Worldsoul

woman is devout, and if your spy hitched a ride with her outgoing soul, I would not be able to follow them.”

“I see. I seem to recall that during the wars you had some sort of-liaison-with a gentleman from the opposite team.”

Gremory had the grace to look abashed, and knew it. “Young love. You know how it is.”

“Oh, quite. We’ve all done it-there’s no shame. On the contrary, in fact, it’s far worse for them, given that we’re such rough trade in their masters’ eyes. The reason I mention it is because certain Messengers are good at that sort of thing: their remit is souls, after all.”

“I had already thought of it.”

“I can rely on you, Gremory, to conduct yourself intelligently. Usually. Is your paramour still on this plane?”

“The last I heard, he’d become a hermit.”

Astaroth looked pained. “Oh, how tediously typical. They all want to become closer to their God, whereas most of us would do anything to stay away from ours.”

Gremory laughed. “It’s how they’re made.”

“Send him a message. Ask if he’ll help. If he’s that boringly typical, he’ll do anything to enable you to have a chance at redemption. They can never resist a crack at a demon’s soul.”

The Duke smiled. “He can crack away. I’m happy as I am.”

Later, she walked down among the burning trees, into the streets around the fortress. It was quiet, at this time of the day. She made her way down a winding passage to an opening in the wall. Here, sat an old demon, with the brick red skin of a previous generation and yellow eyes.

“Duke!” He rose and bowed. Around him were a hundred or more birdcages, filled with fiery doves. Their whispering and chattering consumed the air.

“I need to send a message,” Gremory said.

Twenty-Eight

Mercy woke, sweating, in her own bed. She was disinclined to put the whole thing down to a dream and when Perra leaped in through the open window, Mercy asked the ka.

“It was not a dream,” Perra said. The ka frowned. “I do not like being put to sleep.”

“Who the hell was she? I’ve heard of something like that before but I can’t pin it down. And why did she rescue us?” Although Mercy was glad that she had.

“I can’t answer your questions.”

Mercy flung back the blankets. “I’d better get in to work.”

Having checked up on Benjaya, now safely back at his post, and given her report, Mercy spent the rest of that day in the Library. She was restless and tired, but not displeased to have an afternoon to herself. She roamed the Library with the ka at her heels, uncertain as to what she was searching for. Perhaps it wasn’t anything in particular, just a sense of dislocation. The appearance of that rift in the air, apparent to Perra but not to anyone else, had disconcerted her. Knowing where it led was even more unsettling. She wanted to know what the hell else was breaching the Library’s defences. Once, it had seemed impregnable, now it felt more like a leaky colander.

They took it systematically, top-down. The upper floors held the oldest texts, being perhaps paradoxically, the easiest to defend. The cellars were too easy to breach, to burrow and worm into. Hence the heights, in which Mercy now stood.

On this top-most floor, there were no books. Instead, there was a collection of astronomical and weather- reading equipment: astrolabes at one end, where a dome could be opened to the night skies, wind and rain gauges at the other. The dome had not been an original feature of the library of Alexandria, but added later: maybe it had added itself, which was the way things usually worked in Worldsoul. You could wake in the morning to find a whole new block, the city re-arranging itself around the incomer and then settling back into place as though the addition had always been there. But the observatory dome had been in place long enough for Mercy to take it for granted. They searched anyway, Perra scanning the air like a hound tracing a scent.

“I can’t see anything. Only songs.” The ka’s small face was wistful.

“Songs?”

“Songs of stars. Songs of clouds.”

Research left its traces, Mercy knew. She felt a brief envy. “Sounds nice.”

“Mm,” the ka said. But there was nothing sinister here. As they headed down the stairs, Mercy glanced out of the long windows towards the Court. Its dark roofs glistened with recent rain; the golden spell-vanes turned in the sea wind. Unfinished business. She wondered if this search of the Library wasn’t just putting off a confrontation with Deed.

Deed, who still had a vial of her blood.

Deed, the Abbot General of the entire Court. You couldn’t just walk in and start flinging accusations.

Downstairs, the light faded abruptly as they entered the upper stacks. This was where Mercy had first encountered the disir, the place of the oldest texts. The rift that had let them into the world of ice was now closed, according to Perra.

“It would be helpful,” the ka said, “if you could see this for yourself.”

Mercy looked curiously at the ka. It was unusual for a spirit, even one as benign as Perra, to offer a secret freely. “You can teach me to do that?”

The ka leaped up onto an empty shelf, so that they were at eye height. “I can. Close your eyes.”

After a second’s hesitation, Mercy did so. She felt a feather-light touch on her forehead, between her brows. The sigil marked there burned cold for a moment, making her gasp. Then the ka was through the ward.

Flashback. She was standing in the great chamber at the Heart of the Library, in front of the Skein. The woman who stood in front of her was holding a sash, of black, white, and grey silk.

This binds you to the Library. If you accept it, then you belong to this place, you are tied and indentured for the rest of your life, unless we choose to sever you. Is this your choice?

And Mercy, seventeen years old but feeling very grown-up, had said, “Yes. Yes, I accept.”

A touch on her forehead, as Beheverah of the Skein reached out an ivory hand and inscribed the first warding sigil between her brows, the sigil that she would have to re-administer every day of her life from now on.

Unless she retired and left the Order entirely, but then, Librarians tended not to do that.

Mercy blinked. It was as though she had grown an inch, and could see a different world around her. The stacks shimmered with magic-she was used to that, and she could see small cracks and chinks in the field of blue, with tiny lightning strikes and fizzes of electricity, as though insects were being fried around the texts. The spellwards, trying to hold back leaks in a sieve. Perra’s impassive golden gaze was fixed on her face.

“I think it’s worked,” Mercy said. “Whatever it was.”

“Let’s see what else you can see,” the ka replied.

Plenty of small cracks, but when she mentioned it to Perra, the ka said that these had always been there.

“What if they widen?”

“Then you have a problem. This sort of magic can only be contained with great difficulty. Even the Skein found it hard. And perhaps inadvisable.”

“Inadavisable?”

“Magic is like pressure. Damming it up can be problematic.”

“Perra, how do you know so much about the Library?”

But the ka only blinked.

The upper stacks were relatively clear. Mercy did not, however, hold out much hope. What if there were breaks which the ka couldn’t see? She was thorough nonetheless, taking each floor in turn until