‘Why?’
‘Because they never said so.’ A few months ago Irene had been told that two Librarians couldn’t have children. Which had left her whole parentage in doubt. But the person who’d told her had been Alberich, the Library’s worst enemy. It had been easy, after the fact, to write it off as a lie meant to distract her. She’d avoided thinking about it. She hadn’t even asked her parents.
And was that because, in the deepest part of her mind, she’d been afraid of what they would say?
Melusine shrugged. ‘What they may or may not have told you isn’t my business. My job is Library security. Are you disputing what I’ve just said?’
Irene wanted to dispute it. She wanted to stamp out of the room and slam the door behind her. But most of all she wanted to find her parents and shout, Why didn’t you tell me?
She wanted to cry. Her eyes were hot with unshed tears.
‘Just go on,’ she said, hearing the strain in her own voice.
Melusine didn’t change her tone. It remained light, uninflected, dispassionate. ‘Educated at boarding school, due to your parents having growing problems with your behaviour.’
‘It was nothing like that!’ Irene protested.
Melusine gave her a pale-eyed stare. Her eyes were as cold and distant as the winter sky at dawn. ‘Who’s reading this record, you or me?’
‘Well, you are, but—’
‘Put your complaint in writing.’ The older Librarian looked back at the screen. ‘The usual sort of apprenticeship. Mentored by Bradamant for a while, but that was dissolved at your request. Though you weren’t the only junior to do so.’
‘No, I don’t think I was,’ Irene agreed blandly. She was mostly over her tendency to twitch at any mention of Bradamant – a competent Librarian, but also manipulative, ambitious, and prone to blaming any failures on her students. It seemed that Library Security had noticed.
Melusine nodded. ‘Appointed as Librarian-in-Residence extremely early in your career, due to good performance. Placed on probation after you abandoned your post without orders, in order to retrieve your apprentice Kai. Yes, I do know what he is.’ She looked up from the screen. ‘And yes, I do realize that the whole probation business was political – despite his successful retrieval, we had to be seen to be taking steps.’
‘I didn’t get into this job to play politics.’ Irene tried not to let too much resentment slip into her voice. ‘Is there a point to this career review?’
‘I’m trying to get a better understanding of you.’ Melusine didn’t smile. She inspected Irene as though she were a substandard essay. ‘You’ve associated with Fae and dragons. You survived two encounters with Alberich.’ Her tone shifted from bland to corrosive at the name Alberich, and Irene nearly flinched. ‘This isn’t standard practice. At all. Most Librarians manage to get through their careers without anything half as dramatic. I was . . . curious.’
‘If the Library didn’t want me to associate with dragons, then they shouldn’t have assigned me to be Kai’s mentor,’ Irene snapped. ‘And the Fae just happened to me. You know, like cockroaches. Have I answered all your questions?’
‘Are you in a hurry?’
‘Actually, yes.’ Irene thought of Kai, outside on his own, trapped in a small room fathoms underground. ‘We have a possible crisis on hand. And my student’s waiting outside. As you know.’
‘Only authorized Librarians are allowed in here.’
‘It’s less than a year since Kai was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Fae. He doesn’t like being shut in small places, and I don’t see why I should keep him waiting any longer than necessary.’
‘I can send him back up in the lift,’ Melusine offered.
‘I’m not sure he’d go,’ Irene said reluctantly. ‘He’s a bit protective.’
‘Then I suppose we should probably take his comfort into consideration.’ It wasn’t clear whether Melusine was joking or serious. ‘Explain everything, as though I hadn’t seen your email to Coppelia. I want the details.’
Wishing there was a second chair in the room so that she could sit, Irene ran through the sequence of events again. She started with the conversation with Jin Zhi and continued to her own research in the Library, with Kai’s comments included.
Melusine paused her from time to time to ask a question, but otherwise her reactions were hard to read. She folded her hands in her lap, leaving her computers alone, and didn’t even twiddle her fingers. Irene would have been encouraged by some sort of response, rather than this stillness.
Finally Irene ran dry of information. ‘I don’t want to sound as if I’m panicking,’ she finished, ‘but I think this could be very serious. Librarians in the field depend on the Library’s neutrality to survive casual encounters with Fae and dragons. If that’s gone, then we’re all in danger individually – and it can only be a matter of time till the Library itself is under threat.’ She stood there, feet aching, waiting to be asked more questions.
Melusine nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘I think we may have a problem here. A big one.’
‘You believe me, then?’
‘Oh, I always believed you, but it was possible that you’d been deceived. But this is sounding uncomfortably plausible. The book is on A-658, you say.’ She tapped in a query on her computer and inspected the result. ‘No Librarian-in-Residence, and no authorized or requested activity there for fifteen years now, though the last Librarian who was sent there did leave a cache behind for emergencies. Current activity . . . hmm. Let’s have a look.’ She turned her wheelchair and it glided across to one of the low shelves of books. Irene realized, a little belatedly, that everything in the room was set up to be reachable from Melusine’s chair.
‘Do you have anything on Qing Song or Jin Zhi?’ Irene asked. ‘Anything that’s not in the general records, that is.’
‘Only their names, families and court affiliation,’ Melusine said. ‘Nothing more than what your apprentice told you. No – what’s the right term? “Hot gossip.” I can and will make enquiries, but that’ll take time.’ She tapped the edge of the shelf. ‘A-658, please.’
The books began to slide smoothly along the shelf as if it was a conveyer belt, vanishing into the wall at each end of the room. After about twenty seconds they came to a stop, and Melusine pulled out the one next to her hand. It was bound in red leather, with A-658 on the spine. Irene went to peer over Melusine’s shoulder.