible now, thin and thready. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

Her breathing stopped. The clock ticked on.

‘How curious.’ It was Alberich’s voice. Irene looked up to see the shadow splayed across the ruined bookshelves above her. It was thirty feet tall, twisted and hunched so that the head tilted down towards her. ‘I recruited Fae who had every reason to hate the Library, ones who’d suffered because of things Librarians had done. When Zayanna asked for you in particular, it seemed ideal. Why did she change her mind?’

Irene released Zayanna’s hand. ‘Human error?’ she suggested. Her skirts were stained with Zayanna’s blood, though in the scarlet light the blood was black rather than red.

‘Hers?’

‘Yours. She really wasn’t the type to hate anyone.’ Something twisted in Irene’s guts at the thought. ‘She was a much nicer person than I am.’

‘Was being the operative word.’ She could feel the shadow watching her. No, it wasn’t just the shadow, it was this whole place, and Alberich had somehow embedded himself in it. ‘I suppose I should give you a chance, Ray. We still have a few minutes before the clock reaches midnight and the Library . . . stops. Have you come to me in order to join me? Is that why you’re here?’

‘I . . .’ Irene let her voice trail off, gulping back an audible sob. This had to sound realistic. She’d only get one chance. ‘I thought we could stop you. I thought . . . Oh, Zayanna . . .’ She bit her tongue hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, and bent down to cradle the dead woman in her arms. Her hand, shielded by Zayanna’s body and Irene’s own skirts, sidled along the ground until it felt the wetness of the pool of blood. Working by touch and memory, she began to trace her fingers across the floor. It was a trick she’d played before, and she knew it. If Alberich actually paid attention to what she was doing, rather than to her tears, then he might realize, too. But it was the only trick she had left . . .

The clock’s tick seemed judgemental, counting down to a verdict. ‘I am disappointed, Ray,’ Alberich’s voice whispered from all around her. ‘I thought you had vision. I thought I could make something of you. But you don’t learn from your mistakes. You repeat your errors. You are weighed in the balance and found wanting. Any last words?’

It was an obvious opening for Irene to try and say something in the Language. She could feel the floor tremble beneath her, no longer as solid as it seemed, just waiting to gulp her down before she could even finish speaking a word. The bookcases loomed above her, prepared to drop on her and smear her to a pulp. The air hummed with anticipation.

And all Irene could think was, I may take a while to learn from my mistakes, but I get there eventually. But Alberich hasn’t learned from his at all. She blindly traced a final long curve across the floor with bloodied fingers, finishing two words in the Language.

Not Alberich.

Power exploded outwards in a soundless concussion that knocked the air out of Irene and threw her right back into the bookcase where she’d lain only minutes earlier. She lay there with her head ringing, trying to muster conscious thought and stand up and move. That quality of presence, suggesting imminent movement, had been withdrawn from the floor and bookcases around her. She’d guessed correctly – she hoped. Alberich was possessing this entire library, and since it was all a metaphysical whole, if he was locked out of part of it through the Language, then he must be locked out of all of it. At least for a little while. It made sense, or she desperately wanted it to make sense, especially when energized by panic and stunned through a minor concussion.

Something wet was trickling down her face. She raised her right hand to touch it, then remembered she still had Zayanna’s blood on her fingers, and used her left hand instead. Not surprisingly, she had a bad nosebleed.