Right.
A thought at the back of her head was trying to get her attention. This is the problem with interacting with the Fae. An instructor’s voice from back at the Library, talking to half a dozen trainees while they made notes (or surreptitiously tried to plot out best-selling novels), droning away while rain spattered against the window that looked out onto a deserted grey stone square full of empty market stalls. They see everything in terms of their own personal drama. If you are not careful, they will drag you into it. This is in fact a problem and a risk with all chaos-infected alternates . . .
‘I see.’ Bradamant did a good job of drooping in response to Silver’s accusations. ‘Then you know everything.’
‘Everything!’ Silver declared. ‘I am not surprised that Aubrey should have called for reinforcements from the Library with such a prize at stake, but now he will have to admit that he has failed. Our long rivalry is at an end!’
Irene blinked in shock. No. No. That couldn’t be right. If Silver had known Dominic Aubrey, and had learnt that he was a Library agent, then Dominic should have known about Silver being a threat. But Dominic hadn’t said a single word about Silver being an enemy of his, or warned them about him, or even told them that Silver existed . . .
. . . and why was Bradamant nodding? What did she know? ‘Aubrey warned me about you,’ she said, ‘but I believe he did not prepare me enough.’
No, surely this was impossible. There was no conceivable reason for Dominic to warn Bradamant, but not her or Kai. They could well have come into contact, as the only door to the Library was in Aubrey’s office. But there had been no sign that they had exchanged this sort of intelligence. Of course Dominic might have had his own patrons in the Library, who wanted Bradamant to find the book first. That was entirely plausible, and wasn’t even an offence as such. But deliberately hiding the threat of Silver from her and Kai wasn’t just a casual slip, it was a betrayal. If she’d got back and told her superiors, then Dominic might well have been removed from his post.
Could Bradamant be lying? Her thoughts rattled in her head like computer keys. And the tension in the room escalated as Silver considered his next dramatic reply, as Vale and Kai shifted their positions behind her, and as the werewolves panted and waited to lunge.
No. It didn’t fit. Oh, all right, maybe Bradamant and Silver might be secret allies staging an argument to convince her. But that was taking paranoia too far. So if Dominic knew about Silver and considered him significant enough to warn Bradamant – but didn’t even bother mentioning him to Irene on the next day, when he knew Irene was on a confirmed mission – then what did that imply? What had changed?
She thought back to her brief contact with Dominic Aubrey. His use of the Language was strangely old-fashioned. And then there was Dominic Aubrey’s disappearance and skinning, which left his library tattoo intact but no sign of his body at all. And how did Alberich operate in this alternate world? Alberich, who had lived for long enough to be a legend even among the Librarians . . . but nobody knew how, and nobody even knew what he looked like.
An idea was forming, an idea that she mentally flinched from, but one that answered a lot of questions. Stealing someone’s skin and identity was covered in obscure folklore treatises, but it wasn’t something that she ever expected to be real. She didn’t want it to be real.
Silver had advanced on Vale and was flourishing his cane menacingly. ‘Wyndham only wanted the book because of information I gave him. Then he thought he could bargain for it. With me! Why, if the Iron Brotherhood hadn’t disposed of him, I might have been forced to do so myself . . . But all is not lost, my dear.’
So it was the Iron Brotherhood that had killed Wyndham. Assuming Silver was correct about it, that tied off one loose end. Good, Irene thought, at least that’s one less unidentified group of assassins running around the place.
Silver took a step forward, smiling brilliantly. Irene felt the air tingle with suppressed longing again. ‘Hand over the book and I will be glad to agree to any terms that you might desire.’
Over by the desk, Ramsbottom seemed poised to tell all. His hand wavered towards the small blue ledger.
Kai was the one who moved. He sprang forward like a leopard, and threw himself into a running dive across the desk, snatching the incriminating ledger out of Ramsbottom’s hands. He tossed the ledger across the room to Irene and it spun through the air in a flutter of pages.
‘Get that!’ Silver shrieked.
Irene caught it.