The Burning Page

Zayanna flinched back against her chair, as if Irene was the poisonous snake and she was the threatened victim. Perhaps it was the Language. Or perhaps it was something in Irene’s face. ‘Don’t!’ she cried out. ‘Please!’

‘Vale.’ Irene extended her hand. ‘Your gun, please.’

Vale slapped his pistol into her hand without a word.

He doesn’t think I’d really do it. He thinks I’m bluffing to convince her.

Irene thought of the darkened corridors and rooms in the Library, of the gate going up in flames and of the list of dead Librarians. She raised the gun to point it directly at Zayanna.

Zayanna stared at the gun. She wasn’t doing her usual trick of playing with her ringlets. Her hands tightened on the sides of the chair, and her breath was fast and panicked. ‘I—’ She swallowed. ‘All right!’ She flung herself from her chair, going on her knees in front of Irene. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, and I swear I’ll tell you the truth. I surrender. I really do surrender.’

Irene handed the gun back to Vale, trying to calm her racing heartbeat. That had been too close. She had never thought of herself as the sort of person who was genuinely ready to kill for information. She’d manage a few convincing threats, maybe, but those would just be bluffs. It was an unpleasant surprise to find out that she was ready for lethal action, and that she’d go through with it so easily, so unhesitatingly. ‘Get up,’ she said wearily. ‘Back in your chair, please. I accept your surrender, but you have to tell me the whole truth.’

Zayanna picked herself off the floor and slid back into her chair, her stockings miraculously unladdered. ‘What he’s doing is—’

There was a banging at the door. ‘Gentleman for Mr Strongrock!’ the barmaid from downstairs shouted.

Irene turned – well, everyone turned – to stare at Kai. Even Zayanna looked interested, though possibly because the interruption took the pressure off her.

Kai himself looked dumbfounded. ‘I didn’t tell anyone to meet me here,’ he protested. ‘How could I have? I didn’t know we were going to be here.’

This could be a cunning ploy to get into the room and kill them all. Or it could be a genuine message for Kai, in which case it was almost certainly from his family or Li Ming. And in that case, Irene needed to hear it. ‘Let’s see who it is,’ she suggested.

It was Li Ming, led by a curious barmaid, dapper in his usual grey and with an attaché case in one hand. While he didn’t actually look around the room and sniff in disgust, clearly it was only because he was far too polite to do so. ‘Your highness,’ he addressed Kai. ‘I hope that I have not come at an inconvenient time.’

‘Your presence is always welcome,’ Kai said, court-trained manners coming to his rescue as he closed the door and shut out the barmaid. ‘We were just interrogating this Fae.’

‘May I be of assistance?’ Li Ming enquired.

Irene watched Zayanna out of the corner of her eye. She could see the Fae reassessing the situation and slumping even further in her chair. ‘Actually, Lord Li Ming, Zayanna here was about to tell us more about Alberich’s plan.’ Would it be a good thing for the dragons to know what was going on? Irene couldn’t see any way in which it was a particularly bad thing. They’d never cooperate with Alberich, which made them allies in the current situation. ‘If your message for Kai could wait a few moments, would you permit her to speak first?’

‘I would be glad to,’ Li Ming said. ‘Might this have something to do with a world that your highness was investigating recently – I heard there were some disturbances?’

‘Ah yes, I was going to speak with you about that,’ Kai said, a little too quickly. ‘Perhaps after we have dealt with the current problem?’

Li Ming nodded. He stood beside Kai, an inch taller than him and currently much better dressed. They might have been part of a matched set of statues, frozen in marble but ready to break free at any moment, their power chained and controlled, but always present.

Irene turned her attention back to Zayanna. If Kai was in trouble because of their Russian mission, she’d handle that later. ‘What’s Alberich doing?’ she asked bluntly.

‘It’s sort of a cosmological thing, darling. Please hear me out – I’m not sure how to explain this properly. I know your Library’s connected to spheres all over, isn’t it?’

Irene knew that ‘spheres’ was the Fae term for alternate worlds. ‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘So?’

‘Well, the spheres that are more comfortable for my people – the ones that Aunt Isra would have said were ones of high virtue . . . do you remember her?’ Zayanna waited for Irene’s nod. ‘There’s a point at which they become really unstable. They’re dangerous even for us. I admit I don’t know for sure, but I suppose it’s the same thing at the other end of the scale, too?’ She looked at Kai and Li Ming. ‘Are there places which are so rigidly ordered that even you can’t exist there, without losing your personality?’

Kai and Li Ming exchanged glances. Finally Li Ming spoke, and he was clearly choosing his words with care. ‘It’s true that human life requires at least a very small amount of chaos, to be recognizable as human. But there are worlds that are entirely static. They are necessary to the functioning of reality, but they are not places where humans or dragons can live. They are indeed too rigid.’ He fell silent again – though it wasn’t clear if it was because of some obscure embarrassment at the idea one could have too much order, or because he didn’t want to reveal anything more.