The Burning Page

Could it be sabotage? Could someone be attacking the Library? That was a dangerous line of questioning, and not one that she liked to consider.

Paranoia was self-fulfilling, she reminded herself. Mistakes, or even coincidental accidents, were more plausible here. But paranoia wouldn’t be banished quite so easily.

The door creaked open. ‘All done?’ Kai asked.

Irene nodded. ‘And nothing urgent otherwise. Book safely posted?’

‘On its way.’ Kai inspected the spare overcoats, pursing his lips. ‘Buying the cheapest second-hand goods is a false economy,’ he finally said.

‘I’m not thinking about that now,’ Irene said firmly, pulling on her overcoat. ‘I’m thinking of getting back to our lodgings and having a hot bath.’

‘You have a point.’ Kai swung his coat over his shoulders. ‘At your will, madam.’

Their exit back into Vale’s world, and out of the British Library, went unnoticed. It was verging on evening by now, and those people still in the British Library were more concerned with work or study than with watching passers-by. Irene was beginning to nurture hopes of a quiet evening without any further problems. Hot water first, of course, then a clean dress. Then perhaps dinner, or calling on Vale and seeing if he was available for dinner, and then—

Kai grabbed her arm, dragging her back to reality. ‘Who’s that?’ he hissed.

They had just left the British Library. A woman was standing on the far side of the road, watching the main doors. Everything about her was vastly inappropriate for the time and location. Her dark curls were twisted up into a knot and fell to brush her bare right shoulder. She wore a drape of thick black fur, which stretched from one wrist to the other, hanging in thick folds behind her. Beneath it a dress of black silk clung to her body and legs, so tight that it looked as if it had been sewn in place. The smoggy sunset light turned her skin an even darker gold than usual, and her eyes were as vivid as cut obsidian. She held a leash in her right hand, which restrained a black greyhound. As Irene and Kai paused, it lifted its head from sniffing at the ground and gave a little bark, as much as to say Here you are – I found them.

‘Zayanna,’ Irene said. If her voice was numb with surprise, she hoped that it passed for a controlled assessment of the situation. The other woman wasn’t actually an enemy. Well, probably not. She’d even been an ally of sorts, the last time they met. And she was Fae, but that was a different sort of problem.

The woman spread her arms in a delighted gesture. The greyhound yelped as the leash tugged at his neck, and she quickly lowered her right hand. She hurried across the road towards them, delicate on her high heels. ‘Irene! Darling! Have you any idea how difficult it’s been to find you?’

‘I didn’t realize you were looking for me,’ Irene said, her social circuits cutting in automatically. Ignoring Kai’s hiss of ‘Is that a Fae?’ she held out her hand in welcome. ‘If I’d known—’

‘Oh, there’s no way you could have known, darling,’ Zayanna said. Ignoring Irene’s hand, she embraced her, wrapping her arms around Irene and nestling her head against her shoulder. ‘I have to appeal to you for asylum, darling. You don’t mind, do you?’

CHAPTER FOUR

Irene was conscious that she had gone board-like and unresponsive in Zayanna’s embrace. One arm came up automatically and patted the other woman on the shoulder. ‘There, there,’ she said. She was aware that it lacked a certain something. ‘Perhaps we should discuss this off the main street?’

‘Perhaps not,’ Kai said dangerously. ‘Woman, get off Irene and stop trying to seduce her.’

Zayanna raised her head to look at Kai, and the dog growled, apparently echoing its mistress’ feelings. ‘This isn’t seduction. This is just—’

‘Throwing yourself on me in the middle of the street,’ Irene said, conscious of the number of people who were obviously watching, and the even larger number who were pretending not to watch, but were watching anyhow.

‘She’s so good with words,’ Zayanna confided to Kai. ‘And she’s so popular. You should keep her locked up, sweetheart. Actually, no, that’s not a good idea, because she can’t have daring adventures if you keep her locked up. But you know, it’s the thought that counts.’

‘The thought has crossed my mind on occasion,’ Kai muttered. ‘Irene, who is this woman, and is there anything that you would like me to do?’ The subtext of such as getting her off you came across very clearly.

We need to talk in private. But I’m not bringing her into my home. Even if I do owe her something for her non-interference in Venice. She’d needed all the help she could get when Kai was kidnapped. ‘Tea,’ Irene said quickly. ‘Restaurant. That is, we will go to a nearby restaurant and have tea, and Zayanna can tell us what the problem is.’

‘You’ve gone so terribly native,’ Zayanna said with a sigh, mercifully removing herself from around Irene’s neck. ‘I don’t suppose anywhere round here serves mezcal?’

‘I don’t know,’ Irene said. Vale would, but then Vale knew London forwards, backwards and upside down. And he could recite the London gangs from memory or identify a splash of mud with a single glance. ‘Why don’t we go and find out?’

Kai’s expression over Zayanna’s shoulder suggested a whole variety of reasons why they shouldn’t, but Irene didn’t feel like arguing.