“Abbot General,” the woman said. “What is it? You’re making me nervous.” She stood, just inside the door, her feet on the outer border of the Persian carpet.
“Perhaps you should be nervous,” he said, without turning his head. He tapped the tightly-rolled scroll on the study’s windowsill. “It’s falling to us, Darya. Did you ever think you’d see that day?”
“No. But maybe-you did?” There was the faintest trace of accusation in her voice, and he grinned, turning to her at last. Amusing, how she tried not to recoil.
“Darya.” His voice was a caressing purr. “Mage Nem. You ought to be proud.”
“I am proud.” There was only a little hesitation in her voice and that was good enough. For the moment. Later on, maybe Darya would have to be taken down a peg or two, but there was no rush. Plenty more apprentices waiting in the wings, after all. The Sept had made sure of that in its breeding programme down the long years. Thinking of that, Deed studied her as she sat on the divan, deliberately not looking at him. He knew he frightened her-Abbots General were supposed to be intimidating-but, of course, that wasn’t the whole story. He could see the traces of it in her angular face: typically Northern Quarter with the high arched bones of her cheeks, the wide-set blue eyes, and square jaw. She looked so demure in her neat black gown, with the silver charms and wards dangling along the chain of her sigilometer. But there was more than demureness behind her face if you knew where to look, just as there was more than the human behind his own. As the sunlight grew stronger, you could see the silver light at the back of her eyes, a faint mirrorglow. And for a moment, the bones of her face seemed to shift into something not-human, so subtle that he doubted anyone not of the Sept would have noticed it. Naturally, if you looked at her with the sight-beyond-sight, the difference was a great deal more marked: the aura so indigo that it was nearly black, with a sparkle at the edges like distant starlight.
Disir. He doubted whether any humans other than the Court and their Adepts, the Sept, even remembered the word, let alone what it meant. Not even the Librarians: it was too long ago, too far in time and space. Poor Darya. You don’t like what you are, do you? But you couldn’t run from it, couldn’t change it, and why would you want to? thought Deed. It wasn’t as though you were something banal-a wampyr, for instance. Something with penalties, whereas all the Sept had to deal with was an unreasonable amount of power. Who could possibly have a problem with that?
“Abbot General? Has something amused you?” Darya asked, and for a second there was a feral flash in her sea-coloured eyes.
“A great many things amuse me,” Deed told her. “But now, I need you to do something. A nice little trip to the Library.”
She was looking at him now. “The Library? But-”
“No one will know, Darya. You don’t have disir emblazoned all over your pass card. They don’t have magicians working on the front desk.” He smiled again. It wasn’t quite true, but she didn’t need to know that, and Deed was all about the need to know. “Typical Librarians. Always overstretched. No one will know who you are.” Or what.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to be charming, Darya, which shouldn’t be too difficult.” He smiled, winningly. “I want you to make an appointment with a gentleman named Jehan True. I’ve spoken to him in the guise of one of my other personas, a professor from the Spellmarkt, and mentioned my delightful young cousin, Mage Darya Nem, all the way from the Northern Quarter and keen to make a start on her postgraduate research. A young lady who is very eager to see certain elements of the Hidden Collection. I’ve said nothing about you being of the Court, don’t worry. Anyway, in the highly unlikely event that you were troubled by a surfeit of conscience, I am a professor and you are in many ways a student.”
Darya looked doubtful, but Deed knew this was due to caution, not inexperience. “You’ve done this before, Darya. And so well, too.” He pitched his voice lower, verging on the hypnotic, and though she was of disir blood she failed to notice it.
Darya nodded, once, as mechanically as a golem, and rose. He held the door open for her as she left and watched her recede down the hallway, her heels clicking on the old wooden floor.
Outside, the sun had gone behind a cloud. The city was once more grey and cold. The roses looked out of place, as though they had sprung before their season. Deed felt himself strip down with the day, his face becoming less human, closer to his ravening ancestry. He knew that if he looked in a mirror right now, the bones would be blade-sharp, the eyes behind the expensive rimless spectacles milky or night-dark, the shadow of the unhuman rippling beneath the skin. He preferred it this way: it was sometimes difficult to maintain the façade. But just in case, he took a breath and settled back into the human once more-a man still relatively young, snow-white undershirt, small starched ruff, black tunic, everything perfectly correct. The distinguished contributor to distinguished literary collections. The distinguished Abbot General of the Court. He liked that adjective. What could be more suitable?
It was time to make another attempt. Far away, he could feel the planets moving into alignment, Jupiter a great lamp in the heavens. The familiar aspects of the World Tree were briefly imposed on his vision, with himself surrounded by the sphere of Malkuth at the base of the tree. The Dead Road beckoned beyond the confines of the city of Worldsoul, beyond the Liminality itself. For a moment, the whole universe glittered around him, gloriously outlined. He glimpsed Earth, and Earth’s moon; the planets beyond in the realm to which Worldsoul adjoined, a dimly-seen neighbour, visible only in humanity’s dreams.
Deed raised a hand. The plain iron band on his index finger flashed. Deed stepped through the hole created in the air, leaving the opulence of his study behind.
Beyond, it was difficult to breathe. The Dead Road seemed even narrower than before, even more restricted. It wasn’t the only storyway, by no means the only way into the nevergone, but it was one of the most dangerous. Deed fought for breath, ramped up the entry spell but felt his features once more slip and slide. In the formal suit, his limbs thinned, sharpened, elongated, his clothes shifting with the change. The starched ruff bit into his throat like sharp little teeth. He tried to get a glimpse, at least, of what he sought but-as ever-it eluded him. Frantically, he parted the swirling vapours with his hands, catching snatches of vision-a white city beside an azure sea, a long reach of birch forest-but not a glimpse of the thing he was looking for, the thing he knew was finally within his reach.
Suddenly, amazingly, there it was: an immense pale-columned building, the Grecian roof slightly scorched with fire but still bearing the golden letters on its architrave. The Great Library, in sight at last, but in another time than his own. Deed opened his mouth to speak the first words of the spell-
But then the world woke up. It flung him backwards, the mist swirling up and filling his mouth so that he choked. He was hurled back onto the Persian carpet and it was fortunate, he thought a moment later, that the windows were indeed so thick, for the silence swallowed his roar of fury.