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Perhaps Alberich expected that reaction from her, for he paused only for a moment before he went on ‘The Library kept hiht towith that state She snapped out of her momentary shock and whispered to the book in her hands, ‘Book that I a, fly up and knock that man up there fro her fingers with the force of its ascent A cry of, ‘Shelves, shield me!’ and the meaty thud of an i ‘Dust, hide th of tattered tulle across her nose andclouds of dust
She trailed her free hand along the bookcases lining the passage so as not to collide with the to see where she was going Thisherself did have a few associated problems But at least it concealed her from Alberich
Until he loses patience and just levels all the bookshelves in the area, her sense of inco thing was that he hadn’t done what he did once before – sinking her into the floor and calling on all sorts of chaotic forces to destroy her If it had been Irene trying to destroy him, she’d have used whatever she had available
Unlesscould she havehere? Alberich had created this place, or at least forged it out of a Fae world so far gone into chaos that it had no firm reality left He’d set it up in a very specific way Did thischaotic power into it randomly, any more than a mad scientist would set off dynamite in the s
Though it wouldn’t save her, if Alberich caught up with her Even if he left her alive in return for telling hih a ht be the son in question Ad their literary tastes than their pre-Library histories, but she didn’t think any of them could have had that sort of history
The fog of dust blinded Irene nearly as much as it did Alberich, and she was taken by surprise as she stumbled into the central area She was conscious of a wide-open space in front of her, even if she couldn’t see it clearly yet, and sohts
‘Bookcases!’ came a furious shriek froh bookcases on either side of her bowed down and collapsed in a great landslide of shelves and books Pages filled the air, e snowflakes She had to dodge back frantically to avoid being hit by the falling bookcases, and then her ell and truly blocked She’d have to clao round – either of which would lose tiging at the back of her h-chaos world Alberich’s using the Language far more to frame his intent than in ter the saritted her teeth and braced herself ‘Floor! Open beneath the barrier and let roaned, then split with pained creaks and cracking, the two sides pulling apart like the edges of a wound The resultant gap ran beneath the toppled bookcases, narrow, uneven, dark and full of splintersbut it looked big enough for Irene to get through With a silent prayer that Alberich couldn’t see her and that his next words wouldn’t involve such verbs as close, sh the crack She had to lower her head and wriggle sideways, and with every panting breath it see in on her and about to squeeze shut
She broke through to the other side with a gasp of relief The dust was not so thick or noxious now – perhaps the barrier of bookshelves had blocked it off, orof its own accord – and she could see the construction at the heart of Alberich’s library
It was an openwork tangle of metal stairs and books, perhaps a hundred yards across at first glance The stairs writhed around each other, ignoring such petty constraints as railings or supports and rising several storeys high at the corners The books gleah the network in soht And in the middle of the pattern of books and stairs was the clock, which was still ticking It was a shadowy clock face hanging in the air, with ivory-pale hands that ive off any sort of glealow Instead it was a point of iined a black hole iven physical forination that it was ticking faster
Before the clock reaches ht, Alberich had said She was almost out of ti the clock orthe books were the ht of stairs Her feet rang on the ue had vanished, now that she was so close to success
She , where one of the books waited, on display The part of herdanger couldn’t help wondering about it It must be one of the unique specimens Alberich had stolen Where was it from, as the author, as the title – and if and when this was all over, would she ever get the chance to read it?