A wheelchair rolled into the shadow of the great entrance hall of the British Library. A frail old man sat in it with a tartan travel rug swaddling his legs and another wrapped around his shoulders. A tall young man pushed the chair. The younger man wore a cap pulled down to his eyebrows, an old fashioned pea coat, and a scarf pulled up over his mouth and nose to keep the bitter cold at bay.

That’s how it looked to the bored security guard who watched them negotiate the doors and the barriers and the bag check. If he’d looked a little closer he might have noticed that the frail old man’s face looked a little rubbery and unnatural or that the young man was showing so little face that he might not be a man at all.

But the security guard didn’t notice and so he didn’t follow the two inside and thus was spared the sight of Number Seven removing the old man mask and stripping off the overcoat as Sorrow parked the wheelchair in a corner.

#

Number Seven had known that the British Library was like a giant papery iceberg with only 10% of its collection on the public shelves at any time, though he couldn’t remember where that fact came from, as Sorrow led him to an unlabelled door at the back of the main floor and swiped her Department Y ID across the card reader, he realised that he’d never really thought about where the other 90% was.

The door opened with a gentle click. Beyond was a corridor painted institutional beige. They passed through the door and suddenly the building felt alive. Seven followed Sorrow down the corridor to a lift with a card reader in place of a call button. The lift stood open, waiting.

'Is someone expecting us?' said Seven.

'She’s either been expecting us all day or she saw us come in on the CCTV and she’s been running round like a blue arsed fly trying to make it look like she’s been expecting us,' said Sorrow.

Inside the lift there was another card reader and a selection of buttons bearing negative numbers. He watched Sorrow wave her card at the reader and push the button marked -7 Secret History.

'Can’t be very secret if it’s on the lift button,' said Seven.

'It’s not like that. It’s where the Historian of Secrets works,' said Sorrow as the doors closed.

'I thought you said we were going to see a witch?' said Seven.

'We are. Witch isn’t a job title. You can’t get paid for it. It’s more like a vocation. Like how I’m a Raven but my job title is Monster and you’re a tart but your job title is spy.' The doors opened and Sorrow was out of the lift before Seven could argue. Not that there was much to argue about.

'Intelligence officer,' he said as he caught up with her.

'Which is just a long-winded, mealy mouthed, please-don’t-shoot-me-for-spying, way of saying that you’re a spy,' said Sorrow and she stopped dead.

She’d stopped in front of a door in the side of the corridor. Every other door they’d seen since they left the main floor had been identical: plain brown, extremely heavy and fire-proof. This one had been personalised.

There was a sign at eye height that said, C.T. Darke. Below that in smaller letters it said, Secret Historian. In the middle of the door was a magnetic white board with ‘Cutty is…' written at the top in gothic script. The rest of the board was full of letter magnets spelling out the words ‘reading’, ‘grumpy’, ‘sore’, and at the very bottom ‘expecting you, Officer Dee’.

'Yeah, she’s been expecting us. She’s not quick enough on her feet to have pulled all this off while we’ve been in the building,' said Sorrow.

Sorrow pushed the door open without knocking.

'Where’s your fucking manners?' said a Scottish voice from within.

'The door says it’s expecting us,' said Sorrow with her head round the door.

'I’ve been expecting you since the balloon went up yesterday. I was starting to worry.'

Seven followed Sorrow inside and found a room so full of books and file folders that it looked like a cupboard with a desk in it. The desk was battered and elderly and too big for the proportions of the room. The too-big desk held two huge piles of familiar manila folders, all stamped ‘TOP SECRET’. Between the piles was a laptop and a yPhone on a stand. Behind the laptop was a woman reading from one of the folders.

She should have been forgettable; fat, medium height and dark hair pulled into a ruthlessly disciplined bun; but she fixed him with intelligent blue-grey eyes and gave him a glare over the top of her glasses that made him glad he wasn’t wearing anything flammable.

'So how fucked are we?' said Sorrow.

'Only moderately more fucked than you were yesterday morning. Officially you’re on the wanted list and he’s having a psychotic break.' She inclined her head towards Seven. 'Unofficially you’ve got the Department’s backing. Someone even managed to lose your contingency file. SIS are doing their collective nut about that. Sit your arses down. You’re going to be here a while.'

There were two chairs in front of the desk. Seven had seen them when he came in but assumed that they’d each be blocked by a pile of books. He could see where she’d moved the books. Two piles of dusty tomes sat on top of much less dusty folders. More of those familiar ‘TOP SECRET’ folders. She really had been expecting them.

'This is Cutty, the Historian of Secrets,' said Sorrow as Seven looked round the room, distracted by just how many of those folders there were.

Seven turned back to face the woman, ready to introduce himself, but she interrupted him.

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'Enjoying your handiwork?' said Cutty.

Excuse me?' said Seven.

'The folders,' Cutty gestured at the many piles of them.

'I don’t…'

'These are all yours. This isn’t even all of them. This is just the stuff that isn’t digitised. And I have to read the lot of it.' She had her head tilted to one side as she looked at him and her face was half mock-angry and half curious.

'I’m sorry,' was all he could think to say. There were a lot of things in those folders that no-one should have to read. Operation Bombastic Codename was just the latest horrible mess. He looked around the room again. There had been a lot of horrible messes but surely not this many. Surely the files couldn’t all be his? 'Really? All of these?' he said aloud.

Cutty stared at him, mouth twisted and forehead creased like a comedia del arte mask. Her gaze flicked to Sorrow. 'I’m going to have to tell him, aren’t I? That’s why you brought him to me.'

'That’s not why we’re here. We need to ask about the Ravens.'

'You are asking me? You’re the expert.'

'No. I’m the Raven. It doesn’t mean I know anything about how it works. I don’t even know if I’m the only one right now.'

'You do know that any woman can manifest the Morrigan?' said Cutty. She was focused on Sorrow but she kept glancing back at Seven.

'What about the wings?' said Seven. 'What does it take to get the wings?'

'Let me look this up.' Cutty pushed her chair back and staggered to her feet. She limped over to a bookcase filled with leather-bound books. The book she wanted was near the top, almost out of her reach, but she grabbed it after a short struggle.

Seven looked around the room again. Now that he knew to look for them he spotted several walking sticks in an umbrella stand by the door. There was also a sword cane in a dusty old display case on one of the shelves behind Cutty’s chair. He hadn’t seen it before because Cutty had been sitting in front of it. It clearly hadn’t been used in a while but it must have been something special once. A tarnished brass plate below the blade called it Gottestöter. German for God slayer.

'Combat injury?' said Seven as Cutty limped back to her chair.

'No. I just went to a really rough school.' She sat down and swung her feet up to rest on a corner of the desk that she obviously kept clear just for that.

She opened the book. With the spine turned towards Seven he could see, but not read, the title. From the cruel and unusual use of consonants and the plethora of vowels he guessed that the book was in one of the Celtic languages but he couldn’t tell which. Cutty riffled through the book glancing at a few pages and then closed it and put it down on top of a pile of folders.

'Not just anyone can get the wings. To get them you need to be one of the Ravens. That means making a long term bargain with the Morrigan. It means making a very similar deal to the one you made. There doesn’t seem to be a limit on numbers. In the past there have been dozens at a time,' said Cutty.

'That was looking it up?' said Seven.

'I didn’t get this job because of my winning personality. I got it because I can remember everything I’ve ever read and most things that I’m going to read,' said Cutty.

'You can remember things that haven’t happened yet?' said Seven.

'No. I can remember things I haven’t read yet. They need to be written down before I can remember reading about them. It’s not hugely useful in the field but it’s the reason I’m already the world’s greatest expert on you even though I’ve only read a fraction of the files.'

'Never agree to play Trivial Pursuit against her,' said Sorrow.

'How high is your security clearance?' said Seven.

'It must be at least as high as yours or they wouldn’t let me have your files.'

It was against his instincts to talk to a stranger but Sorrow seemed to trust this woman. 'The killer has to be an insider,' he said. 'They must be either SIS or Department Y. They must also be a Raven. We need to narrow down the suspect list.'

'Why are you so sure it’s a Raven?' said Cutty.

'The feathers. They were found at every scene and they’re identical to Sorrow’s but I know she didn’t leave them.'

'But my wings are invisible,' said Sorrow.

'The feathers become visible the moment they’re plucked,' said Seven.

'You plucked one of my feathers without asking?' Sorrow’s voice sounded strangled by rage. 'You had it tested? Didn’t you, you prick. That’s why SIS think it was me.'

'That might have happened,' said Seven.

'Why?' said Cutty.

'Who gives a fuck why…' Sorrow clearly intended to say more but Cutty interrupted her.

'I do.' Cutty’s voice was sharp enough to cut through Sorrow’s. Cutty looked back to Seven and carried on speaking without waiting to see if Sorrow would yield to her. 'Why?'

'I started wondering if the feathers in our bed came from her,' said Seven.

'Yes!' Cutty yanked her feet off the corner of the desk and leant forward, eyes on Sorrow. 'You’re shedding.'

'I’m what now?' said Sorrow.

'You’re shedding feathers. It’s in the book. It’s what happens when Ravens battle. The gifts of the Goddess can’t be split. The other Raven is shedding too and it will keep happening until you lose the gift of flight, then the other gifts will fade until you’re both fully mortal. The process only stops when one of you yields or dies.'

'Mortality never stopped me before,' said Sorrow.

Cutty looked thoughtful. 'I think she’s trying to frame you.'

'With the feathers?' said Sorrow.

'With everything,' said Cutty, the words beginning to tumble out of her mouth as if she was speaking faster than she could think. 'She set you up from the beginning. That’s why the blood pentagrams. That’s why she waited for Number One to wake up. So it would be obvious that the killer was more than human. She must know that the Department has a Raven and she knew that SIS would rather blame us for an inside job than look at their own people.'

Seven stared at Cutty in horror, no longer hearing her words, barely aware of his surroundings. It all made a terrible sense. Why hadn’t he seen it before?

'What?' said Cutty, startled by the sudden change in his expression.

'Number Four,' said Seven.

'Really?' said Sorrow.

'The feathers in her bed weren’t a threat or a calling card. She’s shedding too. She didn’t find the grenade; she planted it. She hit Number Two with the dart while I was shooting out the window. She was alone with Number Three for nearly four minutes while I was with Six. He was a wreck. She had plenty of time to open the window and a couple of arteries and let the birds do the rest. She poisoned Five’s drink. She could have done it right in front of his face. It’s one of the first things I taught her to do. She knew the poison would take time to kill him. She’s just waiting for him to die so she can kill Six.'

'But now they’re both in Avalon,' said Sorrow.

'We have to go after them,' said Seven.

'No!' said Cutty.

'Try and stop me.' Seven stood up.

'I mean not yet.' Cutty's voice was softer. 'There’s something you need to know first.'