The Burning Page (The Invisible Library 3)

She glanced across to Li Ming, but he was still in place, still very much unconcerned, and he shrugged in response. ‘Is this any of my business?’

Well, scratch the idea of leaving Zayanna with Li Ming while we’re out of London, Irene decided. She’d probably accidentally fall down a well, or step in front of an oncoming train, the moment I was out of sight.

She deliberately ignored certain words that Zayanna had said: because you want her as a concubine . . . There was more to her friendship with Kai than that. Just because Zayanna might be jealous, that didn’t make her right. ‘I’m in a hurry,’ she said. ‘If you can’t help me, Zayanna, then fair enough. But I don’t have any time to waste.’

Zayanna looked up at Irene through lowered eyelashes. ‘Can’t I help?’

‘Right now, I don’t see how,’ Irene said curtly. ‘Kai?’

‘Yes?’ He was looking more normal and human again now, but his face was set in lines of resentment. And the way that he was eyeing Zayanna suggested that he was visualizing dropping her – from several thousand feet up.

‘If you must argue, do it in your own time, please. We haven’t the luxury for that now.’

The door opened. Vale stood there, frowning. ‘I thought I heard shouting.’

‘You did,’ Irene said. ‘I think everybody’s about to leave. No, wait: I have a favour to ask you, if you would. Two favours.’

‘Within reason,’ Vale said, but he looked intrigued. Which was much better than weary and self-destructive.

She offered him the small pouch holding the needle that had been used on her. ‘Please analyse this. It’s the poison that was used to drug me. If you can trace it, I might be able to find out who hired the werewolves who kidnapped me.’

‘Excellent,’ Vale said, sounding genuinely pleased this time. ‘And beyond that?’

‘Silver owes us after the Venice business, since we took down Lord Guantes. After all, Guantes was his arch-rival. I need to know if Silver’s heard anything lately about Alberich, or the attempt on our lives, and I don’t have time to ask. Gates to the Library are being destroyed. I need to go and do my job. So, Vale, please, if you would, meet up with Silver and ask him if he knows anything.’ ‘And how am I to tell you what I find out, assuming that Lord Silver is actually aware of anything beyond his immediate surroundings?’ Vale demanded.

Irene was about to snap back, but then she heard the same tone in his voice that had been there earlier, when he’d been complaining about her absence. Expressing worry about anyone else was outside his emotional lexicon. ‘My mission is urgent, so naturally I won’t be wasting any time,’ she said. ‘I hope to be back in a few days. I’ll leave a message with Bradamant in the Library if I expect to be longer than that, so she can drop by to see you, if necessary. She knows you, and where to find you.’

‘Adequate,’ Vale said begrudgingly.

‘Have you any instructions for me, Miss Winters?’ Li Ming enquired. ‘My lord Ao Shun takes an interest in your welfare, after your actions in guarding the Prince here.’ It wasn’t quite clear whether he was being serious, or simply ironic. Then Irene caught the side-glance he threw Kai. He was being serious.

‘No, thank you,’ she answered politely. ‘Though if you do hear of anything strange going on outside this world, I’d be grateful if you could pass it on to Vale here.’

‘I shall do that,’ Li Ming agreed.

Kai had moved into place next to Irene and was buttoning up his coat, the folder safely under one arm. ‘We should be on our way,’ he said quietly. Then he glanced at Zayanna and there was a glint of fire in his eyes again. ‘Before there are any more hindrances.’

‘Good luck, Miss Winters,’ Singh said, standing at Vale’s shoulder. ‘Though I must say that if you are going to be borrowing books again, I’m glad to hear you’ll be doing it outside my jurisdiction.’

‘I’d rather avoid complications like that,’ Irene agreed and escaped from Vale’s rooms onto the street, with Kai one step behind her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

When they stepped into the Library, it was dark. The receiving room was full of shadows, with a wan emergency light bulb as the only source of illumination, and the titles of the books on the walls were illegible in the dimness.

Irene tensed in shock, and her hand tightened on Kai’s arm as the door to Vale’s world thudded shut behind them. ‘This is . . . unusual,’ she said carefully.

‘Where are we?’ Kai’s eyes dilated and glinted in the remnants of light as he scanned the room. ‘Is this an outlying area?’

‘I don’t know,’ Irene admitted. They’d come in through the first library she could reach on Vale’s world, rather than by the regular Traverse. As a result, they might be anywhere at all in the Library. ‘That’s the problem with opening a random entrance. But we were in a hurry.’ The room unnerved her. She’d never before been in a part of the Library that felt so deserted and abandoned. ‘Come on, we need to find a room with a computer.’

The corridor outside was lit only by a thin strip of emergency lighting that ran along the ceiling. The floor creaked under their feet, as if another pair of steps was echoing theirs. There were windows to their left, but they faced out onto a barren courtyard under a lowering sky, so full of clouds that there was no light to spare.

Five doors later, they found a room with a computer in it. Irene threw herself down and turned it on, and felt a surge of relief as the screen lit up. Kai leaned over her shoulder, resting his weight on her chair, and watched as she logged in.

An immediate message spread across the screen, before Irene could even check her email.

All non-essential power usage has been cut back, in order to conserve energy for essential needs. All Librarians who require immediate transport for book retrieval have been allotted the use of transfer cabinets, command word ‘Emergency’. Abuse of this privilege will be noted.