The Burning Page

Zayanna took a swig of the jenever and licked her lips. ‘I can understand that you’re feeling a bit depressed about losing. But do cheer up! Maybe next time you’ll win.’

‘There won’t be a next time, if I’m dead,’ Irene felt the need to point out. ‘And I’m not dead yet, so saying I’ve lost seems somewhat premature.’

‘It’s like having the king in check in chess,’ Zayanna said. ‘When the next move is going to be checkmate, you can say you’ve won, even if the other person hasn’t agreed to it yet. The front door locked itself behind you. I’ve got men next door, and they’ll come running if I shout. There’s a button under my foot, darling. It’s wired to all the cage doors. If I press it, then everything gets opened – and I promise you some of my pets have very fast-acting poison. And I’ve taken the antidotes. So you see, I have won.’

It was an interesting theoretical situation. Irene would prefer to avoid the practical experiment. ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Technically, I suppose that does count as check, and I can’t immediately move my king out of the position. It’s a pity. I’d hoped I could get the answers to some questions before, well . . .’ She wiggled her fingers in a manner suggestive of poisonous snakes.

‘Hmm, we might be able to come to an arrangement,’ Zayanna said. There was a sly, bargaining note to her voice. ‘Technically my contract said “kill or otherwise take out of circulation”, so as long as I keep you out of the way, darling, I think that fulfils it.’

‘Your contract with Alberich.’ Irene nodded knowingly.

Zayanna smiled. ‘I couldn’t possibly tell you, darling. That’d be betrayal and . . . let’s just say that would be bad for me.’ She tried to make a joke of it, but there was a flutter of nervousness behind her voice.

‘How bad?’

‘Permanently bad.’ Zayanna sighed. ‘One would almost think he didn’t have faith that we’d stay loyal or avoid being captured. Speaking of which, how did you find me here? I was expecting you, but I still don’t know how you did it.’

Irene needed a plausible reason that didn’t draw Zayanna to any conclusions about possible allies showing up. ‘I used the Language,’ she lied, gambling that Zayanna wouldn’t necessarily know everything it could or couldn’t do. ‘I was able to track one of the giant Asian hornets from the British Library to here.’ And where had the men got to, anyhow? She could use a rescue, or at the very least a diversion.

‘Oh,’ Zayanna said. She looked around at the cages and terrariums. ‘Drat. I hadn’t thought of that. I’m so glad you didn’t try it with the spiders. It would have absolutely spoiled things if you’d caught up with me that early.’

Irene wanted very badly to grab Zayanna by the shoulders and scream at her that this wasn’t some sort of game – that the Library might be destroyed, that Irene could have been killed. That things didn’t just happen in a vacuum, but that cause led on to effect. She saw that her hand was shaking, and she put the glass of jenever down before she spilled it. ‘I can see that would have cut things short,’ she agreed. Why aren’t the men here yet?

Zayanna sighed. ‘Darling, I’m not getting much of a sense of engagement from you here. You’re being very analytical about it all. Don’t you want to swear vengeance or anything? I did betray you, after all. I knew that you’d be protective if you thought I was in trouble, just like you were with that dragon you saved . . . Where is he, by the way?’

‘I sent him home,’ Irene said. She’d been expecting that question. ‘It was too risky for him to stay in this world.’

‘Probably a good thing. I’m certainly not in this to start a war with his family.’ Zayanna poured herself more jenever. ‘And he’s so incredibly possessive. Such a bore.’

‘Some people might say that was the pot calling the kettle black,’ Irene remarked drily.

Zayanna pouted. ‘Irene, you’re being unfair. I don’t want to keep you out of danger or stop you doing your Librarian thing. Totally the contrary. That’s why I don’t want . . . anyone to kill you.’

‘But if Alberich destroys the Library—’ Irene tried.

Zayanna looked blank. ‘You can find another patron, can’t you? You won’t stop being what you are.’

‘And nor will you, it seems.’ Regret fought with anger, and for a moment Irene wished she could be stupid enough to drink that glass of jenever. It might help her feel a little better about the fact that Zayanna wasn’t, and didn’t want to be, anything other than a manipulative Fae who was far more interested in playing the game than in why it was being played. Irene thought of that list of destroyed gates and dead Librarians. They were real. Compared to that, the fact that she’d once liked Zayanna and thought of her as a friend was as important as . . . well, as a dead giant Asian hornet.

‘So what now?’ Zayanna leaned forward eagerly. ‘Do tell me, darling. Are you meditating a simply devastating countermove? Will you leap across the table and attack me? Or are you going to flee into the London night?’

‘Fleeing wouldn’t work very well,’ Irene said. ‘You’d probably have the werewolves hunt me down.’

‘Oh, drat – you guessed that one. I could drop you into a pit of snakes, maybe? We always used to do that back home. And then we’d have cocktails.’