The Burning Page

It was rather sad that Irene’s first reaction was not so much shock as resignation. Then she wondered whether there was a queue, and if someone was selling tickets. After all, in less than a year she’d managed to seriously annoy a number of people – the local werewolves, several local secret societies, one of the two masterminds who’d plotted to kidnap Kai (she’d actually killed the other), the notorious traitor Librarian Alberich, and probably all sorts of other people she didn’t even know about. And Silver didn’t like her very much, either. ‘Who?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Zayanna leaned forward across the table, trying to capture Irene’s hand in hers. When Kai interposed his hand, she grabbed that instead. ‘Darling – darlings—’ Kai looked as if he was biting into raw garlic. ‘You must believe that I want to keep you safe. What would I do without you?’

That was another frequent problem with the Fae. They wanted fellow starring actors in their private melodramas, both friends and enemies. Irene had to figure out a way to disentangle herself from Zayanna – and fast – or she’d get swept into some improbable new narrative. ‘I believe you,’ she said. Mostly. ‘But if you can’t tell us who it is, or when they’re going to try . . .’

Zayanna sighed, and Kai took the opportunity to pull his hand away. ‘It’s just a whisper of a rumour, darling. I’ll try to find out more. But it’s getting late. You’ll be wanting to go out on highly sensitive missions and dance the tango, won’t you? Can I come?’

‘No,’ Irene said firmly. ‘I’m sorry. It’s top secret. Where can we get in touch with you tomorrow?’

Zayanna took the dismissal surprisingly well. ‘The Carlton hotel, darling. I’ll be waiting. But I’ll stay here for the moment. This place has such a charming ambience.’ She gestured around at the gloomy shelves and at the rafters with their hanging bare ether-bulbs, then down to her dog. ‘Don’t worry about me. Pettitoes will keep me safe.’

Kai waited till they were out on the street and a couple of hundred yards away before saying, ‘Should we kill her?’

‘Zayanna helped me rescue you,’ Irene muttered. It didn’t make it any easier that she was considering that option as well. But simple inconvenience was not a good enough motive for murder. Even if it looked like being a really, really large inconvenience.

‘Yes, but the woman is Fae,’ Kai answered. There was a brittle coldness in his eyes, and his gait had shifted from a casual stride to a much more dangerous and purposeful stalk.

Irene tried to think of some intelligent, logical, helpful statement that would convince him to stay calm. Nothing came to mind. What could she say to a dragon who’d been kidnapped by the Fae in order to start a war? Already-existing personal bias was being inflamed by post-traumatic shock, and he certainly wasn’t going to have any sudden epiphanies in the middle of the street. ‘But I say you won’t just remove her,’ she hissed, resorting to the fact that she was his superior, and knowing how temporary and stopgap an answer that was. ‘Understood?’

Kai blinked, and the inhuman light – had it been there for longer than a moment? – receded from his eyes. ‘Understood,’ he said, his voice dark and low in his throat.

I’m going to have to talk this through with him later. And if I can’t get him to see sense . . . Irene had a duty to her work in this world. She also had a duty of responsibility to Kai. Something twisted in her stomach at the thought that perhaps the best thing she could do for him would be to see him assigned to another Librarian. Or he could even be returned to his father’s court, to safety among the other dragons . . .

‘I’m not sure I trust her, either,’ she said. ‘We have no proof that she’s telling the truth. But I think it’s better to keep her under close watch for the moment, till we can establish what’s going on. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and all that sort of thing. Besides, if Zayanna is telling the truth, then we might be able to get useful information from her.’

‘It might just be simpler to wait and see who’s trying to kill us,’ Kai said.

Irene looked ahead down the street. In the foggy twilight, newspaper boards loomed on the street corners where vendors touted the evening papers, with barely visible capitalized headlines glaring at her like secret messages. BETRAYAL. MURDER. WAR. ‘True,’ she agreed. ‘But they might get lucky.’

‘Disguise someone as us, and then watch them from a distance?’ Kai suggested.

‘Mm. No, not really.’ A fuzzy memory of management training nagged at Irene. ‘It’s not that I’m trying to shoot down all your ideas,’ she added. ‘It’s more that I don’t see how we could manage it, without the preparation being noticed. It may also be a question of how long they’ve been planning to kill us. We’ve been out of London for a couple of weeks now. Though in that case . . .’

‘Yes?’ Kai prompted when she trailed off.

‘Well, unless the person who wants to kill us is getting information from the Library, or from Vale – both of which are very unlikely – then they couldn’t have known we’d be out of London for the last two weeks. They may have been sitting around chewing their fingernails and wondering where we’ve got to.’

They conversed quietly as they walked down the foggy street – just another pair of Londoners in heavy overcoats, with scarves wound round their faces against the evening mist and pollution. It would have been difficult to be more anonymous. Irene could glance down the street and see other pairs and groups of people strolling together, their heads close as they murmured to each other. Conspirators? Families? Friends? Apocalyptic plotters? How could anyone know?