The Burning Page

by Genevieve Cogman

  ‘Leave that to me, Miss Winters,’ Singh said. He was out of the room and heading downstairs before she could agree.

  ‘He was pleased you didn’t want to bring Silver in,’ Kai said. He leaned back in his chair. ‘So am I. But I don’t like leaving you alone in this world while you’re looking for Zayanna.’

  ‘I’m not that thrilled by it, either, but I don’t see any other option if we’re to help Vale.’ Irene realized that she’d come to a decision. ‘I can ask Singh to help me find Zayanna; I won’t be alone. And you can’t simply take everyone with you. From what you were saying earlier, you’d have problems carrying two people.’

  ‘Problems,’ Kai said, ‘well, yes, problems, but it might still be possible. And then we’d all be in one place, when it came to finding Zayanna afterwards.’

  He was treating this as if it was something that could be handled on a schedule. Irene took a deep breath, controlling her temper. ‘Kai, which bit of emergency do you not understand? If Zayanna’s our target, she’s already shown that she’s a good enough operative to try to kill us several times – and get away with it. We can’t afford to give her any time to hide. We don’t have any time to waste . . .’ She realized she was talking herself back into her earlier moral dilemma, and hesitated.

  There were voices on the stairs. Kai frowned. ‘That doesn’t sound like anyone’s told anyone to go away. Surely Silver couldn’t have—’

  ‘Couldn’t have what?’ Silver enquired, entering the room. He was in full evening dress, a gardenia in his buttonhole, and looked as if he’d just come from some disreputable party. (Well, perhaps the disreputability wasn’t immediately obvious, but it was Silver. Irene assumed immorality on principle.) Singh was a couple of steps behind him, looking disgruntled.

  Kai didn’t bother to get up. ‘I was going to say that I couldn’t think of any reason for Inspector Singh to admit you.’

  ‘I couldn’t think of any reason myself,’ Irene admitted. ‘Unless it’s about our current investigation?’

  ‘Tangentially.’ Silver tossed his hat and gloves onto the crowded table, where they landed next to a bloodstained pile of legal documents with a knife through them. He looked around the room as if it was a wild animal’s habitat at the zoo. ‘Fascinating. I’ve always had trouble penetrating Mr Vale’s privacy.’

  ‘I’ve allowed you in solely because you said you had important information for us, Lord Silver,’ Singh said. His voice was still impeccably polite and his manners could be held up in a court of law, but there was a growl behind it. ‘I must ask you to tell us what brought you here in such a hurry.’

  ‘I came to stop you making a terrible mistake,’ Silver said. He strolled further into the room and leaned on the back of Kai’s chair. Kai stiffened and shifted forward, twisting to look up at the Fae, distrust written all over his face.

  On the one hand, Irene mused, this was no doubt filtered through Silver’s self-interest. On the other hand, he might have something genuinely important to say. And time was ticking away: she had to know now, she couldn’t afford to wait. ‘Please go on,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘You’re considering taking away the very thing that makes Mr Vale great.’ Silver held up a hand, even though nobody had tried to stop him. ‘Oh, don’t interrupt. You’re talking about taking him to a high-order sphere, the sort of place that’s most uncongenial to someone like me, to drain away his nature. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ Irene agreed. ‘It would be most uncongenial to someone like you.’

  Silver sighed. ‘Consider this, all three of you. Has it ever occurred to you that your friend Mr Vale has more than a streak of Fae in him already? The fact that he continually meets the people whom he should meet? His abilities? His behaviour? The way he makes deductions that seem beyond the scope of human ability? I’ve always thought I should investigate his family more closely.’

  ‘This is ridiculous, sir,’ Singh said. He’d taken a position by the door to Vale’s bedroom, possibly to stop anyone else getting in, and stood there in cold disapproval. ‘Mr Vale dislikes the Fae more than most people I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Of course it’s ridiculous!’ Kai agreed forcefully. He glared up at Silver as though he intended to challenge the Fae to a duel on the spot. The only thing keeping him in his chair must be the suspicion that Silver would sprawl in it, if it was empty.

  ‘I notice that Miss Winters isn’t disagreeing as strongly as you gentlemen,’ Silver said. His voice slipped under convictions like a knife prising up the seal on an envelope, leaving naked facts behind it.

  And the reason Irene wasn’t denying it was because the suggestion was uncomfortably plausible. The first time she and Kai had met Vale, he’d commented that he had a gift for meeting people at convenient times and knowing if they’d be important to him. Taken down to its essentials, that was far too close to the Fae sense of narrative and the way they fitted themselves into a story. Vale was an archetype of the Great Detective, and this world itself was on the high-chaos spectrum. Not as much as the Venice they’d all visited, but still more than a step away from balance. She’d never thought about this before – but had she subconsciously refused to consider it because she liked Vale?

  ‘I don’t believe that Vale is Fae,’ she said.

  ‘Not in the present tense, maybe,’ Silver agreed. ‘But the future holds potential.’

  Irene thought of Alberich, and his words about limitations and what we make of ourselves. She could feel Kai’s stare of disappointment because she hadn’t leapt to deny the whole possibility. ‘If this was true,’ she said, ‘why did you try to stop him going to Venice? I’d have thought you’d be in favour of it. And don’t try to tell me it was reverse psychology.’

  Silver paused. ‘Well, my little mouse, I was indeed going to tell you that, but it seems I must confess that I was actually wrong about something.’ He smiled in a charming display of vulnerability. Irene had to mentally pinch herself to push back the compulsion to believe him, the tug of his glamour. The fact that he was insulting her helped. ‘I didn’t think Vale would make it. I’m only too glad to find out that he has. I want to bring him properly into our kind. It’d be the easiest thing in the world. Or in any suitable world, really. But if you drag him off to a high-order sphere and force him to be merely human, you won’t just cleanse him, you’ll destroy him. You’ll wipe out everything that makes him what he is.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re seriously considering this,’ Kai broke in. ‘This is all lies—’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Silver said. He leaned forward, his eyes on Irene like a caress. ‘And you know it isn’t.’

  ‘Will you swear it’s true?’ Irene asked.

  Silver nodded, his hair drifting round his face as if touched by an invisible breeze. ‘I will, and do.’

  ‘And even if it isn’t lies, he’s only saying it because it’s to his benefit!’ Kai said furiously. ‘He’s just as bad as Zayanna! The two of them are only involving themselves because of their perverse obsessions.’

  Irene put her glass down carefully before she threw it at someone. ‘Kai,’ she said, and something in her tone made him cut short whatever he’d been going to say. ‘Please be quiet for just a moment. Lord Silver, thank you for your input into the situation. Inspector Singh . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Singh had retreated into himself while Silver and Kai were talking, watching the rest of the room like a cat at a mouse hole. Now he gave Irene his undivided attention.

  Irene knew this wasn’t going to go down well, and she steeled herself in anticipation. ‘I think we’re going to need to ask Vale for a decision.’

  Silver brought his hands together in applause. ‘Oh, very nice, Miss Winters. An excellent way to ease your conscience. You’re more of a hypocrite than I’d given you credit for. Do you honestly think he’ll make any choice other than the one you want?’

  ‘Which is exactly why he shouldn’t make that choice.’ Kai turned to
Singh, looking for an ally. ‘Inspector, you must see that we need to get Vale out of here now, before he deteriorates any further . . . Do you want him to become like that?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Silver. ‘We can’t risk that happening to him.’

  ‘I take offence at being called a “that”,’ Silver remarked. ‘Don’t push me, dragon. Just because I have a fondness for Mr Vale doesn’t mean I like you.’

  ‘I have to question your motives, Miss Winters,’ Singh said. He showed no sign of moving from in front of the bedroom door. ‘Lord Silver’s quite likely right in his guess. I’m sure Mr Vale would want to help you, no matter what the risk to himself was. Lord Silver may or may not be correct in there being a risk to Mr Vale if he leaves this world. But it seems there’s a lot more risk if he stays put.’

  ‘That may be so,’ Irene said. She found that she had risen to her feet without realizing. ‘All right, that probably is so. And I don’t want that risk any more than you do. But can’t you see that if we make this decision for him, he’s never going to forgive us? Lord Silver’s been talking about what Vale is.’ She tried to find the words to convince Singh. ‘That’s how he sees him. But you talk about who Vale is. I don’t know him as well as you do, I haven’t been his friend as long as you have, and I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve got him into. And under some circumstances, maybe I would drug him and drag him out of trouble without him having a choice in the matter. But he has a right to choose whether or not he takes this risk. And none of us, whether we’re his friends or his enemies, have the right to make that choice for him. He won’t thank us for taking the decision out of his hands.’

  Singh hesitated, then shook his head. ‘I’m not concerned with Mr Vale’s thanks, Miss Winters. I’ll do what I must to save him, even if it means losing his friendship—’

  ‘Then it’s a good thing you won’t need to.’ The door behind Singh swung open and Vale stood there, clearly fully awake. He was in his shirtsleeves, his hair dishevelled, and his eyes glittered with a focus that was almost frightening. ‘Singh, old fellow, I appreciate what you’ve said. But there are some situations where a man has to make his own choices.’ He glanced at Silver. ‘A man. Not necessarily a Fae.’

  ‘There’s far less difference than you might think,’ Silver drawled casually. But he was watching Vale with the same sharp focus, ignoring the others.

  Vale ran a hand through his hair. ‘Lord Silver, when I had far too close an encounter with some of your kind in that other Venice, I found they were quite incapable of making real choices. They’d already made the only real one that they were capable of, in choosing to be what they made themselves.’

  ‘So be yourself!’ Silver said. ‘You’ve bored me on the topic often enough. The law needs you, justice needs you—’

  ‘Yes, this is true . . .’ Vale hesitated, and for a moment the air in the room seemed as thick as honey, full of potential, full of choice. ‘But what is also true is that a particular person needs my help.’

  He took a deep breath. His eyes and voice were steadier now. ‘I would be a shallow stereotype of myself if I took cases purely for the sake of intellectual curiosity. I am quite capable of providing assistance to a friend who has asked me for it. Winters, as one human being to another, is there anything you want to ask me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Irene said firmly. Kai looked as if the ground had been cut from under his feet, or as if a book for the Library had decided to complain about being stolen mid-theft. Singh was watching Vale cautiously, but at least he wasn’t interfering so far. Silver had shut his mouth, which was an unquestionable improvement. ‘I need you to help me find someone.’

  ‘Then please sit down,’ Vale said. ‘And, Lord Silver, thank you for your time and attention, but I have an urgent investigation in progress. Don’t let us detain you.’

  Silver slammed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘I have my notes over here,’ Vale said, striding across to a pile of documents on the table. It was surrounded by a morass of maps, clothing bills, death threats and newspapers. Vale swept them all away with a casual gesture, and Irene had to catch them to stop them sliding off the table. ‘Combine the purchases made from certain exotic animal suppliers to provide the spiders that infested Winters’ home, the deposits and withdrawals of money at various banks, Zayanna’s desire to avoid Lord Silver, and the current movements of various gangs for hire . . . While not conclusive, it leads to a clear angle of investigation.’

  ‘Which exotic animal suppliers?’ Irene asked. A nasty thought came to her. ‘And has Zayanna been buying anything else besides spiders and wasps?’

  ‘Which wasps?’ Vale asked.

  ‘These ones.’ Kai reached into his pocket and pulled out a rather mangled example of the ones that had attacked them. It still had a sliver of glass through it. The stinger looked even larger than Irene had thought, and her stung hands throbbed with new pain at the reminder.

  ‘Ah!’ Vale picked the thing up by one wing and inspected it. ‘Not a wasp, but a giant Asian hornet! The size is quite distinctive.’

  ‘Personally I’m glad there aren’t many hornets out there that are two inches long,’ Irene said with a shudder. ‘Is that any help in locating her?’

  ‘It confirms my suspicions.’ Vale leaned over to tap a spot on a map of London. ‘A great many things can be bought at Harrods, but this isn’t one of them. She must have been shopping at the Belgravia Underground Market.’

  Singh was nodding, but Irene and Kai exchanged glances of mutual incomprehension. ‘The Belgravia Underground Market?’ Irene asked.

  ‘An establishment in Belgravia,’ Vale said. ‘It facilitates the sale of rare animals, and frequently highly dangerous ones. A number of the vendors there skirt the edge of the law, but given the price of the wares and the social rank of the buyers, it’s difficult for the police to interfere.’

  Singh nodded grimly. ‘The lady’s broken a few laws. But I can’t bring in a few constables to turn the Belgravia Underground Market upside down and shake it to see what falls out. I’d never get a warrant for it. I’m afraid we’re going to have to be subtle about this, Miss Winters.’

  ‘But you think we can find a lead on Zayanna there?’ Irene said, going for the main point.

  Vale nodded. ‘Let me get my coat. I’ll only be a moment.’

  As Singh headed downstairs to call a cab, Kai drew Irene into a corner. ‘I’m concerned,’ he said flatly.

  ‘So am I,’ Irene agreed, ‘about a lot of things.’ Such as whether she’d just destroyed Vale by forcing him into this investigation. She’d known he wouldn’t say no, when she’d insisted on offering him a choice. And both Kai and Singh had insisted on trying to help Vale instead. If she’d ruined him by making him stay here to help her . . . she felt ill at the thought. She didn’t need Kai questioning her right now. She was far too busy questioning herself. ‘Which one are we considering at the moment?’

  ‘I’m concerned about your motivations.’ Kai folded his arms defensively. ‘You’ve already shown that you’re irrational about Zayanna.’

  It was far easier for Irene to contemplate Zayanna’s betrayal than to consider how she herself might have betrayed Vale. Her voice dropped to barely a whisper, but she could hear her own anger in its absolute chill. ‘Since when have you been my superior? Since when have you been in a position to judge me? Do you think I’m going to let Zayanna go with a slapped hand, just because I thought she was a friend?’

  Kai looked as if he’d like to back away, if he could only find a way to do so without looking as if he was doing so. ‘You listened to her before,’ he tried.

  ‘She had a plausible story before. It made sense. She had helped me. I felt sorry for her.’

  ‘You felt sorry for a Fae.’

  ‘I’m only human.’ Irene’s fury – at Zayanna, at herself – was a ball of acid in her stomach. ‘And because of that, as you are no doubt going to point out, I made a mistake. I trusted someo
ne who was better at acting harmless than I’ve ever been, I got us both into danger, and I risked the Library.’ And I just endangered Vale. ‘You don’t need to tell me, Kai. I am perfectly capable of seeing this all by myself.’

  ‘It’s more than just that. In order to get hold of her, you were willing to risk—’ Kai cut himself off, but the glance he shot in the direction of Vale’s bedroom door finished his sentence for him.

  ‘I was trying to get all the facts before I made a decision,’ Irene replied. ‘Just because Bradamant had said . . .’

  A memory unexpectedly jarred into place. The conversation with Bradamant and Kai in the Library, when Bradamant had mentioned how Vale could become fully Fae. Kai had said without hesitation that Vale would never agree to it. But Kai hadn’t asked any questions or suggested it would be impossible for Vale to become Fae. He hadn’t even needed to pause to consider. Which meant that he’d already known about the possibility.

  ‘You knew that was an option,’ she said flatly. ‘Vale becoming a full Fae. You knew and you didn’t tell me.’

  The betraying flicker of guilt in Kai’s eyes gave him away before he could try to deny it, and he knew it. ‘It would have been worse than death for him,’ he protested. ‘It still may.’ He’d dropped his voice now as well.

  I always thought Kai was the sort of person who’d lie to protect the people he loved. Why should I be so bitter when it turns out that he’d lie to me? ‘It wasn’t your decision to make.’

  ‘It was.’ He assumed that air of hauteur again. ‘Would you trust a drunken man to make the right decision when it came to saving himself? If I was incapable of making decisions, wouldn’t you make the choice that was right for me?’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Irene said. Her anger was still there, heightened by that irrational sense of betrayal. ‘Vale was capable of making decisions.’

  ‘Nobody who’s that contaminated by chaos can be trusted.’ Kai looked down at her, and for a moment she had the same sense of absolute distance, of inhuman pride, that his uncle had carried with him when they’d met before.