Page 87 of Babel

Only when they reached the front steps, when the lights from inside the tower shone against their faces, did he realize it was Ramy and Victoire.

Robin sat frozen at his desk, unsure what to do. They were here on Hermes business. They had to be. Nothing else explained the attire; the furtive glances; the late night trip to the tower when Robin knew they had no business being there, because he’d seen them finish their papers for Professor Craft’s seminar on the floor of Ramy’s room just several hours before.

Had Griffin recruited them? Certainly, that was it, Robin thought ruefully. He’d given up on Robin, so he’d gone for the others in his cohort instead.

Of course he wouldn’t report them – that was not in question. But should he help them? No, perhaps not – the tower was not wholly empty; there were researchers still on the eighth floor, and if he startled Ramy and Victoire, he might attract unwanted attention. The only choice seemed to be to do nothing. If he pretended never to notice, and if they succeeded in whatever it was they wanted, then the fragile equilibrium of their lives at Babel would not be disturbed. Then they could maintain the thin veneer of deniability Robin had lived with for years. Reality was, after all, just so malleable – facts could be forgotten, truths suppressed, lives seen from only one angle like a trick prism, if only one resolved never to look too closely.

Ramy and Victoire slipped through the door and up the stairs. Robin trained his eyes on his translation, trying not to strain his ear for any hint of what they might be doing. Ten minutes later, he heard descending footsteps. They’d got what they’d come for. Soon they’d be back out the door. Then the moment would pass, and the calm would resume, and Robin could consign this to the back of his mind with all the other unpleasant truths he hadn’t the will to untangle—

A shrieking, inhuman wail pierced the tower. He heard a great crash, then a bout of cursing. He jumped up and dashed out of the lobby.

Ramy and Victoire were trapped just outside the front door, ensnared in a web of glistening silvery string that doubled and multiplied before his eyes, new strands lashing around their wrists, waists, ankles, and throats with every passing second. A smattering of items lay scattered at their feet – six silver bars, two old books, one engraving stylus. Items Babel scholars regularly took home at the end of the day.

Except, it appeared, Professor Playfair had successfully changed the wards. He’d achieved even more than Robin had feared – he’d altered them to detect not only which people and things were passing through, but whether their purposes were legitimate.

‘Birdie,’ gasped Ramy. Silver webs tightened around his neck; his eyes bulged. ‘Help—’

‘Hold still.’ Robin yanked at the strands. They were sticky but pliable, breakable; impossible to escape alone but not without help. He freed Ramy’s neck and hands first, then together they pulled Victoire out of the web, though Robin’s legs became entangled in the process. The web, it seemed, gave only if it could take. But its vicious lashing had ceased; whatever match-pair triggered the alarm seemed to have calmed. Ramy pulled his ankles free and stepped back. For a moment they all regarded each other under the moonlight, baffled.

‘You too?’ Victoire finally asked.

‘Looks like it,’ said Robin. ‘Did Griffin send you?’

‘Griffin?’ Victoire looked bewildered. ‘No, Anthony—’

‘Anthony Ribben?’

‘Of course,’ said Ramy. ‘Who else?’

‘But he’s dead—’

‘This can wait,’ Victoire interrupted. ‘Listen, the sirens—’

‘Damn it,’ said Ramy. ‘Robin, lean this way—’

‘There’s no time,’ said Robin. He couldn’t move his legs. The strings had ceased multiplying – perhaps because Robin was not the thief – but the web was now impossibly dense, stretching across the entire front entrance, and if Ramy came any closer, he feared, they’d both be trapped. ‘Leave me.’

They both began to protest. He shook his head. ‘It has to be me. I haven’t conspired, I have no idea what’s going on—’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Ramy demanded. ‘We’re—’

‘It’s not obvious, so don’t tell me,’ Robin hissed. The siren’s wailing was endless; soon the police would be at the green. ‘Say nothing. I know nothing, and when they question me, that’s what I’ll say. Just hurry and go, please, I’ll think of something.’

‘You’re sure—’ Victoire began.

‘Go,’ Robin insisted.

Ramy opened his mouth, closed it, then bent down to scoop up the stolen materials. Victoire followed suit. They left just two bars behind – clever, Robin thought, for that was some evidence that Robin had been working alone, that he had no accomplices who’d disappeared with all the contraband. Then they dashed down the steps, across the green and into the alley.

‘Who’s there?’ someone shouted. Robin saw lamps bobbing at the other end of the quadrangle. He twisted his head and squinted towards Broad Street, trying and failing to glimpse any trace of his friends. They’d got away, it had worked, the police were coming only for the tower. Only for him.

He took a shaky breath, then turned to face the light.

Angry shouts, bright lamps in his face, firm hands on his arms. Robin hardly processed what happened over the next several minutes; he was aware only of his vague, incoherent rambles, a cacophony of policemen yelling different orders and questions in his ear. He tried piecing together an excuse, some story about seeing thieves caught in the webbing, and how they’d snagged him when he went to stop them, but that was incoherent upon utterance, and the police only laughed. Eventually they prised him free of the web and led him back into the tower to a small, windowless room in the lobby, empty save for a single chair. The door had a small grate at eye level covered by a sliding flap; it resembled a jail cell more than a reading room. He wondered if he was not the first Hermes operative to be detained here. He wondered if the faint brown splotch in the corner might be dried blood.

‘You’ll stay here,’ said the constable in charge as he cuffed Robin’s hands behind his back. ‘Till the professor arrives.’

They locked the door and left. They had not said which professor, or when they would return. Not knowing was torture. Robin sat and waited, knees jangling, arms shuddering miserably from waves and waves of nauseating adrenaline.