The Secret Chapter

by Genevieve Cogman

  Irene searched for a way to change the subject. But Sterrington beat her to it. ‘Would you care for some cocaine? Locally sourced.’

  ‘I didn’t know you took cocaine.’

  ‘I don’t, except on rare occasions, but Lord Silver thinks I do. I didn’t like to disappoint him.’ She winced at a clashing noise that almost drowned out the tango. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Russian sabre dancers warming up.’ Irene had demanded a look at the bill of entertainments before agreeing to attend. ‘With tame Afghan hounds.’

  ‘No white stallions?’

  ‘They were held up at Customs.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear you’re not involved in anything more alarming than this sort of affair.’ Sterrington’s elegant gesture took in the scene.

  A little alarm flag raised itself at the back of Irene’s mind. ‘Is there something more alarming going on, apart from our mutual treaty?’ she asked mildly.

  ‘Only the usual,’ Sterrington said with a shrug. ‘Deaths, violence, bloodshed, assassinations, murders, thefts. You and I should have a get-together to discuss it all. Have your PA call mine – you do have one, don’t you? I can recommend an excellent firm if not.’ Her tone didn’t change, but her eyes searched the crowd as she went on, ‘By the way, Silver did screen the guest list, I hope?’

  ‘He did,’ Irene said. She followed Sterrington’s gaze as surreptitiously as she could. ‘But you were waved through, so clearly whoever’s checking names at the door isn’t as reliable as they might be. Is there a problem?’

  ‘Possibly. Do you see that Fae, the man with the green cravat?’

  The cravat in question was a particularly toxic shade of emerald, the sort associated with mambas and poisonous frogs. Otherwise, the man looked average enough – for one of Silver’s parties – and he was within five yards of Kai. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Know of him. Of course, I haven’t met him personally—’

  Irene almost rolled her eyes. ‘Get to the point.’

  ‘His name’s Rudolf,’ Sterrington said. ‘He lost his mother in some business involving a dragon takeover of her world. The Cardinal heard he was planning to revenge himself publicly against the new dragon delegate – and so I dropped by. I suppose desperate people will do desperate things.’

  Irene’s glance swept the room. There was no sign of Silver. And the general press of guests was thick enough that it’d take her at least five minutes to get round the edge of the dance floor, now occupied by waltzing couples, to reach Kai. ‘I need your word that you’re being truthful about this,’ she said.

  ‘The Fae have as much to lose as you have,’ Sterrington said. ‘Why else would I have bothered to tell you about this? In fact, I think you might owe me a favour for warning you. Can you stop him?’

  ‘Not from across the room.’ The Librarians’ private Language could do a great many things. It could boil champagne, redirect electricity, freeze canals, and generally affect reality. But it had to be audible.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Not what do we do, Irene noted with an inner sigh. ‘I’ll stop him,’ she said, and approached the nearest male. ‘Excuse me, but would you care to dance?’

  His eyes widened in surprise. ‘Ma’am,’ he began, ‘this is a most unexpected pleasure, and I can only—’

  ‘Dance,’ Irene said and forcibly spun him onto the dance floor – in Kai’s direction.

  ‘I never dared hope for the honour of your acquaintance, ma’am,’ her partner began.

  Rudolf was even closer to Kai now – and she saw an opening through the crowd. ‘You must tell me more about it later.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘Because I’m –’ she disengaged smoothly and spun round to the next pair – ‘changing partners,’ she finished, hooking the woman out of her partner’s arms and shifting her path closer towards Kai.

  ‘Thank you,’ her new partner breathed, settling against Irene’s shoulder. ‘I’ve always dreamed of being rescued like that. Did you see where he was putting his hands?’

  Irene looked down at the blonde head trying to nestle itself against her chest. This was the problem with operating in a high-chaos world. Everything kept on trying to resolve into standard narrative patterns. She hadn’t meant to be a chivalrous rescuer. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said soothingly. ‘Everything will be all right in a moment.’ In approximately thirty seconds, when she’d reach Kai. With a final swirl she was at the edge of the dance floor and released the blonde, giving her a pat on the shoulder.

  But her eyes were on Kai. His hands were full – a champagne glass in each. And Rudolf was behind him, one hand already reaching into his jacket to pull out a pistol.

  One step. Two. Three, and she was grabbing Rudolf’s shoulder. As his eyes widened in surprise, she sent a sharp-knuckled jab into his guts with all the strength that anger and fear gave her.

  The gun fell from his hand and clattered onto the floor as he dropped to his knees. He was still struggling to get up, so Irene lifted her skirts and kicked him in the stomach for good measure, wishing for once that she’d worn shoes with a more pointed toe. He collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath.

  Fighting fair was for exhibition matches and formal competitions.

  Irene glanced up to see an expanding ring of gawping onlookers. Especially given the treaty, she needed some sort of excuse for what she’d just done – and Sterrington had vanished. At least Kai was still holding the champagne. She could do with a drink.

  Inspiration came as a driving wedge of waiters pushed through the crowd towards her. ‘He’s not on the guest list,’ she said, indicating the groaning Rudolf. ‘Lord Silver will wish to deal with him . . . personally.’

  ‘I will?’ Silver said, stepping out of the throng and refastening his cravat.

  There was a crash of drums as the Cossack sabre dancers took to the floor, giving Irene the chance to step closer and mutter, ‘Sterrington told me he was here to assassinate Kai. It would have rather dominated your party.’

  Silver’s eyes sharpened, and he caught her hand to press his lips against it. ‘As I have always said, you are my particularly favourite little mouse—’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Kai said, detaching Silver’s grip – with what looked like a rather painful twist – and pressing a champagne flute into Irene’s grasp instead. ‘Am I missing something?’

  Irene resisted the urge to touch her hand where Silver’s lips had brushed her skin. He’d lost none of his powers of seduction, unfortunately. ‘Just an assassination attempt,’ she said. ‘As you said, we are among enemies. Let’s smile. And circulate.’

  In the carriage on the way back to their lodgings, Irene finally let herself relax. But even through the thick wool and silk of her cape, she could feel Kai next to her, as taut as piano wire.

  ‘You’re brooding,’ she said.

  Kai was silent for a while before he finally spoke. ‘I can defend you against rational threats,’ he said. ‘I can even protect you against the Fae, and heaven and earth both know that they’re irrational. But how am I supposed to keep you safe from fanatics?’

  ‘It was you he was trying to kill,’ Irene pointed out.

  ‘Yes, and you threw yourself into his path to stop him. And how do we know that the next killer won’t be after you? Some sort of murderous loon who’s sworn vengeance against all Librarians because one of you once stole his favourite book?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Irene had to admit. ‘Some people can go in for quite disproportionate vengeances.’

  ‘They are meant to be disproportionate to set an example,’ Kai said. ‘That’s the point.’

  ‘And so it goes throughout history.’ She sighed. ‘No doubt it would be exactly the same if we could go back to the dawn of time, to the birth of the first Fae, or the first dragons . . .’

  Kai seemed glad to be diverted from his brooding. ‘That’s the sort of historical record you might find in the Library,’ he said. ‘Less so among my father’s h
istories. Technically he must have had parents himself, of course, but that sort of thing is lost in the distant past. We tend to focus on the future.’

  Irene pricked up her ears at Kai discussing his people’s past, even in such a guarded way. He almost never did that. ‘Do you think that your dragon monarchs inspired Chinese mythology?’ she asked. ‘Or mythology in general? I couldn’t help noticing that the names of the kings are often the same as in fable.’

  ‘Well, obviously,’ Kai said. ‘There aren’t any other dragon monarchs around, after all.’

  ‘But looking to the future, not the past . . . you’re right. We do have a problem. What do we do about assassins? Especially since we’re supposed to be available, known to be based here for anyone who wants to talk to us.’

  Irene tugged her cloak tighter against the damp cold. Spring might be on the way, but it was taking its time, and London’s fogs were wet and bone-chillingly bitter. Her mood was shifting to match the weather. ‘Kai,’ she said, ‘would it sound childish if I said that I wish we were off acquiring books somewhere, rather than trying to be politicians?’

  She felt him relax, and he squeezed her hand through her layers of cloak. ‘The word, Irene, is stealing.’

  ‘Oh, semantics. “I acquire”, “you borrow”, “she steals”, “they invade and loot” . . .’

  The carriage drew up outside their new lodgings, a fringe benefit of their positions as representatives of the treaty. Kai stepped out and helped Irene down before paying the driver. Irene looked up at the windows. Light showed round the edge of the lounge curtains. ‘Vale may be here,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he’s finished that investigation after all.’

  Kai perked up and bounded up the steps. Irene followed more slowly.

  The house was quiet and dark, except for a single lamp burning at the end of the hallway, but light was leaking out from underneath the lounge door. It was two in the morning; the housekeeper would long since have gone to bed.

  Thoughts of the night’s earlier events flickered through Irene’s mind, and she laid a warning hand on Kai’s wrist. The house was currently warded against Fae intrusion (which was going to make matters awkward when they did get a Fae colleague) and a cage had been put around the letterbox to prevent anyone from inserting bombs, globes of poison gas, or giant venomous spiders . . . Short of a twenty-four-hour armed guard, it was difficult to make the place more secure. However, Vale had a key. Logically, it would be him and nobody else.

  Yet something made Irene uncertain. Something was . . . off-balance.

  Whoever it was in the main room would have heard them entering the house too. There was no point in trying to hide.

  She opened the lounge door, and froze in the doorway. A man was occupying the sofa; several open reference books lay around him in a detritus of notes and scribblings. The woman, tucked up in the big wingback armchair which Irene herself liked to occupy, was busy doing The Times crossword.

  ‘Irene?’ Kai asked, his tone sharp.

  ‘Kai,’ Irene said, her voice rather strangled, ‘please allow me to introduce my parents.’

  Kai’s reaction was much faster than Irene’s. No doubt because they’re my parents, she reflected sourly. If it had been his father or mother sitting there, I’m sure he’d still be standing around with his mouth open. He bowed politely, but his eyes were bright with curiosity. ‘We’re honoured to receive you in this household,’ he said. ‘I know Irene has been hoping to see you.’

  ‘For a while now, actually,’ Irene said, keeping her voice calm but feeling rage focus itself to a needle. ‘You didn’t write.’

  She sensed Kai stiffening at her tone. She was glad to see them here, safe and well. But a month ago they’d been hostages, in danger of their lives, and there hadn’t been a single whisper of communication afterwards. She’d sent emails on the Library system – even physical letters when she could.

  Didn’t it mean anything that she was their daughter, and that she cared about them?

  Except . . . that might be the problem. A huge unanswered question lay between them. She’d found out that she was adopted, and she didn’t know how much that changed things. Certainly it had left a lot for her to consider.

  Her mother unfolded herself from the big armchair in a confusion of skirts and newspapers. ‘You must be Prince Kai,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard so much about you! Not from Irene, of course, she never writes . . .’

  ‘I’ve written three times in the last month,’ Irene cut in.

  ‘Not about Kai here,’ her mother said. She smiled. Her hair had been blonde when Irene had last seen her, but it had returned to a more natural grey now and was pinned back in a suitably matronly bun. Her dress was dark green, one of Irene’s own favourite colours, and her glasses were set with little crystals in the curves of the frame.

  But there were tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, in the hollow of her throat; the marks of growing age and weariness. Irene looked at her father, who was carefully setting aside the books he’d been using. He looked unchanged, unchangeable, with badger-streaked hair, wide shoulders and gentle eyes. But when Irene scrutinized him as if he was a target, rather than as a child looking at her parent, she could see the same traces on him as well. Concern collided with rage and knotted painfully in her chest.

  ‘Kai,’ she said. ‘This is my mother, whose chosen name is Raziel. And my father, whose chosen name is Liu Xiang.’ Not that either name had anything to do with their origin or nation of birth. Librarians were extreme cultural appropriators when it came to names they liked or found thematically resonant. ‘My parents, please allow me to present Prince Kai, son of Ao Guang, Dragon King of the Eastern Ocean.’

  She was wondering what to do next, when Kai politely offered to put together some refreshments. The door shut behind him, leaving the three of them alone.

  Something in Irene snapped. She threw her arms around her mother, conscious of how fragile she felt. ‘If you ever,’ she muttered, ‘ever drop off the radar like that again . . . for heaven’s sake at least let me know you’re all right.’

  Her mother smelled of cedar. It had always been one of her favourite scents. Irene could shut her eyes and imagine that no time had passed – except that now she was the taller of the two.

  ‘I am here too,’ her father said with a smile.

  Irene hugged him tightly. ‘Are you both all right? I was told you were hostages at one of the dragon courts during the peace conference – held to guarantee the negotiators’ good behaviour . . .’

  ‘It was the court of the Queen of the Western Lands,’ her father said. ‘Terribly nice people, but we were parked at a country house in their equivalent of Texas, with absolutely no books. And a great many apologies for there being no books. They’d been removed in case we tried to use them to escape, no doubt. We had to spend most of our time watching movies instead.’

  ‘Or going for healthy walks,’ Irene’s mother grumbled. ‘I despise healthy walks.’

  Irene tried to imagine weeks without books, then took a deep breath. ‘We’ve only a minute or two before Kai comes back, and I have a question I don’t want him to hear.’

  Her mother settled back down into her chair, shaking out the newspaper again. ‘Can anyone think of a good word for double ace, seven letters, last letter e?’

  Irene was about to say ambsace, when something about the question penetrated. The newspaper wasn’t a distraction for her mother any more; it was a shield. Her mother was trying to distract her.

  ‘There isn’t time for questions,’ her father said. ‘There isn’t even time for crosswords. I’m afraid we didn’t come for a family catch-up. You’re needed at the Library – now, Irene. Coppelia sent us to pass the message on.’

  Her trained reflexes had Irene immediately calculating how she could reach the Library if she left at once. But something made her hesitate. She had so many questions, and she was about to lose the chance to ask them. Again.

  Unless she asked them now.

/>   ‘Why did Coppelia send you to tell me?’ she asked. ‘A junior Librarian could have done the job. Or she could have sent a physical message.’ The Library had ways of getting word through to its agents – admittedly destructive ways, but Coppelia had used them for emergencies before.

  Her mother shrugged. ‘We volunteered to take her next message to you. We wanted to make sure you were safe and well. And now we know.’

  Irene felt a deep stab of anger at the airiness of the brush-off, and she was about to snap something suitably withering and distant in response . . . But no, they were both trying to distract her from personal questions, from getting closer to them. Again.

  She bit her lip, determined to stay calm. ‘I need to ask this one question,’ she said. ‘Before I go. While you’re still here. I know I’m adopted. You wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t wanted me. I accept that. I understand that. I’d just like to know . . . how. How it happened.’

  ‘Strange,’ her mother said, after a long, shocked pause. ‘You spend thirty years rehearsing the answer to a question, and then when it comes . . .’

  ‘. . . all the words are gone,’ her father finished.

  ‘A few simple, straightforward ones would do,’ Irene said tartly. ‘Was I a random selection from a local state orphanage? Did you find me floating down the river in a basket?’

  ‘Trying to make us feel guilty will not work, Ray,’ her mother snapped. It hurt, as always, to hear a childhood pet name used in anger. ‘Do you want me to say that I hoped this day wouldn’t come? Fine. It’s true. I hoped you’d never find out. Is that so strange?’

  Irene paced a few steps, listening to the crackling of the fire. ‘This would be easier if you hadn’t taught me all your tricks,’ she said, trying to find the words that would make them understand. ‘You were the ones who taught me how to divert a question, how to change a subject. How to answer a question with another question. You taught me all of this, and now you’re trying to do it to me. I accept that it really would have been easier for all of us if I’d never suspected. But please, Mother, Father . . .’ She tasted bitterness, and her eyes stung with a childish urge to cry. ‘Please understand that now I do know, I have to know the truth.’