“Silence, boy,” Alberich said. He very deliberately moved the knife in a fraction of an inch, and a trickle of blood ran down Vale’s neck to mark his white collar. “Stay where you are, don’t try to jump me, and let your superior do the talking. Well. Do you have the book, Irene?”
Surely he’d noticed the book in the in-tray? If he hadn’t, then she wasn’t going to draw his attention to it. “I can get hold of it,” she offered. “Is that the price?”
“I want more than that.” There was a glitter behind his eyes, and that she would recognize if she ever saw it again. A rapacious hunger, an endless emptiness that would never be filled, with all the madness that went with it. “I have a number of questions. You can even sit down, if you like.”
“We’d really rather stand,” Irene said quickly.
“Suit yourself.” His lips curved in a smile that was somehow more a man’s than a woman’s. “Shall I go through the usual literary conventions? First I tell you that you’ve been told slanders about me, and you nod understandingly while not believing a word of it. Then I promise that you can go free if you hand over the book, and you lie and give me a forged copy. Then I kill you.” He shrugged. The knife stayed in place. “Or shall we break from the usual tropes and actually do something different? Something that might mean you survive this?”
Irene thought about how many other Librarians must have been in this position. There was a reason why he was an urban legend.
Though if they all get killed, who comes back to tell the stories? an irritating part of her mind pointed out. She ignored it.
“I don’t see how you can use both the Language and Fae magic,” she blurted out, her mouth running on automatic while she tried to think. It wasn’t hard to sound vaguely admiring, even if he’d see right through it.
“I’ll give you that one for free,” Alberich said generously, and Irene mentally lowered the odds on him letting them live even further. “Once a person can use the Language, that can’t be taken away. I’ve learnt to use chaos since then. It involves a certain amount of personal redefinition. Difficult, but not impossible. One doesn’t have to die. Something to take into account in your future career, perhaps? There are far more opportunities open to you than you might think.”
Opportunities . . . What opportunities did she have right now? Kai might be able to use amazing dragon powers to stop Alberich entering an area, but that wasn’t much use when he was already inside it. And she might be able to force Alberich out of an area using Language, but again that wasn’t much help if he could simply wait outside its boundaries . . .
Boundaries. A half-plausible thought moved through the back of her mind. She wished she’d had more time to ask Kai about his capabilities. When he warded an area, did the warding simply follow the track that he left? Or was it a more metaphysical sort of thing, with the boundaries of his warding being linked to whatever he intended to ward?
“Let’s reduce the potential hostages,” she said briskly, ignoring Kai’s intake of breath from behind her. If this was going to work, she needed him outside and free to act. “I’m the one you want. As you said, I’m Kai’s superior. Having him stand here and maybe lose his temper won’t help either of us.” She tried to look gullible. Impressionable. As if she believed Alberich when he said she might survive this.
“You’ve already got one hostage, and you know I’m concerned about his well-being. If I wasn’t, we’d already be attacking or running away. Let’s clear the ground. Let Kai here go as a start to the negotiations.”
Alberich surveyed her thoughtfully, and again there was that flash of hunger in his eyes. “It’s true that my questions concern you, not him,” he said slowly. “And he’s no initiate. I needn’t fear him trying to open a door to the Library behind my back. Very well. I’ll be reasonable. In return for a similar concession from you.”
Irene remembered to breathe. “Such as?” she said.
“Your birth-name,” Alberich said quickly, and she realized this had been his plan all along.
Magic had never been Irene’s field of expertise. It still wasn’t. But she didn’t need to be an expert to know that Alberich’s Fae magic, with knowledge of her true name, could be very bad news for her.
“Ha!” Kai said. She suspected he was sneering.
Irene nodded to Alberich, then turned to Kai. As she had thought, he was sneering. “Kai,” she said. “I want you to do something very straightforward for me. I want you to go outside and stay outside. I don’t want you setting one foot inside this library.” How to convey to him I want you to set up that warding you talked about and do it as fast as possible? “I’ll handle this.”
Kai blinked at her, totally blindsided. “But—,” he started.
“But me no buts,” Irene snapped. “It’s as Alberich said. You’re not a Librarian and there’s nothing you can do in this situation. You don’t have the Language and you can’t fight him. I’m not going to endanger yet another person. Now, are you going to obey my orders and get out”—she could hear her voice rising—“or am I going to have to worry about you as well as Vale here?”
Kai gave her a long stare. It felt like a reproach. It was a reproach. She didn’t want to do this to him, but Alberich wasn’t stupid. The slightest hint of collusion would get Vale killed, and she could only hope that Kai understood that.
“You know perfectly well there’s nothing I can do if I’m outside these walls,” he said. Could he have grasped what she wanted? “I’m supposed to
