The cut Irene had made in her arm gaped open, scraped in the fall, and a slow trail of crimson oozed from it. And the Language wasn’t much use underwater: speech wouldn’t work if she couldn’t breathe.
She kicked desperately towards Kai, managing a pace that would have impressed the most enthusiastic life-savers at her old school. Indigo was swimming towards him as well, but clearly water wasn’t her element. For once Irene’s unwelcome outfit worked in her favour. It was far easier to swim in a bikini.
She could see the sharks gathering out of the corner of her eye. They moved closer now, huge and lethal in gunmetal grey and stark white, their eyes dead coals that watched her and assessed her value in flesh and blood. Perhaps they were used to having prey dropping by for dinner, and knew they could take their time about it.
Their circuits narrowed. One passed behind her, close enough that she felt its passage in the water, a physical force shoving her to one side. She moved, terror giving her strength and speed. It wouldn’t give her armour, though, and any second now . . .
Her hand closed on Kai’s arm.
His eyes opened.
Under the influence of his will, the water embraced the pair of them, while another wave swept outwards in a pulse that threw the sharks back. A tentacle of water rapidly coiled around them to raise them to the surface, then carried them just as swiftly to the shore. Kai slid an arm round Irene’s waist, supporting her as she coughed for air. A thin pattern of scales marked his skin, as elegant as mathematics and as perfect as frost.
They found themselves at the edge of a wide pool of seawater, at least fifty yards across, inside a low-roofed cavern. A hatch above showed where they’d entered, and electric lights, strung across the roof, blazed with actinic power. The air had a coldness to it which made her shiver, and suggested that a heavy thickness of rock stood between them and the warmer tropical air outside.
‘Are you all right?’ Kai asked. He swung himself up onto the side of the pool, then helped her climb out. His brows drew together as he noted her clothing and condition.
Irene opened her mouth to speak, but as she began to answer, the collar suddenly activated. She choked, attempting to pull it away from her neck, and an electric shock raced through her body as she crumpled to the ground. Oh no, she thought through the pain, the water must have washed off the Language . . . For a moment she thought she’d pass out from the combination of water and electricity.
Then Kai was on his knees beside her, his face a picture of worry as she shuddered in pain. But as the spasms wore off, Irene noticed Indigo was also pulling herself out of the water. Fury blazed in every line of her body and her hair clung to her in a sodden mass. For once she was less than elegant. ‘Son of Ao Guang,’ she spat, ‘you have chosen a very bad time to wake up.’
Kai rose to his feet. ‘If I’d been able to convince everyone else that you were as faithless as you are dishonourable, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What have you done to Irene?’
‘I?’ Indigo spread her hands. ‘It was Ernst who hit her. It was Mr Nemo who had her dressed in that ridiculous bikini. I’ve done little more than offer her advice, which she didn’t have the sense to take.’
Kai snorted. ‘I woke up to find all three of us swimming in a shark pool together, so I’m going to assume you had something to do with it. And you were right behind me when I was tasered earlier. I suppose you had nothing to do with that, either?’
Irene touched Kai’s arm, then motioned towards a passageway set into the rock. With luck, Mr Nemo’s surveillance system was still malfunctioning.
‘Leaving so soon?’ Indigo said softly. ‘I don’t think so.’
Kai gestured loosely, his hand opening in a martial artist’s invitation to spar, and the water rippled in response as if some unseen wind had touched it. ‘You still have Mr Nemo’s binding on you. Even if you didn’t, I don’t fear your storms down here. Water is my element. The advantage is mine, not yours. But please – go ahead. Try me.’
So that was Indigo’s power – storms, or possibly rain. But Indigo would have to actually break through the roof to affect them. Plus she was still wearing that metal bracelet . . . which she’d said blocked her powers, Irene realized with slow dread. She’d lied about so many other things. Why assume she was telling the truth about that?
Irene glanced up at the cave’s roof to reassure herself it was still there. It was. And so were all those high-powered electrical lights, strung across it to provide a perfectly lit view of victims being eaten by sharks. A worrying suspicion began to stir. How did an elemental affinity with storms actually work?
Indigo smiled, but it wasn’t pretty. She spread her hands as if to demonstrate how empty they were, and Irene felt a sense of dread.
The lights all blew together in a fusillade of explosions like gunshots. Glass rained down, spattering on floor and water alike. Then lightning leapt from the electrical wiring above to sheathe Indigo in a blaze of blue-white fire. Two balls of lightning hovered above her open hands. ‘Well, brother?’ she taunted. ‘Who has the advantage now?’
Irene was painfully conscious that she was soaked and standing on a wet floor, and that water was an excellent conductor of electricity. Kai hesitated, perhaps coming to the same conclusions. Then he gestured. A wave spun upward out of the water, swirling to hover above them like a cobra’s hood, a shield between them and the other dragon.
Indigo’s face was illuminated by her flaring power, like a classical mask carved from alabaster. She pointed her hand towards them.
But before the lightning could leap out at her command, the water folded round Irene and Kai, dragging them into the passageway in one great gush. It carried them perhaps twenty yards down the tunnel before it ran out of force, washing to a gentle standstill. Kai caught Irene’s arm and they ran, following the tunnel downwards.
The fluorescent lighting was clear enough for them to see where they were going – and this was a practical tunnel for island staff, rather than one of the more opulent guest corridors. They turned several corners and finally stumbled through an open door into a guardroom. Here two of the sarong-clad guards had seized a moment to have a quiet cigarette.
Without breaking step, Kai caught one guard’s wrist and spun him into a table, then knocked him out with a crisp blow to the chin. Irene grabbed a chair and thwacked the second guard before he could draw his gun. Kai caught him on the rebound and sent him to join the first in temporary slumber.
‘All right,’ he said, closing the guardroom door. ‘I see it’s one of those days.’
Irene shrugged. Again . . . she signed, relieved that they had trained in the same sign language. So very useful on covert missions. Do you think she’ll follow? she asked.
‘Not on her own. She wouldn’t have the advantage here. Besides, the further in we go, the stronger the chaos becomes, and the weaker we both are . . .’ He looked at her properly, now they could catch their breath. ‘Is that collar the thing that’s stopping you talking?’
Irene nodded and Kai reached into a pocket for his lock-picks, then blinked, realizing for the first time that he was in evening dress. Wet evening dress. ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said. With a gesture he forced the water from their sodden clothing – one of the less grandiose but still useful aspects of dragon elemental powers.
There wasn’t actually a formal sign in ASL for Fae. So Irene nodded again and made a sympathetic face. As lock-picks were likely thin on the ground, she looked around for other implements – and purloined a paperclip from a stack of reports.
‘I can think of a simpler method. Turn round, please?’ He fiddled with the collar. ‘Ah. Thought so. There’s a lock here at the back where you can’t see it. It’s an incredibly complex and expensive volume-sensitive gadget—’
There was a snap. The collar came loose.
‘And then they put it on a cheap catch,’ Kai finished smugly. ‘So tell me what’s going on.’
Irene updated him with relief, finis
hing with the painting and Mr Nemo’s upcoming auction. ‘And Indigo’s working with him because she wants to go public with it to bring down the monarchs.’
‘I told you she couldn’t be trusted,’ Kai muttered.
‘I admit you were right,’ Irene said. ‘Entirely right. But you didn’t predict she was actively working with Mr Nemo, rather than being his prisoner.’
Kai took off his jacket and draped it round Irene’s shoulders. She realized that she’d begun to shiver from the cold with her impractical clothing, and gave him a smile of thanks. ‘We need to get that painting back. You know dragon politics better than I do, but I get the impression that the painting could be grounds for a civil war. And I’m sure there are some dragons who’d want one. Indigo hinted that she wasn’t working alone. Treaty or no treaty, the Fae will take advantage of any perceived weakness. Even if the Library avoided taking sides, open conflicts between chaos and order would put Librarians in danger as they’d try to stabilize multiple worlds. It could last for years. For generations, even. All our work on the treaty would come to nothing, too.’
Kai frowned. ‘Have you actually seen this painting?’
‘Yes,’ Irene said. ‘And . . . look, please accept my word that if it went public, it would be devastating. You don’t need to see it to trust me on this point. I mean, wouldn’t it be easier in some ways if we could deliver it back to the monarchs and honestly say you’d never even looked at it?’
His frown deepened. ‘Irene, is it really that bad?’
To Irene’s mind there was no shame in being desperate, but many dragons would never agree. ‘It suggests there was a time when the monarchs were weak. That the history they’ve passed down might even be a lie – and who knows what truth it actually conceals? And Indigo thinks she and her allies can use it.’ There was a silence. ‘I’m not asking you to look away from the painting, if you really want to see it. But given how much trouble we may already be in –’ She didn’t want to think about that. ‘Can’t at least one of us truthfully say I only ever saw the back of that canvas . . .’ She’d drawn him into this; now she had to protect him.
‘Anyhow,’ she said, as if he’d agreed, ‘can you reattach this thing, so that it looks as if I’m helpless? Then we need to find Mr Nemo.’ She rapped the electronic collar on the table, hoping to hear something essential snap. But Kai plucked it from her fingers with a superior look, squeezed it until a crack formed, then dripped in a few drops from the puddles on the floor. It might have survived a drop into a shark pool, but the interior circuitry wouldn’t survive that.
‘Where should we search?’ Kai asked, as he bent the catch back into shape. His inhumanly strong fingers locked the collar around her throat again. ‘Mr Nemo could be anywhere on this island.’
‘Let’s start with down,’ Irene answered. ‘Every time we’ve seen him on video, he’s had a view of the seabed behind him.’
Kai nodded. ‘Why not? And he must be on this island, there’s too much localized chaos here for him to be elsewhere.’
‘If we can at least reach him, we can try to make a deal . . . and get our payment.’
Kai bent against her for a moment and murmured into her ear, ‘What about Tina?’ They were both keenly aware the surveillance could be back on at any time.
With her cheek against his, she whispered, ‘I sent her away as we planned. But we can’t depend on that.’
‘I know.’ He was still for a moment, then said, ‘There was something I didn’t tell you earlier. Mr Nemo made me an offer, after we first came to the island—’
And it was at precisely that instant that the guards came swarming in, drawn guns a harsh contrast to their flowery sarongs. Someone was yelling, ‘They’re in here, captain! We’ve found them!’
Irene gritted her teeth at how inconvenient life was sometimes. What was the deal that Mr Nemo had offered Kai? And how come he’d never mentioned it before?’
At least it was clear the guards hadn’t expected to find them here. Which meant that the surveillance system wasn’t up and running yet, and their previous conversation hadn’t been caught on camera. So she kept her mouth shut, feigning dumbness, and glared at the guards.
Kai smiled lazily at the guards, ignoring their guns. ‘Just the people I wanted to see. I would like to speak with Mr Nemo. At once.’
The techs finished tinkering with the large videoscreen, which covered half the wall, as the guards marched Irene and Kai into a conference room – guns still drawn. Indigo sat in a wide cupped armchair beneath the screen, hair now miraculously dry, clothing unmussed, no longer bothering to wear the bracelet which she’d claimed bound her powers. But the glint in her eyes suggested she would like to drop the island and all its inhabitants – especially them – into a shark tank. Ernst loomed behind her with his large arms folded, his expression somewhat weary.
The screen fizzed and came to life. Mr Nemo was still sitting behind his desk, but he looked significantly less at ease with the world. ‘Prince Kai,’ he said shortly. ‘You wanted to speak with me.’
‘There have been a few irregularities,’ Kai said, ignoring Indigo utterly. ‘I thought it might be easier to sort them out person-to-person – as it were.’
‘Irregularities, you call them . . . My communication network is barely operational. A thief is loose in my personal store. And some of my favourite aquatic pets have been traumatized. Traumatized, sir! By you!’
‘Ah,’ Kai said cheerfully, but with steel beneath. ‘And I might have something to say about being attacked by your servant here—’
‘I am not his servant,’ Indigo broke in. ‘I am an ally of convenience.’
‘There you have it,’ Mr Nemo said. ‘I can’t be held responsible for anything my ally might have done of her own volition.’
And what about you? Irene signed, glaring at Ernst.
Ernst shrugged. Either he could understand sign language, or he could guess what she meant. ‘Not officially affiliated,’ he said. ‘Acted on my own behalf, based on personal opinions. Besides, it was not so bad as it might have been. If I had wanted to hurt you, you would have been hurt.’
Irene had to admit that was true – whereas Mr Nemo and Indigo didn’t care whether they hurt people or not, when ruthlessly pursuing their goals. Indigo was precisely the sort of person who would declare that a just revolution was worth a million deaths. As long as she wasn’t one of them, of course.
‘So what do you want to say to me?’ Mr Nemo demanded, folding his hands in an echo of his earlier calm.
‘My reward,’ Kai said. ‘You promised that after we returned with the item you’d sent us to steal, we would be allowed to leave with – what was it? Our respective prices, there and then, without hesitation or delay or cheating.’
The tension in Mr Nemo’s shoulders eased. ‘Now that’s reasonable. So what’s your price?’
‘Irene will want her prize too, before we leave. But I want her,’ Kai said, and pointed at Indigo.
Indigo stiffened in her chair. ‘Are you mad?’ she demanded.
Kai’s smile was as cruel as Irene had ever seen it. He was a dragon prince, free from the fetters of human morality. ‘Mr Nemo said that he could give me the means to keep you prisoner. I’m calling in his marker.’
Irene forced herself to stifle her expression of shock. Could this be what he’d wanted to say, when the guards interrupted? And was his plan even viable? If Indigo was off the metaphorical chessboard, she couldn’t use the painting in her attempts to trigger revolution . . . It would give them time to hide it again and avoid the whole political deck of cards coming tumbling down – with all that it meant for a spectrum of worlds. Then they could deal with Mr Nemo.
‘You drive a hard bargain, Prince Kai,’ Mr Nemo said softly. ‘But I accept your deal.’
Indigo rose to her feet, eyes glittering. ‘Are you handing me over to this child like a slave? As if you even have the power . . . What other bargains have you been making behind my back?’
> ‘My dear Indigo!’ Mr Nemo replied, after an inaudible command to a guard off screen. ‘Or should I say, Princess Qing Qing? As you’ve said yourself, you’re not my employee – we’re allies of convenience. We’re both at perfect liberty to make deals with anyone we choose. I admit that I may have had some discussions with Prince Kai here about the future, in a broad and undefined sense. He seems to have made an extremely specific choice based on them. And my word, madam, is my bond.’
‘You’re babbling,’ Indigo said calmly. She began to pace, moving – Irene noted – several steps away from Ernst. Was she more worried than she wanted to show? ‘I’m not your property. You can’t just hand me over. If you try, then not only is our deal broken, but I will destroy your computer records. You think that she damaged your systems?’ She pointed at Irene. ‘All she did was mess with a few of your peripherals. When I’ve finished, you’ll have nothing but a pile of virus-ridden slag. And where will all your blackmail information be then? Not to mention records of your precious one-of-a-kind valuables?’
The threat was delivered with a deadly calm which made it somehow more impressive. Mr Nemo, however, merely smiled. ‘I’m fully aware of your capabilities, madam. That was why you went on the job, after all, rather than spending your time here. And we both know that I could make a similar barrage of threats regarding all your technological secrets and data keys. We both know that we’re not going to betray each other at this point.’
Kai had gone still at the mention of Indigo’s secrets. He was probably envisaging sensitive information on his kind – in the hands of a Fae who’d sell them off to the highest bidder. Irene wasn’t that thrilled with the idea herself. ‘And your promise to me?’ he asked.
The Secret Chapter Page 25