The Masked City (The Invisible Library #2)(79)
Irene smiled back. ‘We make a good team.’ It was unusual enough to have him actually compliment her, rather than simply accept her proficiency. But she didn’t want to get too emotional and embarrass him.
‘We do,’ Vale agreed. He turned to the ironwork bridge and started to walk across. It was wide enough for two to walk abreast. Fortunately there were rails on either side, but even so it was a worryingly fragile construction - no, Irene corrected herself mentally, it was solid enough. It just seemed flimsy when compared to the sheer scale of everything around her.
Vale halted again once they stepped off the bridge onto the stone paving beyond, looking around thoughtfully. ‘The area to be searched is unfeasibly large. However, the guards escorting Strongrock must have passed this way within the last couple of days. If we can find their traces—’
‘Actually, I have another idea,’ Irene said. ‘I tried it below in Venice, but there was too much ambient chaos interfering with it. Since this area is supposed to be a prison for Fae, it may work better here. Give me a moment, please.’
Vale nodded and stepped back to watch.
She extracted Kai’s uncle’s pendant, then looped it a couple of times round her right wrist to make sure that she didn’t drop it - wincing as the chain tugged on the fresh bruises left by Lord Guantes. It was a draconic thing. And there was - or at least, there should be - only one dragon in the area.
Irene raised her hand so that the pendant was dangling in front of her face. ‘Like calls to like,’ she said clearly in the Language. ‘Point to the dragon who is the nephew of the dragon who owns you.’
The pendant trembled, then swung out at an angle, pointing in a direction about forty-five degrees from where they were facing. Poised there, it tugged at her wrist.
‘There,’ she said, and tried not to go weak at the knees with relief. Or possibly exhaustion. This time it had worked. Focusing the pendant had drained her, and it was still draining her, like blood trickling from a small cut. ‘I think we have it.’
‘Well done, Winters!’ Vale exclaimed. ‘Will it last for long?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Irene had to confess. ‘But I can do it again, if we need to triangulate.’
Vale nodded. ‘In that case, let us hope it’s not too far away.’
Their footsteps echoed on the stone as they set off into the vast emptiness. It was as if they were walking across some vast stage set, with an unseen audience watching from the wings.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
They had been walking for at least half an hour before they heard any noise other than their own footsteps.
The pendant was holding up nicely, tugging at Irene’s wrist like a dowsing pendulum, although it somewhat inconveniently pointed in a general direction, as the crow flies, rather than changing its bearing at each crossroads or staircase.
The whole place had the quality of what Irene could only describe as deadness - the sort of deadness that had never been alive. Even where timber or rope was used amid the cold granite and marble, it had a fossilized, unyielding appearance rather than showing any signs of organic life. The enclosed lakes of water that they passed were clear and dark. Nothing swam in them, nothing moved and nothing disturbed the water. Nothing lived in that water.
She had no background in archaeology or architecture to make sense of the stonework. A few times Vale had pointed at a lion statue, or at the curve of an arch, and muttered something about ‘Babylonian influence’ or ‘characteristic Saxon work’, but she hadn’t been able to do more than nod. She wasn’t even sure that categorizing the buildings would indicate any real history to this place. That would imply that real people had lived here, once upon a time.
There were no helpful footprints on the road either, and no dirt or dust marks - there wasn’t even any dust. Vale had muttered about that as well, before relegating it to ‘the general impossibility of the place’.
The only good thing was that the ache in her Library brand, triggered by Venice’s high-chaos environment, had subsided. It had reached the point where Irene had almost stopped noticing its presence, but she did notice its absence. It made a degree of sense. If this place was a prison for Fae, then it should weaken them rather than empower them.
They were passing underneath a high bastion when they heard the first sound. It was a deep, penetrating whisper from the other side of the bastion wall. It echoed amongst the stones and set off an answering ripple from the still canal beside them. It was almost … almost comprehensible, in a way that made Irene want to stop and listen, to try and make out what was being said.
She turned, and saw the same urge in Vale’s eyes.
She grasped his arm and pulled him on, away from the ebbing whisper, until only their footsteps broke the silence once more. The whisper still tempted her to look back and linger, as if she’d forgotten something important, something that she should really go back and see to.
But the pendant still led them forward. They travelled up a vast flight of stairs, over another soaring bridge, then through a sequence of angled flights of stairs, which always went to the left, but somehow didn’t result in them doubling back on themselves. As far as she could tell, anyway.
Then a scream broke the silence. It came from a vast metal sphere - no, a spherical metal cage - which dangled over empty space. It hung from a set of cables and chains that rose to a ceiling almost out of sight above them. The noise was shocking and sudden, like an owl’s screech in the middle of a peaceful night. It was also just as inhuman, just as animal. Whatever was in that cage, Irene did not want it to get out.