CHAPTER FOUR

Kai was still speculating about Silver’s possible treachery when Irene pushed him into a cab. He drew a verbal picture of the two of them being goaded into paranoia and turned into serial killers, before tragically cutting a loved one’s throat. Irene made a mental note to find out where Kai was getting Sweeney Todd plotlines from and to take it away from him.

It was certainly true that the Fae liked to construct complicated and melodramatic plots, and enjoyed drawing everyone nearby into roles in the storyline. Irene had been warned about it, and she’d avoided more than one of these herself in the past. And it was true that, due to the Fae presence, this world had a higher level of chaos than was comfortable, or indeed safe, given the potential for reality distortion. The Fae infested it (as Kai would put it) like worms in a well-seasoned grave.

But the attack last night had been real. And Silver’s warning had felt real, too. It was reassuring to know that Kai would be with Vale while Irene herself was in the Library. She did trust Kai; she just wasn’t sure that she trusted him not to do anything valiant but stupid.

Not being able to saunter between worlds like a dragon, she had to use a nominated Library doorway to enter its halls. And the current main Traverse from this alternate to the Library was situated in the British Museum, in what was the previous Librarian-in-Residence’s office. After a series of unfortunate events, it was now a box room, meaning that she had to make a special trip to access it. And special trips could be traced, so it was time for a slightly riskier mode of transport.

All that a Librarian really needed to reach the Library was a sufficiently large collection of books or similar media. For Irene’s purposes, she also needed a place where she could be undisturbed for half an hour or more. The Senate House Library in Malet Street was within walking distance of her lodgings and would do the job nicely - and she’d previously enrolled as a student, so all her identification would be in order.

She collected the Stoker book and headed over. The library was moderately busy, but Irene had no difficulty finding her way to a side corridor, using the Language to open the lock on a ‘restricted section’ with a quick whisper of ‘Open, lock’ and then locking it behind her again. The walls were heavy with ranks of leather-bound volumes, their titles barely discernible in the thin ether-light from a swaying bulb. Dust on the shelves and floor indicated that this area was not often used. She’d scouted it a couple of weeks ago.

She walked along to the first storage-room door, put down her attache case and took out a small bottle of ink and a fountain pen. This was a new skill for her, only passed on when she became a Librarian-in-Residence. (She was still a bit resentful about that. It would have been extremely useful. And how many other things were still hidden from her?)

Normally, when creating a temporary doorway to the Library, a Librarian spoke specific words in the Language, while using a strong access point (such as a large collection of books) to forge a connection. This lasted long enough for the agent to pass through. They must then let the connection close behind them, as the two places dropped out of synchronization. More recently, Irene had been shown that with the written form of the Language one could make the connection last a little longer. Long enough to go through to the Library, transact some business and then get back again to the same alternate-world location through the same door.

Carefully she went down on one knee, drawing the characters for THIS DOOR OPENS TO THE LIBRARY above the handle. It would work just as well to scrawl the words across the middle of the door, but she liked to keep it unobtrusive.

As she finished the last character, she felt the sudden shift in reality and her energy levels dropped to fuel the connection. She stayed on her knees, focusing on her breathing until it steadied, and put away the pen and ink. The Language characters were visibly drying on the wood and already starting to fade. They’d last perhaps half an hour. She didn’t have long.

‘Open,’ she said, giving the word its full inflection in the Language, with the special suffix indicating that the door must open to the Library itself.

And it did.

Irene stepped into a warmer, high-ceilinged room, the walls draped with red-and-white quilts. Multiple incandescent lights blazed whitely in the ceiling, but the soft cotton of the quilts muted the effect, making the room more tolerable.

Curiously she pulled one of the quilts away from the wall. Behind it there were shelves of books, their spines in a mixture of English, Swedish and German, with titles such as Little Sod House on the Prairie, Vigilante Stories of New Gothenburg and Runestones of North America. There was no explanation for why the quilts were covering them. Then again, there was often no reason for the Library’s architecture or furnishings.

Outside the room, the brass plaque on its door read: B-133 - NORTH AMERICAN LITERATURE-20TH CENTURY - SECTION FIVE. Not a room she recognized. And she found herself in a corridor both paved and walled in blue-and-white marble, with shuttered windows that would have been too high to see out of anyway. To her right was a flight of stairs, leading downwards. To her left was a simple bend in the corridor.

This was the problem - well, one of the problems - with coming through on a random Traverse. There was no way to be sure where you would emerge. What she needed, as fast as possible, was a room with a computer where she could look up Lady (and possibly Lord) Guantes. She also required a local library map, so that she could locate a wall slot into which she could deposit the Stoker book and fulfil the request - the Library’s version of internal post. She hurried down the corridor, noting the decor in case she came this way again. The blue markings lay within the white marble like midnight-blue ink stains, and she had to restrain the urge to rub one of them to see if it would smudge.