Worldsoul

cross the room. He bent down. “Nothing broken.”

“No thanks to you.”

“I wanted to see what you’d do,” the man-Roke, Deed-said. “Now I’ve found out. Anyway, I rescued you in the first place, so be grateful. I’m Jonathan Deed, by the way, although you know me as Roke. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be making a mess all over our nice courtyard.”

“How did you do it?”

“Magical net.” He squatted on his heels by her side. She could see him more clearly now, and he held a lantern.

“The Library took a major risk sending you here.”

“I was acting on my own initiative.”

An eyebrow was raised. “I don’t think I believe you, though it’s very public spirited to claim sole responsibility.”

“You can put me through a truth process.” Mercy had no idea what was involved in such a process, but she could guess that was beyond unpleasant. “I’m not lying.”

“All right,” Deed said. “I might do that. On the other hand, that rather begs the question that I actually care.”

“Ah,” Mercy said.

“Because it’s a great excuse to pick a fight with the Library, you see, something I’ve been needing to do for some time.”

“Thought so,” Mercy croaked. “Now that the Skein have gone… ”

“Be reasonable,” Deed said, pained. “You can’t have Librarians running a city. You’d spend all your time shushing people and cataloguing things. Forgive me, but you’re not known in your profession for wide-ranging vision and overall perspective; you’re more the fine detail sort.”

Mercy said nothing to this, partly out of annoyance, and partly because she was secretly afraid he might be right.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked at last. “Keep me here?”

“No. This was just an experiment; we’re not barbarians. As I said, I wanted to see what you’d so. That’s what we do-we experiment. We’re scientists, after all. Come with me.”

He pulled her to her feet, not ungently, and ushered her ahead of him through the door. Mercy began planning strategy: a backwards kick, elbow to the face… But he was staying too far behind her, even when she deliberately slowed, and when she glanced over her shoulder she could see from his amused expression that he had read her mind.

She was expecting to be led to another cell. To her surprise, however, he took her into a parlour. Panelled walls, brocade seats, and a pianola. Very nice.

“Sit down. Would you like a scotch?”

“I-actually, yes.”

Deed grinned. “Good girl. You’ve no chance of getting out of here, but if you cooperate, we’ll see what we can do. Please don’t take any of this personally.”

“Likewise.”

“You’re angry about the theft of your blood. I can tell. Well, fair enough. I’d be cross, too.”

“I can’t blame you for taking an advantage. We’re not on the same side.”

“But you think we should be.”

Mercy paused. As long as he thought she was working for the Library, and not for Mareritt… if he wanted an excuse to go up against the Library, he’d got one anyway, no matter what the truth was, and if she kept quiet about Mareritt it might give Mercy an advantage. She accepted the heavy crystal tumbler of whisky that he offered her, and took a sip. Peat-flavoured fire spread through her.

“Good whisky.”

“It’s a magician’s drink,” he said. “Like red wine. Claret.”

She couldn’t tell whether he was making a veiled threat or simply expounding a personal theory; oddly, she got the impression that it was the latter. He took a seat opposite her and sat comfortably, long legs stretched out in front of him. The ruff made it look, disconcertingly, as though his head had been cut off. An angular face, a thin mouth, not without humour. An oddly compelling face. She did not want to even think about going down that road.

“So,” he said. “What were you looking for?”

“A book.”

Again, the eyebrow was raised. “Because you don’t have enough of your own?”

“That actually was part of the problem.”

Deed laughed. “So what was this book about? Medieval drainage systems? Growing better cauliflowers? Marxist dialectic?”

Since she did not know what The Winter Book contained, Mercy decided to shake the tree of speculation and see what fell out.

“The disir.”

His face did not change.

“I see.”

“Do you? We had one in the Library.”

“Did you? I don’t imagine it’s the sort of thing you’d want in a Library. I should think that the monkey-demon might even be a little higher on the desirability list.”

“The disir didn’t throw shit,” Mercy said. “Though she did try to kill me.”

“Perhaps not, then. So, a disir came to kill you and you decided that the best way to deal with this was to do some reading up. Why didn’t you just call me and ask to borrow something?”

“Would you have lent it to me?”

“I might have, actually. Let this be a lesson to you, Miss Fane. Always ask your neighbours before burgling their premises.”

“My apologies.”

Deed waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. As I said, it’s useful to me. So what did you find out about the disir?”

“They’re old. They come from the Ice Age. They’re not human but they were probably conjured up by some shaman or other, part of a story that we no longer possess.”

“Fairy tales,” Deed said. “That’s the engine that runs this city, after all, isn’t it? That’s what drives us on. Was that all you discovered?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll have to do some research,” Deed said pleasantly. “And see what else I can find out for you.”

Forty-Two

The orchard fruit was not, Elemiel told her, safe to eat. But there were seeds and a number of bracket fungi that were edible. Shadow did not feel like eating them, despite Elemiel’s assurances. There were no animals to hunt and at this, the demon pulled an expression that, after a minute, Shadow interpreted as eye rolling.

Night would soon fall, but that didn’t matter, so the Messenger said, because there was a moon.

The moon, whenever they were, was a lot closer to the Earth than it subsequently became, at least in myth, as became apparent when it rolled up over the summit of the hill. This was a young moon, its face a little less starred with craters. Shadow felt a comfort in its light, and it made it easier to see where they were going.

Elemiel led them deeper into the valley, past the black stone. Shadow had interrogated him about the elementals: the earth spirit, the fire, thinking he must know them well. But the Messenger told her that the fire spirits were new.

“Only the gardeners are original. The golems. Ancient technology, rediscovered anew closer to your day.”

“They have them in some quarters,” Shadow said. “They’re not always very reliable.”