Kai didn’t seem disposed to hurry. He waited till Indigo was out of earshot. ‘I’m glad that you weren’t falling for her ridiculous anti-monarch propaganda,’ he said softly.
‘I have no intention of signing up to her crusade,’ Irene said. ‘To anyone’s crusade.’
Kai looked reassured. ‘I knew you had more sense than that. We shouldn’t have to associate with her for much longer.’
Which means I’ll soon be away from her dangerous influence? Irene thought wryly. But out loud, she said, ‘I know what you’re really annoyed about: we didn’t have to pretend to arrest her. So you missed out on ordering her around in handcuffs.’
Kai snorted back a laugh as they joined the others. ‘Well, when you put it like that . . .’
Ernst had discarded his CENSOR uniform jacket and was now wearing a battered but equally stretched check flannel shirt instead. ‘Good job! Though next time, describe your dragon form, so that I am not hunting for missile launchers.’
‘They’ve been tried,’ Kai said briefly. ‘It didn’t go well.’
It probably came down to the size of the target, Irene thought to herself. She’d seen missiles employed quite successfully against smaller dragons, as it happened. But was it her job to give either side a better understanding of each other’s respective military capabilities? No, it was not. ‘Are Tina and Felix all right?’ she asked.
‘Well enough, but Felix will have a hangover when he wakes. The owner of this place stored whiskey in the cellar. So Felix and I tossed a coin as to who should keep watch – but I prefer vodka, so I did not mind when he cheated.’
Irene’s curiosity finally boiled over – now that they seemed almost out of danger, with the end of their journey within sight. ‘Ernst . . . may I ask you a question?’
‘Certainly,’ Ernst said gloomily. ‘Everyone asks it, eventually. Let us walk aside so that I will not be overheard.’
Kai gave them a speculative glance. ‘I’ll go and see if there are any other supplies in this place. I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.’
‘Tea for me,’ Indigo said, and followed him inside.
Irene mentally crossed her fingers that the kitchen would survive their joint presence, and turned to Ernst. ‘Please understand that I don’t intend to insult you . . . But your whole “Russian” ambience – the vocabulary, the attitude, even the reference to vodka – it feels a little overdone, even given the principle of Fae archetypes. I was wondering why.’
‘The fact that you see it means that I must work on it further,’ Ernst rumbled. ‘You see, Librarian girl, there are certain patterns which must be respected. I was originally from . . . well, you would not know the name. It was a small town in a country that no longer exists, in a world which has little except wars to make it interesting. Can you guess my way out of this?’
‘The Russian mobs?’ Irene theorized. ‘The, um, Bratva? The vory v zakone?’
‘Precisely. And in such a place, it was better to act the insider than be an outsider. Better to be Russian than . . . well, where I was once from.’
‘I understand,’ Irene said. ‘But did you always know that you were Fae?’
‘No. But after ten years I was working for a Fae boss, and he saw my potential. He showed me the different spheres and how to walk between them. He told me that I must have the proper blood somewhere in my family, because I found it easy to become . . .’ He looked for words. ‘What I was. What I am.’
‘Thank you for the explanation,’ Irene said.
Ernst shrugged. ‘A small thing. You didn’t ask what I was expecting.’
‘Well, I don’t want to get too intrusive, but what was that?’
‘To ask why I was doing this. Everyone else already has. Even dragon boy, though I did not tell him. It entertains me to tweak his nose a little.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be left out, then . . .’ Irene raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ll tell you my reason, if you’ll tell me yours.’
They began to stroll towards the building. ‘I am under orders,’ Ernst said. ‘My boss, he has an arrangement with Mr Nemo, and so I do as I am told. It is not for my sake alone. My husband is not well, and my boss pays for his medical care. We all do what we must, no?’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Irene was surprised that the burly Fae had any emotional entanglements at all, but she had better manners than to say so. ‘I’m doing this for a book Mr Nemo has, and that the Library wants . . . and since we’re being honest, or I hope that we are, the book’s important to the stability of a world I care about. A place I went to school. Somewhere from my past.’
‘It is never simple,’ Ernst agreed. ‘Always there are complications.’ He paused. ‘Thinking of complications, I am reminded – before he began to drink, Felix unrolled the canvas. He was wanting to see the second painting, the one behind the first. It is in the side room there – the garage.’ He nodded towards it.
‘Didn’t you want to see it?’
Ernst rubbed his nose thoughtfully. ‘I wanted to, yes. Then I thought, what if my boss says to me, did you see this mysterious painting, and I tell him yes, and I find myself being shot in the back many times? You know how these things can go.’
‘I . . . see your point,’ Irene said. And she did, far too well.
But the choice to not look was also problematic. Why was the painting so important to the dragons? Important enough for them to take over CENSOR – or perhaps they’d even created CENSOR? – and station three representatives on that world to watch over it, and be willing to kill to keep it. They hadn’t even listed it on the treaty as a world under their protection, perhaps in case anyone wondered why . . .
For the Library’s sake, she told herself, she had to know.
‘Did Felix say anything to you about the canvas, after he’d looked at it?’
Ernst shrugged. ‘He said it meant nothing to him. Tina was not interested. She could not drive it, after all. Perhaps it will mean something to you or the dragons. Shall I tell dragon boy to bring you some coffee in there?’
‘That’d be very kind.’ Irene smiled at him. ‘And the job’s almost over now.’
‘It has been a smoother caper than most so far,’ Ernst agreed. ‘Even with Jerome lost to us. Still, without his diversion we might not have made it out so cleanly. I will turn down a glass for him later.’
She’d been trying not to think about Jerome. ‘So will I.’
The garage door opened with a squeal. Of course there was no need for silence – they were in the middle of the desert, with nobody around for miles. But some impulse made her want to tiptoe and hush, as though it would let her erase her presence later.
Perhaps my subconscious knows something it isn’t telling me . . .
Irene flipped the light switch and blinked in the sudden glare. The canvas was spread out on the floor before her. And then she blinked again, in shock this time, as she saw what was on the second canvas.
At first glance the canvas seemed to be a rough draft for The Raft of the Medusa, with only the people fully completed. She could see a group clinging together, on an incomplete raft that was barely a sketch of timbers, with a churning ocean and a thunderous sky. But these people weren’t the ones in the original painting. (Could it really be called original, though, Irene wondered? Which of the two was older?) There were only nine figures, not the dozen or more on the ‘public’ painting – which would do for a term. Their faces were instantly recognizable too, as dragons in human form. More than that; Irene knew some of those faces. The Kings of the Eastern, Southern, and Northern Oceans. The Queen of the Southern Lands. The unfamiliar faces showed enough of a family resemblance to the ones she did know, that she guessed they might be siblings – the fourth king, the other queens . . .
And who was the ninth figure, a man with the same family look as the four kings, but older? He was staring into the distance, with a look somewhere between resolution and despair.
Stormy waves curled over the edge of the vaguely ske
tched raft, and the sky beyond was full of clouds which seemed to reach out for the forlorn vessel, attempting to pull it back to whatever it was that they’d escaped from. That was it, Irene decided – this wasn’t just a painting of a desperate group of survivors, it was a picture of them fleeing from something. But what? And why?
She leaned in to examine the swarming clouds in the background and the figures hidden within them, only visible when one looked closely. More dragons, pursuing . . . but somehow wrong. She’d seen dragons several times now – she might, in fact, be one of the Library’s experts on the subject – and the ones in this painting seemed somehow more primitive than the dragons she knew. Their eyes held no expression, no intelligence, nothing but blank ferocity. Their outlines seemed to merge with the swirling wind and water from which they came. Maybe she was being fanciful now, but they seemed to represent the uncaring forces of destruction that threatened the few pitiful escapees on the raft. It seemed as if they were trying to reach these few to drag them down, tear them apart . . .
Irene shivered at her emotional reaction to the picture. But wasn’t that what true art was supposed to elicit? She tried to analyse her perceptions of what was depicted here as objectively as possible. The people on the raft weren’t just trying to escape the ocean; they were clearly fleeing from other dragons. A different breed, perhaps? Or . . . an older variant? While Irene would have liked to think that it was just fiction – why had the dragons gone to such lengths to keep it hidden?
The whole point about draconic power was that it was absolute, unchanging and utterly unquestionable. The dragon monarchs themselves were immortal; nobody even raised the possibility that they might someday die. By definition (their own, at least), dragons were too powerful to have weaknesses as such, and their rulers were perfection personified. So this painting was either a gross insult to the entire set of dragon monarchs, or it represented a truth that they would never willingly have revealed. If it was the latter, was it a metaphor for some past state of distress and disaster, or a genuine depiction of a real escape? There were no immortal kings and queens here, but a group of desperate travellers, struggling together and in mortal peril. They were running for their lives from something that reached out to destroy them.
Sometimes historical truths slipped into fiction over time, and a story might contain a reference to long-forgotten facts. As a Librarian, Irene knew this better than anyone. She even remembered a fairytale by the Grimm brothers which had directly referred to the Library’s history. That had contained a secret which people would have killed for, too.
Of course, this painting might be no more than a carefully crafted slander – a suggestion that the dragon monarchs had once struggled for their thrones or had faced a danger serious enough to threaten even them. But in that case, why preserve the evidence? Why not burn it, rather than keeping it hidden away, guarded and watched?
Irene knew almost nothing about dragon history. Kai had occasionally dropped the odd mention of wars with chaos – past and present – and the rise and fall of certain great families. But that wasn’t the same thing as a definite chronology. He’d made it clear that deeper questions were actively discouraged among dragons, too. They were expected to accept what was and not ask for further details. In human history, the rulers all died eventually and were replaced by new and theoretically more progressive generations. But how did it work with near-immortal dragons? What had there been, before the dragon kings and queens came to power?
And how dangerous might it be to know?
The door creaked behind her. Irene turned, catching Indigo’s silhouette against the morning light. Another half-dozen pieces of the puzzle came together in her mind. She waited for the dragon to speak.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ Indigo asked. ‘You’re usually so quick to give your opinion.’
‘I hadn’t realized that it annoyed you so much,’ Irene answered. ‘Then again, I’m only human.’ She considered her options as if they were a deck of Jerome’s cards. Pretend ignorance of the situation? Or admit her suspicions, and accept the consequences? ‘Kai’s taking his time with the coffee.’
‘Don’t expect him any time soon.’ There was a savage smile in Indigo’s voice. ‘It’s just the two of us.’
‘Should I worry about him?’
‘Does he matter to you? Besides politically, that is?’
‘Let’s just say, whether or not he’s in danger will affect my response to the situation.’ Irene kept her tone as calm as her face, not wanting to give Indigo the advantage of knowing just how much Kai being in danger meant – and how it might affect what Irene would do to her.
‘Oh, relax. I’ve seen you’re fond of him, and he of you. It gives me hope for him.’ Indigo moved closer. ‘Not immediate hope, but I think in the long term. So tell me, when did you start noticing things weren’t adding up about the job?’
As if I would tell Indigo everything, just because she asked . . . ‘The problem with having a reputation for intelligence is that people assume I know everything. You’re demanding full details. But all I know is that you’ve confirmed something dubious is going on. Thank you for that, by the way.’
‘Come on. Use that mind of yours. Point out something you spotted, something I failed to hide, that roused your suspicions.’
‘Well . . .’ Irene hesitated artistically. Why did Indigo seem to be in a hurry, pacing impatiently around the garage – did it mean Irene should play for time? ‘I should have noticed something odd right back at the start, when Mr Nemo had those passports made for us. Only someone hooked into this world’s computer systems could have prepared them – and we know how difficult that would be for an outsider. You were the only person on the team who could have done it, but you claimed you’d never visited this world before.’
‘It could have been a Fae,’ Indigo countered. ‘Someone with expertise. I’m sure that such creatures exist.’
‘In that case, why not hire them for this job, rather than you?’ Irene walked around the edge of the canvas, putting space between her and Indigo. ‘And why did we have a gambler on the team? We all assumed it was because Jerome was lucky, and used to handling high-stake capers. But someone knew all about Hao Chen and wanted a gambler on hand as one of the things most likely to distract him. The most likely person to know his weaknesses would be a dragon. And then there’s the fact that you know what this is,’ she said, gesturing to the painting. ‘You weren’t surprised when you saw it just now.’
Indigo shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’m better at hiding my emotions than you are.’
‘At seeing your own parents in this picture?’
‘Ah.’ Indigo paused. ‘You’ve met them, then?’
‘Your father, and not exactly by choice.’ Irene would far rather have avoided Ao Guang’s attention for the rest of her natural life. Being an object of interest to dragon monarchs wasn’t safe. Especially if they thought you might be useful.
‘So you have some idea of the stakes that we’re playing for here. You’ve been a pawn.’ Indigo walked up to the edge of the canvas, facing Irene across it. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be a player?’
Irene restrained the urge to roll her eyes. Why did everyone assume she wanted to be a devious mastermind and puppet-mistress – and put it in terms of chess? It was so . . . clichéd. ‘Is this where you offer me a position on your side, for when your aunts and uncles are cast down from power?’
‘That’ll do for a start.’ Indigo wandered around the canvas, and Irene matched her, keeping it between them. ‘Running from me, are you?’
‘Maintaining my independence,’ Irene said.
‘That’s what you’d be doing if you accepted, on a larger scale. Maintaining the Library’s independence and status. Keeping my faction as an ally. Imagine your position if I did rise to power, and you weren’t among my allies. We can manage a truce with the Fae on our own. Wouldn’t it be better for us and the Library to be . . . friendly?’
Irene looked at
the circling dragon and had a very strong flashback to her memories of Mr Nemo’s sharks. ‘That’s true,’ she agreed carefully. She didn’t think a fervent declaration of NO, I will never work for you! would go down too well. ‘Being on good terms with you and your friends certainly won’t break our oaths. I can work with that – and so can my superiors, if I put it to them in the right way.’
‘The benefits of a meritocracy.’ Indigo gestured down at the canvas between them. ‘As opposed to the stagnation caused by mere accidents of birth. Immortal slavery which will never change.’
‘Is this painting “real”?’ Irene searched for the right phrasing. ‘In the sense of representing something that genuinely happened? Or is it symbolic of some sort of past disaster?’
‘That . . . is something I don’t know. Though I know more than most, having two royal parents, and being an inquisitive person. I have no shame about how far I’ve gone and what I’ve done to trace the past to its roots. At times at my family’s expense. You should sympathize with curiosity, I think – surely you must understand how it feels to want to know.’
Indigo gazed at the picture as if she was a burning glass and it was her tinder. ‘Very few dragons go that far back. The official story is that the kings and queens are eternal, immortal, whatever – that they were the children of some incredibly ancient First Dragon, or something similarly cosmic and inexplicable. Apparently all the legends of immortal dragon rulers in mythology are retellings or misinterpretations of their reality. Of course, my beloved parents and their siblings write our history books, so they can say what they want. Wasn’t there a story about that? He who controls the present, controls the past.’
‘And he who controls the past, controls the future,’ Irene completed the quotation. It was true. Those in power were able to dictate what ‘truth’ was passed down – and their children then grew up believing it. ‘And you intend to prove that the accepted versions of the past are incorrect?’
‘Money wasn’t the only thing I stole from my father. I took information, too, and that is much more valuable. Information on what this was and where it was hidden. If he’d known how much I knew . . . well, fortunate for me that he didn’t. I had to bargain with Mr Nemo to get the resources and the backing for this job, but you and I both know that sometimes one must deal with the enemy when playing for high stakes.’ Indigo pointed at the canvas. ‘This is a can of worms. I intend to open it.’
The Secret Chapter Page 22