The Masked City (The Invisible Library 2)

Three flights of stairs later, the walls were covered with Art Deco wallpaper, making the shift-transfer cabinet blatantly obvious stylistically. Its door was heavy oak and looked very out of place between a couple of plaster statuettes of robed women. And it was just large enough for one person and a pile of books. o;My thoughts are more on the content than the context.’ Irene reached out for the letter, and Vale passed it to her. ‘And on the end result. Even if we weren’t aware Kai had been kidnapped, then we certainly would realize something was dubious when we received this. I think it’s a deniable red flag.’

‘A red flag?’ Vale queried.

‘An attempt to alert us that something is wrong, without the person in question admitting to giving us a warning.’

‘Ah.’ Vale nodded. ‘Lord Silver, yes. With that rather obvious dispatch of the letter via a bearded man, to point us in that direction.’

Irene nodded as well. Her shoulders were cramped with tension. She mentally reviewed possible leads. They’d squeezed everything dry for the moment. Which meant that she could finally act. ‘We need to move,’ she said. ‘I need to enquire at the Library, and to see if I can contact Kai’s uncle, if they have a way to locate him. And you—’

‘Will get onto the Guantes, of course.’ Vale rose to his feet, offering her a hand to help her rise. ‘And Lord Silver, while I’m at it. If the fellow is up to something, then I’ll know about it. Where should we meet?’

‘They’ll probably be watching my lodgings,’ Irene said with regret. ‘And they must be watching here as well.’ She frowned as her thoughts came together. ‘If Kai was intercepted at your front door, then they are certainly watching here, and they may be aware that we are both here now and comparing notes.’

‘Oh, without a doubt,’ Vale agreed. ‘However, our going in different directions should help somewhat - will you be able to reach a nearby library, do you think?’

‘I certainly hope so,’ Irene said firmly. There was a thread of satisfaction that he didn’t assume he’d need to escort her to deal with any trouble, or offer to do so. Earned respect from him was something she truly valued. ‘I don’t know how long I may be. I know it’s urgent. But if it’s difficult to reach Kai’s uncle … Should I look for you at Scotland Yard?’

For a moment Vale frowned, then nodded. ‘Go to Singh. He remembers you.’ Irene remembered him, too. Inspector Singh, probably Vale’s closest ally among London’s police. ‘If I have any messages, I’ll leave them with him, and you can do the same.’

He was still holding her hand. In fact he seemed to have forgotten that he was doing so. ‘Do be careful, Winters,’ he said. ‘Our enemies seem well prepared. If it were possible for me to accompany you, I would—’

‘But what you can find out here is more important,’ Irene interrupted. She would dearly have liked to have him at her back, and damn the rules about bringing strangers into the Library. But what she had said was true. They needed to know what the Guantes had been up to here. ‘And there’s no time to waste. I’m relying on you.’

His smile was thin, but present. ‘Then we had better not keep Strongrock waiting.’

CHAPTER SIX

Irene was almost surprised, and somewhat disappointed, when nobody tried to kidnap her on the way to the British Library. If someone had tried to kidnap her, at least she’d have had more of an idea what was going on.

But there were no mysterious hansom cabs waiting to whisk her off to an unknown location, no masked thugs dragging her into back-alleys, nothing at all remotely useful. It left her in a bad temper as she stalked through the rooms to the main Library portal.

The Traverse to the Library opened from a minor storeroom, one that used to be an office, and luckily there were no visitors around to see her entering. It was the work of moments to lock the door behind her using the Language, and she hurried across to the Traverse door. It looked like a store cupboard, and to any other user it would be just a store cupboard. But it was permanently linked to a specific door in the Library, and Irene had the linguistic key.

‘Open to the Library,’ she said, and felt the connection form as her words rolled on the air. She pulled the door open and quickly stepped through.

The heavy iron-barred door on the Library side clanged shut behind her. On the other side there were still posters hanging on rails around the door, proclaiming: HIGH CHAOS INFESTATION, ENTRY BY PERMISSION ONLY and KEEP CALM AND STAY OUT. Irene frowned at the HIGH on the first poster. Last time she’d been through this entrance, a few months back, it had only been standard chaos infestation.

If this was tied to Kai’s disappearance … She hoped not.

Someone had been using the room to stockpile other books, and beside the packed shelves there were stacks of yellow-backed paperbacks all over the floor. Irene had to pull in her skirts to avoid toppling the piles as she made her way to the exit.

The closest computer room was a couple of doors along to her left. It was empty at the moment, so she threw herself down in the chair and logged on, dashing off a quick email to Coppelia: Kai vanished. Dubious circumstances. Request immediate meeting. Irene.

The answer came within five minutes. She’d only just looked up Dragons, negotiations with, but hadn’t progressed much further. The message read: Rapid shift transfer authorized. First turning on left, three floors up, transfer word is Coherent. Coppelia.

Irene logged off, hoisted her skirts to her knees and began to run. Rapid shifts called for high-energy expenditure and weren’t held open for long. The fact that Coppelia had seen fit to authorize one was disturbing in itself.

Three flights of stairs later, the walls were covered with Art Deco wallpaper, making the shift-transfer cabinet blatantly obvious stylistically. Its door was heavy oak and looked very out of place between a couple of plaster statuettes of robed women. And it was just large enough for one person and a pile of books. She stepped inside and closed the door. There were no lights. There was no sound. There was only the smell of dust. She reached out to either side to brace herself against the walls.

‘Coherent,’ she said in the Language.

The cabinet shook around her, like a dumb-waiter cupboard being yanked at high speed in several directions. She shut her eyes, concentrating on not throwing up.

With a thump, the cabinet arrived. Irene took a moment to catch her breath, before pushing open the door and stepping out into the well-lit room beyond.

It was Coppelia’s private study, familiar from many hours spent there as Coppelia’s personal student and assistant. The focus of the room was the large mahogany desk, which curved round in a wide U, allowing a full range of documents to be shuffled over its surface. The walls were full of bookshelves, naturally - but several Slavic ikons in heavy gold and wood hung from them here and there, breaking up the expanse. Irene noticed it was night outside, and the study lights blazed through the bow window, harshly lighting the snowscape beyond. The usual extra chairs had been removed from the room, meaning that Coppelia sat in the only chair, behind her desk.

Standing before her, Irene wondered if she was meant to feel like a schoolgirl reporting to a teacher, or possibly a penitent reporting to an inquisitor. Whichever way, she suspected that she was meant to feel nervous.