The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library, #1)

by Genevieve Cogman

one of the Library’s mottos was borrowed directly from the great military thinker Clausewitz: no strategy ever survived contact with the enemy. Or, in the vernacular, Things Will Go Wrong. Be Prepared.

There was nothing wrong with being curious about how a story turned out, after all. She was a Librarian. It went with the job. And she didn’t want great secrets of necromancy, or any other sort of magic. She just wanted—had always wanted—a good book to read.

That was the whole point of the Library—as far as she’d been taught, anyway. It wasn’t about a higher mission to save worlds. It was about finding unique works of fiction and saving them in a place out of time and space. Perhaps some people might think that was a petty way to spend eternity, but Irene was happy with her choice. Anyone who really loved a good story would understand.

The problem with an evolving language that could be used to express things precisely was that, well, it evolved.

Handling him? What was he, an unexploded bomb?

There were three basic reasons why Librarians were sent out to alternates to find specific books: because the book was important to a senior Librarian, because the book would have an effect on the Language, or because the book was specific and unique to that alternate world.

the Library’s ownership of it would reinforce the Library’s links to the world from which the book originated.

The question of why some books were unique and occurred only in specific worlds was one of the great imponderables,

Chaos made worlds act unreasonably.

It created things that worked by irrational laws. It infected worlds and it broke down natural principles. It wasn’t good for any world it entered, and it wasn’t good for the humanity in that world.

Unfortunate when it occurred once or twice, but a nasty pattern when it recurred.

“I take it that you are going to be stupid, then.”

“You may take it as you wish,” Irene said. “But I am not giving you my mission, and I am not giving you my student, and if I were the sort of person who kept pet rats, I would not give you my rat. Clear?”

CHAOS INFESTATION, ENTRY BY PERMISSION ONLY, KEEP CALM AND STAY OUT AND THIS MEANS YOU.

So much for Kai’s potential streetwise criminality and any ability to take hints.

“Please go on. Tell us about this cat burglar.”

You remember the stages of infestation? Affective, intuitive, assumptive, and conglomerative?”

the theory suggests it’s being warped, and it would then reach the stage where things tend to fall into narrative patterns. So instead of natural order prevailing, events start taking on the kind of rhythm or logic you might find in fiction or fairy tales.

just be grateful that corsets aren’t required wear any longer.”

“Why should I be grateful?” Kai asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Because you don’t have to deal with me while I’m wearing one,...

this man was an arrogant, insulting, offensive boor, and if she could, she would personally make him run a marathon ahead of an oncoming locomotive.

And now this. Alberich was a figure out of nightmare. He was the one Librarian who’d betrayed the Library and got away with it and was still somewhere out there. His true name was long since lost, and only his chosen name as a Librarian was remembered. He’d sold out to chaos. He’d betrayed the other Librarians who’d been working with him. And he was still alive. Somehow, in spite of age and time and the course of years that would afflict any Librarian who lived outside the Library, he was still alive.

And possibly,

lamp, pigs would fly—which would at least mean bacon for breakfast.

“How?” Irene enquired. She’d decided a while back that Socratic questioning was a good idea, because (a) it got students thinking for themselves, (b) sometimes they came up with ideas she hadn’t thought of, and (c) it gave her more time to think while they were trying to find answers.

“Allow me to inform you that I am an exquisite bed partner,” Irene said, a little sniffily. “I have travelled through hundreds of alternates and sampled partners from many different cultures. If I took you to bed, you certainly wouldn’t be complaining.”

He didn’t snore. Kai breathed gently and regularly, like an

advertisement for particularly comfortable pillows.

Habits were dangerous; they could get you killed.

Paranoia was one of the few habits that was worth keeping.

Memories were as important as books and almost as important as proper indexing.

It was a complete human skin, all in one piece, with a single slit down the front from chin to groin. It was Dominic Aubrey’s skin.

she could make out a room that had been forced into ruthless order by someone who believed in making large piles of things. Books. Documents. Clothing. Glassware.

“To serve the Library, I would work with murderers, or thieves, or revolutionaries, or traitors, or anyone who will give me what I need. Do you understand me, Kai? This is important.”

“I am sealed to the Library. I can make my own choices to some extent—but at the end of the day, bringing back the book the Library wants is my duty and my honour, and that is all there is to it.”

“Have you ever been forced to choose between the Library and your h...

Irene said, “the Library is my honour. And if you seal yourself to it, th...

If they could de-weaponize all the alligators, then they’d have . . . well, they’d have a mob of normal alligators. Which wasn’t much, but it would be something.

“this is my friend Bradamant; I had no idea that she would be at this party, but of course I am delighted to see her.” And I hope she falls over and plants her face in a dish of salmon roe.

Only imminent death would force her to play with dangerous, untested, theoretical techniques; otherwise, maybe she’d have thought of this earlier.

Her life was far too full of learning experiences.

A river spirit might have changed himself to water to save them, and a nature spirit of some other type might have cajoled or persuaded the river to help them, but only one sort of being would give orders to a river. Kai was a dragon. What the hell was she supposed to do about that?

“I may be suspicious,” Vale said, “but I hope that I am not stupid.

workman doing some alterations on the panelling in Wyndham’s study. They can confirm that was where he was spending his time daily. He sent a final delivery to Wyndham three days before Wyndham’s murder and didn’t visit again after that.”

its in the walls

“Apparently Lord Wyndham did regularly donate books to various museums around London.

Irene twitched at the very notion. Give books away

they all had eyebrows that met in the middle.

An idea was forming, an idea that she mentally flinched from, but one that answered a lot of questions. Stealing someone’s skin and identity was covered in obscure folklore treatises, but it wasn’t something that she ever expected to be real. She didn’t want it to be real.

She didn’t like making headlines. A good Librarian was supposed to read headlines, not make them.