The Burning Page

‘Well, the whole point was to speak with you.’ Bradamant stepped into the room and the door swung shut behind her. ‘As you said some time back, we shouldn’t be wasting our time sniping at each other. Especially in an emergency.’

Kai had shuffled to one side and was taking a polite interest in the nearest bookcase, ostensibly not part of the conversation, even though Irene knew he’d be listening.

‘Fair enough,’ Irene agreed. ‘So why did you want to speak with me?’

‘Well.’ Bradamant hesitated, picking her words. ‘We are among the very few Librarians who’ve actually met Alberich.’

‘We are among those fortunate few survivors, yes,’ Irene said.

‘Has he tried to communicate with you?’

The words hung in the air. I’ve already told Coppelia – it’s not as if there’s anything treasonous about it, Irene thought. There’s no reason to be ashamed of it, or afraid to admit it. But actually saying it out loud took an effort. ‘Yes,’ she finally managed. ‘It happened since the meeting this morning, and it was definitely him. You?’

‘No,’ Bradamant said. She sounded more irritated about it than thankful. ‘Probably because I’m stuck here.’

‘Not on assignment? I assumed that all the able-bodied—’

‘Kostchei’s keeping me here.’ Bradamant folded her arms crisply. ‘He says he needs someone on hand for emergency pickups.’

Saying ‘Not because of what happened during your last assignment?’ would have been unforgivable. But the thought ran through Irene’s mind, and she hastily suppressed it before it could show on her face. ‘I suppose it makes sense,’ she said neutrally.

‘It doesn’t make sense to keep me here, when we could actually be tracking Alberich down,’ Bradamant snapped. ‘We both know he’s the sort who holds a grudge. It’d be much more useful if we were bait in a trap!’

‘I beg leave to argue about it being in any way useful for Irene to get herself killed,’ Kai commented, from where he was leaning against the bookcase.

‘Oh, you could be there too – he could come after you as well,’ Bradamant said. ‘I’m not trying to keep you out of it. I’m sure you’d be very useful.’ She gave him a polished smile, discreet and a little sly. ‘And I’m sure your family wouldn’t object to having Alberich out of the way.’

‘Does everyone know about my family?’ Kai muttered.

‘Not everyone,’ Bradamant said quickly. ‘But you actually warded an area against chaos when we last confronted Alberich, so you’re from an important family. Not all dragons could do that.’ She turned back to Irene, before Kai could agree or disagree. ‘So what do you think?’

‘Can we take this by stages?’ Irene asked. The basic idea of let’s all trap Alberich sounded good in itself, but the specificity of let’s go and play bait for an insane murderer left her less enthusiastic. ‘Have you run this past Kostchei yet?’

‘No,’ Bradamant admitted. ‘I thought I’d discuss it with you first.’

‘Do you think he wouldn’t approve, then?’

Bradamant shrugged. ‘It’d depend how feasible we could make it. If we could come up with a plan that might work . . .’

Irene still wasn’t convinced this was a good idea. ‘When Alberich contacted me, he funnelled raw chaotic power into my location, once he’d established where I was.’ She ran through the details of the morning’s encounter, in response to Bradamant’s raised eyebrow. Though she did leave out the bits where she’d been drugged and kidnapped by werewolves and lost her Library documents. No point in confusing the issue. ‘I concede that this means we could get a two-way link,’ she finished. ‘I’m just not sure that it would be to our advantage, rather than to his.’

‘That’s a bit defeatist, isn’t it?’ Kai said quietly.

‘You didn’t get nearly fried by raw chaos this morning—’ Irene started.

‘No,’ Kai said. ‘Because I wasn’t there, because you went off to the Library on your own. You would have thought that by now we’d know better.’

Irene took a deep breath. ‘All right. Point taken, Kai. Bradamant, can you give me a moment to think about this? I need to change my dress anyhow.’ She looked down at her wrecked clothing. Days like this were hell on her clothing budget. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll be with you.’

Both Kai and Bradamant nodded, and Irene slipped quickly into her bedroom. She ran through her options as she dropped her ruined dress and coat on the floor and speedily changed into something long-skirted, modest, bland and unobtrusive. She had a lot of those in her wardrobe.

Two main questions were nagging at her. Was it just her distrust of Bradamant that was making her discount her colleague’s idea? And, ultimately, could it actually work?

As she walked back into her study, Bradamant was just saying, ‘Nobody’s disputing her talent . . .’ She glanced at Irene. ‘We’re talking about you, of course.’

‘Well, of course,’ Irene agreed. ‘I’m not in the room, you talk about me – some things are a fact of life. I’m sure Kai and I will be talking about you, as soon as you’ve left.’

Bradamant smiled icily. ‘So? Your thoughts?’