The Burning Page (The Invisible Library 3)

Irene looked up quickly and saw Bradamant standing in the doorway, elegant as always in a fitted grey jacket and shin-length skirt. A cameo brooch at her collar caught the light and glittered. It was the sort of outfit that a female millionaire entrepreneur would have worn in the nineteen-forties, in a world that had female millionaire entrepreneurs. Every inch of her screamed personal tailoring and extreme expense.

‘Not a problem,’ Irene answered. She had to remind herself that she’d decided on a new policy of mutual coexistence, rather than automatically taking offence at everything Bradamant said. ‘I hope you didn’t have to come out of your way to get down here?’ o;What do we pose as when we get there?’ Kai asked.

‘I’m thinking religious pilgrims, at least until we can get a feel for the place and find something better. Our background information’s years out of date.’ She began typing again, a quick appeal to Bradamant to visit Vale and pick up any information that he’d collected. Despite their enmity, Bradamant’s curiosity should spur her into action. ‘The Library portal to that world opens into the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow, in Poland. At least we’ll be on the same continent, when it comes to travelling to St Petersburg. It could be worse. We could be having to get there from Africa or Australia, or similar.’

‘And no Librarian-in-Residence?’ Kai asked.

‘There was one, but she died twenty years before that report was written.’ Irene hit Send again. ‘Natural causes – it’s at the back of the report; she was in a traffic accident. Hit by a crashing flying sleigh. The sleigh was flying, that is, and then it crashed.’ The thought gave her a little unwanted shudder. Living outside the Library was never safe. Flying sleighs could come out of nowhere and hit you, however careful you were.

Her email pinged. Bradamant had replied.

Can we talk?

Kai was leaning over Irene’s shoulder again. ‘What does she want?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Well, I did just ask her a favour,’ Irene pointed out, trying to repress her own doubts.

Currently on transit on way to mission, she typed in. Can it be quick?

It took barely ten seconds for Bradamant to reply – just enough time for Irene to run a status check on her parents and to be reassured that they were still out on assignment. And still hopefully alive.

I only want a few words. Will you be stopping by your quarters?

‘You’ve been the one saying we’re in a hurry,’ Kai said.

‘Yes,’ Irene agreed reluctantly. ‘But we do need to stop by my rooms, so I can get some emergency cash and whatever.’

Yes. Meet you there in fifteen minutes?

Irene was assuming Bradamant had access to a transfer cabinet as well. If not, she decided, then there wasn’t time for Irene herself to go out of her way for a conversation.

See you there, the answer came.

Damn. Now she didn’t have an excuse to avoid the conversation. ‘Let’s go,’ she said, turning the computer off. ‘It’d be embarrassing to be late.’

The transfer cabinet was cramped for two people. Irene braced herself against Kai rather than against the walls, as she pronounced the command word in the Language, then gave her quarters as the destination. The cabinet slid sideways and then down, like a barrel going over a waterfall, jolting the two of them, and Irene muttered an apology as she felt her foot bang into Kai’s ankle. He steadied her, the two of them together in the darkness, his arms around her, and Irene briefly let herself relax.

So Alberich’s trying to kill me. So Lady Guantes is trying to kill me. So maybe other people are trying to kill me, too. At least there’s one person upon whom I can rely. Whom I can trust.

A moment later they stopped, and the doors swung open. They were in the residential area that included Irene’s quarters, in a central passageway that opened onto a dozen small suites of rooms. Like the rest of the Library so far, it was barely illuminated now, with only a strip of lighting glowing dimly along the floor. Irene was grateful that the shadows hid her flushed cheeks.

‘Which one’s yours?’ Kai asked.

‘Third along on the left,’ Irene said. ‘I haven’t been here for a while: sorry about the mess.’ She tapped the code number into the combination lock on the door, trying to remember if she’d left anything particularly embarrassing lying around.

As it turned out, the most embarrassing thing was the dust.

‘It’s been months since I was here,’ Irene muttered. Kai was staring down the corridor, making a deliberate show of not looking into her rooms, but clearly very curious. ‘Oh, come in – I’ve got nothing to hide, and it’ll take me a few moments to find the gold.’ She led the way into her room, flicking on the light switch. Fortunately, it worked.

As usual with Irene’s rooms – and with most Librarians’ – there were stacks of books piled against the already-stuffed bookcases, forming a danger to navigation. The only actual decorations were framed photographs of her parents, and of some of her friends from school. The desk was still piled with translation notes from the last time she’d been here, when she’d had a couple of weeks without assignments. She’d been trying to improve her written Korean from appalling to merely bad. The side door to her bedroom was shut, sparing her any comments from Kai on her wardrobe. She began going through the desk drawers, trying to remember where she’d left her emergency stash of gold sovereigns. Even if it was foreign currency, basic gold was usually good anywhere.

‘Thanks for waiting,’ Bradamant said.

Irene looked up quickly and saw Bradamant standing in the doorway, elegant as always in a fitted grey jacket and shin-length skirt. A cameo brooch at her collar caught the light and glittered. It was the sort of outfit that a female millionaire entrepreneur would have worn in the nineteen-forties, in a world that had female millionaire entrepreneurs. Every inch of her screamed personal tailoring and extreme expense.

‘Not a problem,’ Irene answered. She had to remind herself that she’d decided on a new policy of mutual coexistence, rather than automatically taking offence at everything Bradamant said. ‘I hope you didn’t have to come out of your way to get down here?’ ‘Well, the whole point was to speak with you.’ Bradamant stepped into the room and the door swung shut behind her. ‘As you said some time back, we shouldn’t be wasting our time sniping at each other. Especially in an emergency.’

Kai had shuffled to one side and was taking a polite interest in the nearest bookcase, ostensibly not part of the conversation, even though Irene knew he’d be listening.