Unsurprisingly, the biggest pseudo-Degas hid the safe.
She swung the painting back and examined the heavy iron door. Combination lock. Well, she could always talk it open, but . . .
She heard quick approaching footsteps on the main stairs. It must be a man; a woman wouldn’t stride like that, not in these skirts. But there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the house! Perhaps another burglar? What marvellous timing.
She quickly concealed the safe and retreated behind one of the thick curtains. She needn’t fear discovery within its folds. Merely suffocation.
The door swung open with a heavy creak. Clearly the intruder wasn’t bothering with caution. She waited until she heard the sound of the painting swinging back before she carefully peered round the edge of the curtain.
The man had his back to her. He was of above-average height, with well-squared shoulders and a slender waist. His pale hair, a shade somewhere between silver and lavender, was gathered back in a short tail that fell neatly against his perfectly fitted jacket. His trousers were just as well cut, moulded elegantly to his body. It was perfect formal visiting gear. If your host hadn’t been murdered. His top hat was tilted insouciantly to one side, and he was wearing pale grey kid gloves.
He reached out a hand to delicately brush the wheel handle of the safe, then snatched his fingers back with an angry hiss. A thin scent of burning flesh hung in the air, even through his gloves.
Irene let the curtain fall back into place and considered. Clearly there was more to Lord Wyndham’s alliance with the Fair Folk than met the eye, if he’d made sure that his safe was made of cold iron, so proof against Fae. This supported the newspaper’s whole “diabolical intrigue” theory, and it rather fitted what she knew about the Fae. They liked complicated relationships. It didn’t matter if they were loved or hated, as long as the other person had strong feelings towards them. Strong enough, for instance, to install a completely Fae-proof safe. And if she’d been able to choose her options a few hours ago, being trapped in a dead vampire’s private study with an angry Fae would not have been one of them.
Then, more alarmingly, she heard him sniff. It wasn’t the phlegmatic nose clearing of a cold; it was a hungry sniff, a tasting of the air.
“Ohhhh.” His voice hung on the air like incense. “Come out, come out, little mouse. Or shall I come looking for you?”
Irene took a deep breath, set her face to an expression of polite unconcern, and moved the curtain back. “The Liechtenstein ambassador, I presume?” she guessed.
His face was as pretty as his body had suggested, but his eyes were slitted like a cat’s and pure gold. “Why,” he said, tone as smooth as honey, “you are quite correct. But what sort of little mouse hides behind the curtains? Are you a blackmailer, little mouse? A spy? A detective? A little rat in the arras, just waiting to be stabbed?”
She seized the opportunity to present her cover story.
“I’m a journalist here to investigate Lord Wyndham’s murder, sir. I was hoping to interview you. I hadn’t dared hope to catch up with you so soon. If I could ask you for your views on the situation . . .”
He glided a step towards her. “What paper do you represent?”
“The Times,” she said. There was a Times in practically every single alternate she’d ever visited.
“And how did you know that I’d come here, pretty little mouse?” There was something very predatory about his face now.
“Well, of course, I had no idea,” she rattled off hastily, reaching into her reticule. “It was a total surprise to meet you here, sir. But I suppose it’s not surprising that on hearing of his death, you naturally hurried to his domicile, with the intention of expressing your condolences to his—”
His hand caught her wrist. “No guns, little mouse. I don’t think we want the police coming. No, this is all going to be very nice and quiet, and you’re going to tell me exactly what’s going on . . .”
She could lie to him. She could try to resist him. Or she could simply get that cool, elegant, well-gloved, slender hand off her wrist. “Take your hands off me, sir,” she said, anger sliding into her voice. “Or you will regret it.”
He paused. “You’re very self-assured,” he said, and for the first time there was a fraction of something other than malice or purring self-satisfaction in his voice. Perhaps an edge of uncertainty. “I wonder. Are you perhaps a little more than you look?”
“Aren’t we all?” Irene answered.
“And is there someone backing you?”
“Someone you don’t want to antagonize,” she said. She’d got the measure of his suspicion now. She’d met only lesser Fair Folk before, but they practically defined “so devious that they’d fall over if they tried to walk in a straight line.” This one was thinking in terms of conspiracies and agents. She could play that game just as well as anyone else. “But I can’t give names. Not even to an ambassador. But what I can perhaps give is a degree of cooperation.”
He released her wrist and raised a delicate eyebrow. “You intrigue me.”
She understood that sort of language. She was getting the message that he might find her useful loud and clear—and intrigue had nothing to do with it. Instead, she nodded towards the safe. “Perhaps we are both looking for the same thing, sir.”
He nodded once, sharply. “Perhaps we are. Well? Open it.”
“Do you have the combination, sir?”
He rattled off a list of numbers as she worked at the safe’s combination mechanism. So it was just the iron that had kept him out. She wondered what he’d have done if she hadn’t been here—perhaps enchanted or coerced some passerby off the street, or brought a human agent here later.
His gloved fingers brushed the back of her neck, and she shivered. He needs you for the moment; he won’t try anything until he’s got what he’s looking for; the best way to deal with him is to give him something more interesting to pounce on . . .
“Open it,” he purred from far too close behind her.
Irene swung the safe door open and put some distance between herself and the Fae, physically feeling his focus shift from her to the safe’s contents.
Several stacks of papers lay tidily in the large iron cavity. On top of them was a small piece of card, embossed with a golden mask, signed with the name Belphegor.
The Fae hissed. His hands clenched, and Irene heard his kid gloves rip. He turned towards her, his face furious.
Saying Don’t blame me or It wasn’t my fault would just have been signalling that she was a victim. As calmly as she could manage, and wishing for a few more feet of distance between them—actually, make that a few yards, or even a few miles—she said, “This makes no sense. If Belphegor stole the book and wanted to advertise the fact, why leave her card here inside the safe and not out on the desk?”
He blinked once and seemed to take a step back mentally. “Indeed,” he said, pacing the room. “It’s the book that’s important here. Keep talking, little mouse. Tell me what you know, what you see here. Tell me what you know about the book. Explain it to me. Make yourself worthwhile to me.”
“There were two factions,” Irene guessed. It was as good a theory as any. It might even be true. She needed more data. The ambassador seemed to be looking for the book as well, so why not others? Perhaps she could use that. “And Belphegor wasn’t necessarily after the book. She could have been after something Lord Wyndham kept in his safe. So what if the person or people who stole the book and who killed Lord Wyndham were entirely different? If they were waiting here in the study while he was hosting the party downstairs.” She walked over to look at the glass display-case where the book had been. “I can’t tell whether they would have taken the book first and then killed him, or vice versa.” Well, of course she couldn’t tell; she was deducing all this on the spot or, to be more accurate, guessing wildly.
“But we know they b
eheaded him on the desk. Then they went out through the house and left his head on the railings outside the front door.”
“Why not out through the window?” he interrupted.
“It wouldn’t open.” She’d glanced down at the catch while hiding in the window embrasure. It had been soldered closed. “It must have been one of Lord Wyndham’s precautions. Besides, there was a party going on. It would have been simple enough to walk through the house and out through the front door if they’d concealed the head and if they looked enough like guests or servants.”
“Mm.” He turned and pointed a finger at her. “And Belphegor?”
“If she escaped by catching a rope from a passing zeppelin, then she must have gone up by the roof.”
He nodded. “And now a crucial point, little mouse. I’m not asking for the names of any people, but if you don’t tell me what group you are working for, I shall be reluctantly forced to . . . Oh, really, why soften things? I won’t be reluctant about it at all.” His smile cut like a knife.
Irene was fairly sure that she could invoke the Language against him before he reached her, or simply slam the safe door into him, but fairly sure wasn’t enough. She tried to recall Dominic’s dossier, as he’d provided a list of the better-known secret societies.
“The Cathedral of Reason. Sir,” she said reluctantly, letting it be drawn out of her. That had been one of the more neutral groups, more concerned with general scientific progress than slaughtering horrific fiends and dangers to humanity. Or being dangers to humanity.
He nodded as if she had confirmed a hypothesis. “Very good. Now, little mouse, I have a bargain for you. Or rather, for your masters. We both want the manuscript, but we’ll get it faster by working together. A copy could be arranged. A deal can be made. Do you agree?”
What Irene truly wanted to say was that she didn’t like being called little mouse. It wasn’t even as if she was that small. She was five foot nine, which was a perfectly good height for a woman in most worlds. Fair Folk or not, this man was an arrogant, insulting, offensive boor, and if she could, she would personally make him run a marathon ahead of an oncoming locomotive.
What she said was, “Yes, sir.” She dropped her eyes submissively. Fair Folk were so accustomed to falling into attitudes and high drama themselves that they half expected it from humans and were always gratified to find their expectations borne out. They thought of everything in terms of stories, with themselves as the main characters. They played roles—no, they lived roles—and they saw the world around them in terms of the mental movie in which they were starring. He wanted her to be a meek little agent. Very well, she’d play the part for him, and use it to get the job done, and try to ignore the burning throb of anger and incipient ulcers.
He smiled at her. This time it was more of a seductive smile than an angry thin-lipped snarl. It was warm enough that she could nearly have smiled back, if she hadn’t known how much of a mask it was. It was inviting, somehow suggesting darkness and candlelight and closeness, a catch in the breath, a warm hand in hers, a pressure against her body . . .
“Good girl. Wait a moment.” He walked across to the desk and withdrew a key from his pocket, unlocking drawers and rifling through them to find paper, pen, and ink. “Where did he keep it—ah yes.” He dropped a sheet of paper on the dried blood, opened a bottle of purple ink, dipped a quill in it, and scrawled a quick note. “There. We’re having a ball at the embassy tomorrow. Here’s a private invitation for you. Bring a friend. Bring a lover, even. Find me there and tell me what your masters say to my little proposition. And remember . . .”
He let the sentence hang in the air. Obligingly Irene said, “Yes, sir?”
“Remember that I would make a better master for you than the Cathedral of Reason.” There was a glow about him, an aura of presence, as if the light that fell on him came from somewhere else, somewhere more beautiful, more special. His eyes were pure gold, reassuring, enchanting, all-encompassing. Even the slit catlike pupils now seemed more natural than human eyes ever could. He stepped forward to lay his hands on her shoulders, drawing her close against him. “I will be everything to you, little one. I will protect and shield you. You will be my adored one, my own special love, my sweet, my pet, my beauty, my heart’s delight.”
He smelled of spice and honey. She could feel the coldness of his hands through his torn gloves and the fabric of her clothing.
“Say that you’ll be mine,” he murmured, his lips close to hers.
The markings across Irene’s back burst into sudden agony and she pulled away harshly, gasping for breath. He took a step towards her, but she raised her hand, and he paused.
“I belong”—to the Library—“to the Cathedral of Reason,” she spat. “Seducing me so I’ll betray my masters will not convince them to form an alliance.”
“Oh well.” He raised his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss. “I felt like trying. I’ll see you tomorrow, little mouse. Don’t forget. Or I’ll come and find you.”
He turned on his heel and strode across to the safe, scooping up the papers and visiting card. She could see the care that he took not to touch the cold metal. “Merely our private correspondence, my dear,” he tossed over his shoulder. “About library books. Nothing to concern you.”
Irene bit her tongue hard enough to hurt, trying to keep her face inquisitively bland. He could have used the word library just in passing. He didn’t necessarily suspect her. Or he might have been talking in order to keep her attention on him, rather than on anything else . . .
Paranoia gibbered at the back of her mind. Some Fae did know about the Library. The powerful ones. Was this particular Fae that powerful?
The door slammed behind him.
She had nearly given way. He’d been more than she expected, in every sense. If it hadn’t been for her bindings to the Library, she might not have been able to resist in time. And what then? The thought literally made her shiver. There had been other cases of Librarians who had been lost to chaos. The stories weren’t reassuring. The undocumented cases even more so. And there was the one horror story that every Librarian knew, about the man who’d turned traitor to the Library and sold it out. He had never been caught and was still out there—
Her nails dug into her palms as she forced herself into proper posture and composure. She walked across to look at the document on the desk. It was a basic note of admission to the Liechtenstein Embassy, for tomorrow night, for a Grand Ball.
It was signed, Silver.
CHAPTER 5
“I’ve found out all about it,” Kai said as he sliced a bread roll into halves. “Hey, this is real butter. Cool.”
“We’re lucky that it isn’t flash-frozen with chemical supplements,” Irene said. They’d had trouble finding a restaurant that wasn’t billing itself as all new and all special, equipped with the latest scientific devices to preserve, enhance, and cook the food that was served inside. Post-meal condition of the diners was not mentioned.
“It makes a nice change,” Kai said. He laid the knife down between the two pieces of buttered roll. “So, do you want to go first, or me?”
Kai was clearly bubbling with enthusiasm to tell her all about his investigation. Irene couldn’t help but wonder just how discreet a criminal he’d been in his own alternate, before joining the Library. She made him keep quiet until the waiter had brought their wine and retreated into the curtained shadows of the restaurant, and tried not to be too amused by it all. Five years of enforced study had clearly left him with enough spare energy to run the lights for most of London.
“You first,” Irene said. “Give me a full breakdown.”
“All right. Now, first of all, Liechtenstein is a major power in this world. They do the best zeppelins. And everyone knows it. That newspaper seller was right. And they do sell information, but not their big secrets.”
“No industrial espionage?” Iren
e asked. “No reverse-engineering of technology or attempts to invade other countries?”
“Ah, there’s a reason for that.” Kai took a sip of his wine. “Hey, this isn’t bad. For a cheap little hole-in-the-wall place like this.”
Irene nodded. “So, what’s the reason?”
“The Fae keep them out. They keep the entire country well protected to shield their own goings-on, and it keeps out the industrial and national spies as well. Remember the bit about the ambassador being one of the Fair Folk?” Kai pressed his lips together for a moment in a gesture of pure disgust. “It’s not just him. There’s a lot of them in Liechtenstein. They spawn there, or breed, or something. It’s a nexus for their filth. The local populace tolerates them. They’ve been bought off with trinkets and flashy glamour.”
Irene frowned. It didn’t sound as if Kai was going to be thrilled that they were going to the embassy ball tomorrow night. “Ah,” she said neutrally, and sipped her wine. “So it’s quite normal for Fair Folk to be amongst the Liechtenstein Embassy staff?”
Kai nodded. “They’re known for it, even. Newspaper reporters were trying to get interviews at the embassy gates. One said that other nations dealing with the country carried cold-iron talismans now, it was that bad.”
“Good to know that works,” Irene said. “Assuming it does?”
“Well, they wouldn’t carry them unless it did,” Kai said. “Unless . . .” He paused. “Unless the Fair Folk are just faking the whole thing in order to lure their victims into a false sense of security.”
“Well, that’s possible too,” Irene agreed regretfully. She held up her hand to pause him as the waiter arrived with their soup, and they were quiet until the man had left. “All right,” she said, picking up her spoon. “Go on.”
“The current ambassador has held the post for the last eighty years,” Kai said, picking up his own spoon. “His name is Silver. Or rather, people call him Silver. It seems nobody knows his real name outside Liechtenstein, if anyone does. Though the fact that it’s apparently a reportable fact about him that nobody knows his real name . . .” He sighed. “Fae. The reporter that I was talking to said that he hadn’t changed at all in the last eighty years, except to update his wardrobe. He’s got a fairly typical reputation for a Fair Folk. Seductive, arrogant, party-going, patronizes artists.”
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