‘You’re considering using the Language to strip my skin from me and expose me in public.’ His hand tightened on hers. ‘You already did that to me once before, Ray. I don’t make the same mistake twice. I’ve taken precautions.’
He might be telling the truth. Or he might be bluffing. This situation was impossible. But if he was bluffing and he was vulnerable in that way, then surely he wouldn’t have brought it up in the first place. Irene cursed silently. That would have worked so well. Alberich distracted, everyone turning on him, she and Kai escaping in the confusion. ‘I want a guarantee of safety for my parents,’ she said.
‘Why should I care about your parents?’ Alberich sounded like one of her mentors from the Library now. ‘Ray, you’re good at thinking outside the lines, but your problem is that you think too small. Your parents haven’t inconvenienced me. I don’t hold a grudge against them. I’m not the sort of sadist who’d hunt down your family to spite you. When you’re in my service, you can keep them as safe as you like.’
He doesn’t know. The thought detonated at the back of her head in a sunburst of illumination. He doesn’t know my parents are Librarians, or he wouldn’t be so quick to agree. He thinks they’re just ordinary humans. And everyone in the Library who knows me, knows that my parents are Librarians. Which almost certainly means that whoever told him to find me here isn’t a Librarian.
Her sudden surge of relief must have shown in her face, for Alberich nodded paternally. ‘There, you see? You need to learn to trust me, Ray. I’m not your enemy here.’
The circle of waltzers turned on its invisible hub, spinning Alberich and Irene towards the end of the room where the Empress sat among her advisors, watching the reception with a gracious smile.
‘You’re very good at making me forget what you are,’ Irene said. That was true. She could dance with him like this, trading insults and questions, and it was almost . . . entertaining. Challenging. Exciting. Perhaps it was the feeling of security at being in such a public place, with so many other people present. But it was a false security, as threadbare as her fake identity here, and she was still entirely vulnerable. ‘Redefining one’s self is something we all have to do.’ Alberich’s tone was oddly serious, as if this was more important than the security of the Library itself, or her own life. ‘You have to ask: Am I just a Librarian? Is this all I am, all that I ever will be? Or can I actually transform myself into something more?’
‘This sounds like an argument for transhumanism,’ Irene said. ‘Evolution to the next stage.’
‘Is that what they’re calling it now? It’s hardly a new idea. The only problem is that it’s difficult to imagine something entirely new. We use the words and definitions of the past to shape our ideas. Something that is genuinely the next evolutionary step is unlikely to resemble anything we can imagine. Even the best books on the subject are limited.’
She’d never thought of Alberich as a science-fiction reader before. ‘Maybe you’re right about the limitations of imagination – and not just for humans. I spoke with an elder Fae a few months back. She was encouraging the younger ones to leave humanity behind, to become defined by stories instead. She’d never consider anything outside that sphere.’
‘That’s where both the Fae and the dragons fail.’ Alberich’s eyes had that hungry look again, though it wasn’t directed at Irene. It was directed at the whole world. ‘They are defined either by narrative or by reality. They don’t go beyond that. The only person who can ever set bounds on you should be yourself.’
It all sounded perfectly reasonable, but from Irene’s perspective, the fact that Alberich was a murderer and traitor suggested there were flaws in his philosophy. ‘But you’re allied with the Fae . . .’ she said.
‘I use the Fae. Both sides in this struggle are ultimately doomed to failure. The dragons, the Fae – both of them incapable of coming to any agreement, blinkered by their own limitations. They’re sterile, Ray. Moribund. What’s the point of preserving a system where nobody wins? The most you can achieve is that everyone continues this stalemate for eternity.’
‘And neither side actually cares about the humans in the middle . . .’ Irene could see where this argument was going. She’d had it demonstrated to her only a few months ago, when Kai was kidnapped. Both sides had been on the verge of a war, and neither had seemed particularly interested in the worlds in the middle. The closest they’d come had been a suggestion that the humans would ultimately be better off under their control.
Alberich nodded. ‘You see my point. Humanity is the future. And the Library should be leaders in that future, rather than just collecting books. We should be uniting worlds, not keeping secrets from them. Building alliances. Recruiting the best and the brightest. Using the Language to change things for the better. How are you actually helping anyone by supporting the current status quo?’
She could have said I’m stopping things from getting worse, but she was sure he’d have a counter for that as well. This was like being in an argument with an older Librarian, where she knew she was going to lose and the only question was how . . .
Common sense kicked in. Why, precisely, was she trying to argue a point of logic with the person who was trying to destroy the Library? Did she actually think she was going to convince Alberich to change his mind? This wasn’t about winning an argument. It was about getting information out of him. Pride was not the issue. Stopping him was.
Of course, simply getting away from him right now would be game, set and match to her. ‘I do see,’ she answered, her voice barely audible above the murmuring of the reception crowd and the music. Let him think that she was considering. Let him think anything, as long as she had a moment to act. Because she’d thought of something to slow him down, just a little.
She broke away from him mid-twirl, wrenching herself out of his hands – and was that a faint stickiness that she felt against her skin, where he’d touched her? No, she wasn’t going to even consider that. She’d picked her location: they were barely ten yards from the Empress.
Her Imperial, Undying Majesty looked down at Irene from her chair on the dais, raising an eyebrow at this public display of bad manners. The advisors around her, in their sumptuous robes and their heavily medal-bedecked military uniforms, were looking at her too. Even the two white tigers that lay at the chair’s feet raised their heads to regard Irene with great yellow eyes.
‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ Irene cried out, ‘that man is an impostor!’ She dodged a grab from Alberich to stumble a few paces towards the dais. The music had come to a jangling halt, and the room was full of shocked whispers. Hands fell to the hilts of dress swords.
This had better work.
Irene focused on the Language. ‘Your Imperial Majesty must perceive that I speak the truth!’
The exquisite marble floor came up and hit her in the face.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The floor was such a pretty colour. The bit directly in front of Irene’s face was golden marble, though it was spattered with the blood that seemed to be dripping from her nose. She tried to work out exactly how that had happened, but her brain wasn’t cooperating, and all the screaming and shouting made it hard to think.
Fire blazed somewhere above her, reflected in the polished floor before her in a burst of rainbows. A woman shouted something, her voice a whip of command, and a choir of voices answered. And the fire lashed out again.
Then another voice spoke from behind her, in a tone that roused her to full consciousness like a cold shower in the morning. It wasn’t the voice of the man she’d been speaking with, the voice of the man whose skin he’d stolen. It was the voice of the real Alberich, the Librarian who had willingly contaminated himself with chaos and become something other than human. It sounded like buzzing wasps, like water on molten metal. o;Redefining one’s self is something we all have to do.’ Alberich’s tone was oddly serious, as if this was more important than the security of the Library itself, or her own life. ‘You have to ask: Am I just a Librarian? Is this all I am, all that I ever will be? Or can I actually transform myself into something more?’
‘This sounds like an argument for transhumanism,’ Irene said. ‘Evolution to the next stage.’
‘Is that what they’re calling it now? It’s hardly a new idea. The only problem is that it’s difficult to imagine something entirely new. We use the words and definitions of the past to shape our ideas. Something that is genuinely the next evolutionary step is unlikely to resemble anything we can imagine. Even the best books on the subject are limited.’