The Burning Page

by Genevieve Cogman

  ‘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.

  Fifteen minutes later they were sitting around a table in a tea-shop of dubious quality, whose back wall was lined with cobwebbed tin boxes of exotic teas, and whose lights were burning worryingly low. The fog had closed in outside. Zayanna’s dog was lying beside her chair, snuffling thoughtfully and watching all three of them with red-lit eyes.

  ‘You said that you wanted asylum,’ Irene said, coming to the point. Her tea smelt musty, with an undertone of metal. She would have preferred a better-quality tea-shop, but with the way the three of them were dressed, they would have been turned away at the door. ‘Could you give me a little more detail, please?’

  Zayanna puffed at the surface of her cup of tea, blowing up a little cloud of steam. ‘Darling,’ she began. ‘You remember that I didn’t try to stop you from rescuing your friends on the train back from Venice?’

  ‘Vividly,’ Irene said. Something that had been nagging at the back of her mind clarified itself. ‘How did you know my name was Irene?’ As far as she could remember, she’d been using an alias all the time that she’d been with Zayanna. It was a little worrying to think how the other woman might have found out.

  ‘It was Sterrington,’ Zayanna said. ‘After you left the train, Atrox Ferox and I managed to have a word with her. She’d been told your real name by Lord and Lady Guantes. They were your arch-nemeses during that whole jaunt, after all. They’d also said you were a Librarian – working here, and everything. Darling, I was stunned! A real secret agent with me all that time, and I’d had no idea!’

  ‘I’m not a secret agent,’ Irene said, knowing that it wasn’t going to work. ‘I just collect books.’

  ‘Of course.’ Zayanna nodded solemnly. ‘Your secret is safe with me, darling.’

  ‘And with the whole of this tea-shop,’ Kai said. There was a stiffness to his posture that worried Irene. While she had managed to rescue him from what Zayanna so casually called a ‘jaunt’, for Kai it had been kidnapping, and imprisonment, and the threat of being sold to his kind’s worst enemies. He wasn’t sleeping well at night, he was too ready to throw himself into danger, and he thoroughly disliked talking about any of it. This sort of conversation would be rubbing salt into his wounds.

  ‘Oh, them.’ Zayanna shrugged. ‘They’re just people.’

  Irene was lost for a moment, trying to work out whether that statement stemmed from sublime unconcern, a genuine lack of interest in ordinary humans, or a deliberate ploy to make her underestimate Zayanna. No, on the whole she thought it was simply Zayanna being Zayanna, and being Fae. To a Fae, the whole of humanity were fellow actors at best. They were the supporting cast or backstage sceneshifters the rest of the time. All Fae were convinced they were the heroes of their own stories. The dangerous thing was that in the more chaotic alternate worlds, the universe conspired to agree with them.

  ‘But are you a secret agent?’ Irene asked.

  ‘Not exactly, darling.’ Zayanna sipped at her tea. ‘Things went wrong, you see. After Venice, I had to report back to my patron. He said that even if Lord and Lady Guantes had totally messed up the dragon’s kidnapping, I shouldn’t have let all three of you get away like I did. He was really cutting about that.’ She shivered artistically.

  It’s not as if you had that much chance of stopping us. Irene ignored Kai’s atmosphere of polar frost next to her and reached across to pat Zayanna’s hand. ‘I’m sorry you got into trouble,’ she said.

  Zayanna looked down modestly, if the word ‘modest’ could ever be used in connection with her cleavage. ‘I knew you’d understand,’ she murmured. ‘So naturally, when I had to break ties with my patron, I thought of you.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Irene lied. She could think of quite a few things to say, but none of them would actually advance the conversation, even if they might make her feel better. ‘Zayanna, you do realize that I don’t actually . . .’ What was it that Zayanna had said she used to do for her previous boss? ‘. . . have any snakes that need looking after.’

  ‘We can get snakes, darling,’ Zayanna said reassuringly. ‘Do you prefer cobras or vipers? Or mambas?’

  ‘Can you collect books?’ Irene countered.

  ‘I’ve never tried,’ Zayanna said. ‘But there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?’

  Irene was fairly sure there weren’t any Library regulations about Outsourcing Jobs to Fae, probably because the area was mostly covered by Don’t Associate with Fae in the First Place. But, she reassured her conscience, it would do for the moment, while she tried to find a better long-term solution. ‘Does Silver know you’re here?’ she asked.

  Lord Silver was probably the most powerful Fae in London. He was the Liechtenstein Ambassador (Liechtenstein was a hotbed of Fae, in this particular alternate world) and a noted libertine and reprobate, regularly making the front pages of the more scandalous newspapers. He had also technically been an ally during the whole business of Kai’s kidnapping, helping Irene to reach the world where Kai was being held so that she could rescue him. Though that had only happened because Silver felt threatened by Kai’s kidnappers. He was another person whom Irene would like the earth to swallow up. But if he could take Zayanna off her hands, then she’d even send him flowers.

  Zayanna pouted. ‘I’ve been trying to avoid Lord Silver, darling. I don’t really want to be indebted to him. I did think of asking him where you lived. But then I had a better idea, and I got this gorgeous little dog to help find you! I took him to your address and I’ve been tracking you since then. I think I’m going to call him Pettitoes.’ She drained her cup and put it down with a clink. ‘But I need to be serious too, darling. Someone out there wants to kill you.’

  It was rather sad that Irene’s first reaction was not so much shock as resignation. Then she wondered whether there was a queue, and if someone was selling tickets. After all, in less than a year she’d managed to seriously annoy a number of people – the local werewolves, several local secret societies, one of the two masterminds who’d plotted to kidnap Kai (she’d actually killed the other), the notorious traitor Librarian Alberich, and probably all sorts of other people she didn’t even know about. And Silver didn’t like her very much, either. ‘Who?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Zayanna leaned forward across the table, trying to capture Irene’s hand in hers. When Kai interposed his hand, she grabbed that instead. ‘Darling – darlings—’ Kai looked as if he was biting into raw garlic. ‘You must believe that I want to keep you safe. What would I do without you?’

  That was another frequent problem with the Fae. They wanted fellow starring actors in their private melodramas, both friends and enemies. Irene had to figure out a way to disentangle herself from Zayanna – and fast – or she’d get swept into some improbable new narrative. ‘I believe you,’ she said. Mostly. ‘But if you can’t tell us who it is, or when they’re going to try . . .’

  Zayanna sighed, and Kai took the opportunity to pull his hand away. ‘It’s just a whisper of a rumour, darling. I’ll try to find out more. But it’s getting late. You’ll be wanting to go out on highly sensitive missions and dance the tango, won’t you? Can I come?’

  ‘No,’ Irene said firmly. ‘I’m sorry. It’s top secret. Where can we get in touch with you tomorrow?’

  Zayanna took the dismissal surprisingly well. ‘The Carlton hotel, darling. I’ll be waiting. But I’ll stay here for the moment. This place has such a charming ambience.�
� She gestured around at the gloomy shelves and at the rafters with their hanging bare ether-bulbs, then down to her dog. ‘Don’t worry about me. Pettitoes will keep me safe.’

  Kai waited till they were out on the street and a couple of hundred yards away before saying, ‘Should we kill her?’

  ‘Zayanna helped me rescue you,’ Irene muttered. It didn’t make it any easier that she was considering that option as well. But simple inconvenience was not a good enough motive for murder. Even if it looked like being a really, really large inconvenience.

  ‘Yes, but the woman is Fae,’ Kai answered. There was a brittle coldness in his eyes, and his gait had shifted from a casual stride to a much more dangerous and purposeful stalk.

  Irene tried to think of some intelligent, logical, helpful statement that would convince him to stay calm. Nothing came to mind. What could she say to a dragon who’d been kidnapped by the Fae in order to start a war? Already-existing personal bias was being inflamed by post-traumatic shock, and he certainly wasn’t going to have any sudden epiphanies in the middle of the street. ‘But I say you won’t just remove her,’ she hissed, resorting to the fact that she was his superior, and knowing how temporary and stopgap an answer that was. ‘Understood?’

  Kai blinked, and the inhuman light – had it been there for longer than a moment? – receded from his eyes. ‘Understood,’ he said, his voice dark and low in his throat.

  I’m going to have to talk this through with him later. And if I can’t get him to see sense . . . Irene had a duty to her work in this world. She also had a duty of responsibility to Kai. Something twisted in her stomach at the thought that perhaps the best thing she could do for him would be to see him assigned to another Librarian. Or he could even be returned to his father’s court, to safety among the other dragons . . .

  ‘I’m not sure I trust her, either,’ she said. ‘We have no proof that she’s telling the truth. But I think it’s better to keep her under close watch for the moment, till we can establish what’s going on. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and all that sort of thing. Besides, if Zayanna is telling the truth, then we might be able to get useful information from her.’

  ‘It might just be simpler to wait and see who’s trying to kill us,’ Kai said.

  Irene looked ahead down the street. In the foggy twilight, newspaper boards loomed on the street corners where vendors touted the evening papers, with barely visible capitalized headlines glaring at her like secret messages. BETRAYAL. MURDER. WAR. ‘True,’ she agreed. ‘But they might get lucky.’

  ‘Disguise someone as us, and then watch them from a distance?’ Kai suggested.

  ‘Mm. No, not really.’ A fuzzy memory of management training nagged at Irene. ‘It’s not that I’m trying to shoot down all your ideas,’ she added. ‘It’s more that I don’t see how we could manage it, without the preparation being noticed. It may also be a question of how long they’ve been planning to kill us. We’ve been out of London for a couple of weeks now. Though in that case . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Kai prompted when she trailed off.

  ‘Well, unless the person who wants to kill us is getting information from the Library, or from Vale – both of which are very unlikely – then they couldn’t have known we’d be out of London for the last two weeks. They may have been sitting around chewing their fingernails and wondering where we’ve got to.’

  They conversed quietly as they walked down the foggy street – just another pair of Londoners in heavy overcoats, with scarves wound round their faces against the evening mist and pollution. It would have been difficult to be more anonymous. Irene could glance down the street and see other pairs and groups of people strolling together, their heads close as they murmured to each other. Conspirators? Families? Friends? Apocalyptic plotters? How could anyone know?

  ‘We should check in with Vale,’ Kai said.

  Irene nodded. ‘After we’ve checked our lodgings. Carefully, of course. And I don’t know if you’ve considered it, but Zayanna might be useful for information about another thing, too.’

  ‘What other thing?’

  ‘If there’s someone in the Library, or among the dragons, who’s selling information about us, then we need to find out who it is.’ Apparently dragons were a monolithic block who would absolutely never betray each other to the Fae. Or so the dragons said. This could simply mean that they were very thorough about getting rid of traitors. ‘If Zayanna still has links to the Fae gossip networks, or however it is they share the news and conspiracies, maybe she could find out something.’

  ‘Or maybe she could sell me out herself,’ Kai said coldly. ‘Or you. I’m sure there are Fae out there who’d like a Librarian slave.’

  ‘I’m sure there are,’ Irene agreed mildly. She still had nightmares about a few aspects of her trip to that Venice. ‘But the fact remains that when push came to shove, she did help me. So for the moment let’s stop going round in circles and playing who-do-we-suspect. Lodgings, bath, clothing, then Vale, and wait for the next mission.’

  When they reached their lodgings, the surrounding buildings had their lights on, but their own set of rooms showed ominous dark windows. Of course that was how they’d left it, but it was hard not to imagine potential murderers waiting behind the drawn curtains.

  ‘Let me check the door,’ Kai said, stepping in front of Irene. She knew that he had a minor criminal past, from his time in a more technological alternate world, so she let him get on with it. He would know how to check for tripwires, hidden switches or scratches on the lock much better than she would. She glanced up and down the road. No obvious followers, no lurking minions, no shadows visible on the rooftops.

  After a few minutes of inspecting the door, lock, step, doormat and surrounding area, Kai rose from his knees. ‘It looks clean,’ he said. ‘No wires. Nothing connected to it. No chaotic residue.’

  ‘Good,’ Irene said. ‘Though I wouldn’t have thought it would be a bomb, anyhow. You know the Fae. A bomb would lack that personal touch. And it’d be over far too soon.’

  Kai stood back from the door so that she could unlock it. ‘You did say that Lady Guantes was the efficient type, though. And you did kill her husband.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Irene muttered. ‘Let’s hope that she hates me enough to want to take lots of time over it, and do it in person.’

  The key turned smoothly. Nothing bad happened immediately. She waited a moment, in case there was anything hiding to jump out at her, then thrust the door open.

  Through the doorway, in the light from the street ether-lamps, she and Kai could see a perfectly normal corridor. A scattering of post lay on the carpet, where it had been shoved through the letterbox, but none of it looked large enough to be dangerous.

  All right, perhaps I am being paranoid.

  Kai gave her a nod. They both stepped inside, and Irene raised her hand to the light switch.

  Something hairy touched her fingers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Irene froze. It wasn’t a deliberate choice of action made from a careful assessment of the situation. It was an instinctive reaction to the soft touch of something thin and hairy against her fingers, something moving, and childhood memories of being told Don’t jerk your hand away, you’ll just startle it. It was very definitely something alive.

  ‘Kai,’ she said, and swallowed to clear her throat. ‘There’s something else in here with us.’

  ‘Do you think it’s light-sensitive?’ Kai demanded.

  How on earth was she supposed to know? ‘Let’s hope so,’ she replied. She still didn’t want to move her fingers. She could dimly see the thing now, a large blotch of a creature about a monstrous eight inches across, its body sprawled over the light switch. But there was more than one way to deal with that. ‘Corridor-ceiling lights, turn on!’ she commanded in the Language.

  The ceiling lamps flared into sudden brightness as Kai slammed the door shut, and Irene had enough time to see the creature before it scuttled back towar
ds the coat stand, leaving her fingers free and her heart hammering.

  It was a spider. Irene had nothing particularly against spiders, and had more than once been the person who had to take them out of the room and release them into the wild, when at school. But she had a very definite reaction to spiders that were over eight inches across and covered with hair. She wiped her hand on her skirt, illogically and vigorously.

  ‘That’s a spider,’ Kai observed unnecessarily.

  ‘It looked like one.’ Irene found herself backing towards him. The two of them stood together in the middle of the corridor, as far as they could get from coat stands, pictures, bookcases or other objects that might have spiders hiding behind them.

  ‘Do you think it’s venomous?’

  Irene snorted. ‘Do you think there’s even the remotest chance it isn’t?’

  ‘Right. Stupid question. Do you think we can fumigate the whole house?’

  ‘I’m not going to sleep if there’s the slightest chance of any of them still being in here,’ Irene said firmly. ‘Which means we need to clear the place. Especially if it’s even remotely possible that they could breed, or get out into other houses.’

  ‘How do we clear the place?’ Kai asked, putting his finger on the problem.

  Irene frowned, thinking. ‘What’s the largest reasonably airtight container we have?’

  ‘Probably one of our suitcases,’ Kai suggested. ‘It’s not totally airtight, but there aren’t any cracks in it big enough for the spiders to get out, if they’re inside.’

  ‘Right. And the suitcases are in the attic, aren’t they?’

  Kai took a deep breath. ‘Stay right here,’ he said and was running for the stairs before she could tell him to stop.

  Technically she was rather relieved not to be running through the place, with spiders lurking in corners and ready to jump out at her – or should that be drop down on her? – at the slightest provocation. But she still felt a little guilty that he’d gone off to take the risk. Perhaps she was being overprotective.