Free The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman

useful. It left her in a bad temper as she stalked through the rooms to the main Library portal.
    The Traverse to the Library opened from a minor storeroom, one that used to be an office, and luckily there were no visitors around to see her entering. It was the work of moments to lock the door behind her using the Language, and she hurried across to the Traverse door. It looked like a store cupboard, and to any other user it
would
be just a store cupboard. But it was permanently linked to a specific door in the Library, and Irene had the linguistic key.
    ‘Open to the Library,’ she said, and felt the connection form as her words rolled on the air. She pulled the door open and quickly stepped through.
    The heavy iron-barred door on the Library side clanged shut behind her. On the other side there were still posters hanging on rails around the door, proclaiming:
HIGH CHAOS INFESTATION, ENTRY BY PERMISSION ONLY
and
KEEP CALM AND STAY OUT
. Irene frowned at the
HIGH
on the first poster. Last time she’d been through this entrance, a few months back, it had only been standard chaos infestation.
    If this was tied to Kai’s disappearance … She hoped not.
    Someone had been using the room to stockpile other books, and beside the packed shelves there were stacks of yellow-backed paperbacks all over the floor. Irene had to pull in her skirts to avoid toppling the piles as she made her way to the exit.
    The closest computer room was a couple of doors along to her left. It was empty at the moment, so she threw herself down in the chair and logged on, dashing off a quick email to Coppelia: Kai vanished. Dubious circumstances. Request immediate meeting. Irene .
    The answer came within five minutes. She’d only just looked up
Dragons, negotiations with
, but hadn’t progressed much further. The message read: Rapid shift transfer authorized. First turning on left, three floors up, transfer word is Coherent. Coppelia.
    Irene logged off, hoisted her skirts to her knees and began to run. Rapid shifts called for high-energy expenditure and weren’t held open for long. The fact that Coppelia had seen fit to authorize one was disturbing in itself.
    Three flights of stairs later, the walls were covered with Art Deco wallpaper, making the shift-transfer cabinet blatantly obvious stylistically. Its door was heavy oak and looked very out of place between a couple of plaster statuettes of robed women. And it was just large enough for one person and a pile of books.
    She stepped inside and closed the door. There were no lights. There was no sound. There was only the smell of dust. She reached out to either side to brace herself against the walls.
    ‘Coherent,’ she said in the Language.
    The cabinet shook around her, like a dumb-waiter cupboard being yanked at high speed in several directions. She shut her eyes, concentrating on not throwing up.
    With a thump, the cabinet arrived. Irene took a moment to catch her breath, before pushing open the door and stepping out into the well-lit room beyond.
    It was Coppelia’s private study, familiar from many hours spent there as Coppelia’s personal student and assistant. The focus of the room was the large mahogany desk, which curved round in a wide U, allowing a full range of documents to be shuffled over its surface. The walls were full of bookshelves, naturally - but several Slavic ikons in heavy gold and wood hung from them here and there, breaking up the expanse. Irene noticed it was night outside, and the study lights blazed through the bow window, harshly lighting the snowscape beyond. The usual extra chairs had been removed from the room, meaning that Coppelia sat in the only chair, behind her desk.
    Standing before her, Irene wondered if she was meant to feel like a schoolgirl reporting to a teacher, or possibly a penitent reporting to an inquisitor. Whichever way, she suspected that she was meant to feel nervous.
    Coppelia herself looked almost as controlled as usual. A crimson coif