The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library 1)

‘If I’d had a family, you told me before.’ She remembered the conversation in the Library, as forgetting was the last thing a fully-trained Librarian should do. Memories were as important as books, and almost as important as proper indexing. ‘Kai, you’ve been lying to me about some things, and hiding others. I know it, and you know it.’ She wished that she could run her hands through her hair in the way that he was doing now, but she was the older Librarian, and he was her apprentice, and she couldn’t afford to show weakness. She had to be in control. She liked him, and she didn’t actually like many people, and she didn’t want to accuse him. She didn’t want to . . . drive him away. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

He drew himself up and stood in front of her, suddenly appearing very tall and yet somehow fragile. ‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘You can,’ Irene corrected him. ‘But it seems you won’t.’

‘Irene.’ He swallowed. ‘I swear to you that it has nothing to do with the current situation. By my name and my honour and my descent, I swear it.’

Saying as far as you know was the obvious response, but it would have made light of his obvious struggle and sincerity. And he was sincere, Irene was certain of that. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that he was right, or that he wasn’t an idiot.

She sighed. ‘I accept your word, and won’t ask for more unless the current situation dictates otherwise. But I will have to tell Coppelia about this, Kai. I can’t keep it secret.’

‘I’d expect that,’ Kai said. He raised his eyes to look nobly at the opposite wall. ‘I would have known that you would report it, seeing as—’

‘Assuming she doesn’t already know,’ Irene said thoughtfully.

Kai twitched. ‘She can’t,’ he said, in a tone that was more desperate hope than genuine conviction.

‘If I can spot something being odd in two days, then she can probably notice it in five years.’ Irene stood up and patted Kai on the shoulder. ‘Relax. Now let’s find this secret door. I’ll check the cabinets on this wall, you check the shelves on that wall.’

She could hear Kai muttering behind her as she walked across to check the ranks of cabinets. They were full of carefully pinned-down pages, shards of pottery, pens, quills, typewriters, and other bits and pieces that obviously hadn’t been dusted for at least a couple of years. The locks on the cabinets were good, but the wood was dry and fragile. Any serious thief (such as herself, on more than one occasion) would simply have broken the frame or cut out the glass rather than trying to pick the lock.

Kai sneezed.

‘Found anything?’ she called across, not bothering to turn and look.

‘Only dust,’ he said, and sneezed again.

Irene went down on her hands and knees to check the bottom edge of the cabinets, looking for traces that they’d been moved. If this didn’t get her anywhere, then she’d forget about confidentiality and go through the drawers of Dominic’s desk. She didn’t seriously expect him to keep anything incriminating or important there, but it might at least give them his home address. Failing that, she and Kai could check with the British Library administration. Failing that—

Kai sneezed again.

‘If there’s that much dust,’ she called across, ‘then any secret doors should be fairly obvious.’

‘It’s not just dust,’ Kai said. He took a step. Paused. Took another step. ‘There’s something in this room which smells odd.’

Irene gave up on the cabinets, and pulled herself to her feet, brushing off her skirt. ‘What is it?’

Kai sniffed. ‘I’m not sure. Spicy. Salty. Somewhere round here . . .’ He wandered along the bookcases, sniffing again.

She followed him, fascinated by this new approach to finding secret doors.

‘Got it!’ Kai leaned in and pointed at the small cabinet at the end of the shelves. Half a dozen volumes of The Perfumed Garden Summarized for the Young were piled on top of it, but the actual door of the cabinet was accessible, if locked.

‘Let me see.’ Irene went down on her knees again to check it. ‘Hm. Looks like a normal cabinet. Anything odd about the lock?’

‘Not that I can see,’ Kai replied, joining her at ground level. ‘Do you want to open it or shall I?’

‘Oh, allow me.’ Irene leaned in, and ordered the lock open in the Language.

The cabinet door didn’t open.

‘That’s interesting,’ she said.

‘How can it not open?’ Kai asked.

‘The easiest explanation is that it’s sealed by some other method, on top of the lock,’ Irene explained. ‘Something that’s not obvious, so I wouldn’t know it’s there to tell it to open. Or then again . . . you were saying you could smell something. On which side of the cabinet is the smell strongest?’

Kai gave her a look suggesting that he wasn’t here to sniff on her behalf, but complied after a moment. ‘This side,’ he said, tapping the right-hand panel of the cabinet.