The Burning Page

Fifteen minutes later they were sitting around a table in a tea-shop of dubious quality, whose back wall was lined with cobwebbed tin boxes of exotic teas, and whose lights were burning worryingly low. The fog had closed in outside. Zayanna’s dog was lying beside her chair, snuffling thoughtfully and watching all three of them with red-lit eyes.

‘You said that you wanted asylum,’ Irene said, coming to the point. Her tea smelt musty, with an undertone of metal. She would have preferred a better-quality tea-shop, but with the way the three of them were dressed, they would have been turned away at the door. ‘Could you give me a little more detail, please?’

Zayanna puffed at the surface of her cup of tea, blowing up a little cloud of steam. ‘Darling,’ she began. ‘You remember that I didn’t try to stop you from rescuing your friends on the train back from Venice?’

‘Vividly,’ Irene said. Something that had been nagging at the back of her mind clarified itself. ‘How did you know my name was Irene?’ As far as she could remember, she’d been using an alias all the time that she’d been with Zayanna. It was a little worrying to think how the other woman might have found out.

‘It was Sterrington,’ Zayanna said. ‘After you left the train, Atrox Ferox and I managed to have a word with her. She’d been told your real name by Lord and Lady Guantes. They were your arch-nemeses during that whole jaunt, after all. They’d also said you were a Librarian – working here, and everything. Darling, I was stunned! A real secret agent with me all that time, and I’d had no idea!’

‘I’m not a secret agent,’ Irene said, knowing that it wasn’t going to work. ‘I just collect books.’

‘Of course.’ Zayanna nodded solemnly. ‘Your secret is safe with me, darling.’

‘And with the whole of this tea-shop,’ Kai said. There was a stiffness to his posture that worried Irene. While she had managed to rescue him from what Zayanna so casually called a ‘jaunt’, for Kai it had been kidnapping, and imprisonment, and the threat of being sold to his kind’s worst enemies. He wasn’t sleeping well at night, he was too ready to throw himself into danger, and he thoroughly disliked talking about any of it. This sort of conversation would be rubbing salt into his wounds.

‘Oh, them.’ Zayanna shrugged. ‘They’re just people.’

Irene was lost for a moment, trying to work out whether that statement stemmed from sublime unconcern, a genuine lack of interest in ordinary humans, or a deliberate ploy to make her underestimate Zayanna. No, on the whole she thought it was simply Zayanna being Zayanna, and being Fae. To a Fae, the whole of humanity were fellow actors at best. They were the supporting cast or backstage sceneshifters the rest of the time. All Fae were convinced they were the heroes of their own stories. The dangerous thing was that in the more chaotic alternate worlds, the universe conspired to agree with them.

‘But are you a secret agent?’ Irene asked.

‘Not exactly, darling.’ Zayanna sipped at her tea. ‘Things went wrong, you see. After Venice, I had to report back to my patron. He said that even if Lord and Lady Guantes had totally messed up the dragon’s kidnapping, I shouldn’t have let all three of you get away like I did. He was really cutting about that.’ She shivered artistically.

It’s not as if you had that much chance of stopping us. Irene ignored Kai’s atmosphere of polar frost next to her and reached across to pat Zayanna’s hand. ‘I’m sorry you got into trouble,’ she said.

Zayanna looked down modestly, if the word ‘modest’ could ever be used in connection with her cleavage. ‘I knew you’d understand,’ she murmured. ‘So naturally, when I had to break ties with my patron, I thought of you.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Irene lied. She could think of quite a few things to say, but none of them would actually advance the conversation, even if they might make her feel better. ‘Zayanna, you do realize that I don’t actually . . .’ What was it that Zayanna had said she used to do for her previous boss? ‘. . . have any snakes that need looking after.’

‘We can get snakes, darling,’ Zayanna said reassuringly. ‘Do you prefer cobras or vipers? Or mambas?’

‘Can you collect books?’ Irene countered.

‘I’ve never tried,’ Zayanna said. ‘But there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?’

Irene was fairly sure there weren’t any Library regulations about Outsourcing Jobs to Fae, probably because the area was mostly covered by Don’t Associate with Fae in the First Place. But, she reassured her conscience, it would do for the moment, while she tried to find a better long-term solution. ‘Does Silver know you’re here?’ she asked.

Lord Silver was probably the most powerful Fae in London. He was the Liechtenstein Ambassador (Liechtenstein was a hotbed of Fae, in this particular alternate world) and a noted libertine and reprobate, regularly making the front pages of the more scandalous newspapers. He had also technically been an ally during the whole business of Kai’s kidnapping, helping Irene to reach the world where Kai was being held so that she could rescue him. Though that had only happened because Silver felt threatened by Kai’s kidnappers. He was another person whom Irene would like the earth to swallow up. But if he could take Zayanna off her hands, then she’d even send him flowers.

Zayanna pouted. ‘I’ve been trying to avoid Lord Silver, darling. I don’t really want to be indebted to him. I did think of asking him where you lived. But then I had a better idea, and I got this gorgeous little dog to help find you! I took him to your address and I’ve been tracking you since then. I think I’m going to call him Pettitoes.’ She drained her cup and put it down with a clink. ‘But I need to be serious too, darling. Someone out there wants to kill you.’