The Mortal Word

by Genevieve Cogman

  “I was doing up my shoelace?”

  For a moment Irene almost believed that. Then the Library brand across her back flared like a sunburn, and the words rearranged themselves in her head from a plausible reason, let the poor little thing go to a blatant lie, pick her up and shake her till the truth comes out. “Third time lucky . . .” she said through gritted teeth.

  Then they both heard the sound of multiple heavy footsteps approaching. The maid’s eyes went wide with panic. “Please don’t let them catch me, and I promise I’ll tell you why!”

  This was a Fae formally giving her word. Assurances didn’t get much better than this. “Right,” Irene said, and dragged her along the corridor to what she was fairly sure was an unused suite. She’d been told that all the rooms surrounding the main Library contingent had been booked and deliberately left empty as a safety measure. She hoped that was correct. “Lock, open,” she hissed in the Language. The moment she heard the lock click, she pushed the maid in, stepped in herself, then shut the door behind her and relocked it.

  They were only just in time. They heard the footsteps pass by outside—two men, heavy, not bothering to speak, walking in step with each other—and continue down the corridor.

  “Very well,” Irene said, finally releasing the maid’s wrist. “Why?”

  The maid rubbed her wrist gingerly, her eyes swimming with tears. “You’re not very kind,” she whispered. “Are you someone’s stepmother?”

  “I’m not even someone’s mother,” Irene said, trying to be firm. It was difficult. Every finer emotion that she possessed was urging her to be nicer to the poor girl in front of her. She was clearly an innocent, someone who’d been caught up in this against her will, someone whose beauty and dignity showed that she was of noble blood . . .

  Irene dug her fingernails into her palms and forced herself to actually look at the storm of emotions currently washing through her head. What was she thinking? And why was she thinking it? And what sort of Fae would she be having those thoughts about?

  The answer froze her in her tracks. “You’re the Princess . . .” she whispered. She wanted to swear, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It seemed wrong to use such words in front of royalty. And if I’m thinking in terms of it being morally wrong rather than politically stupid, then I’m already compromised . . .

  The Princess blushed. “Oh, heavens. You recognize me!”

  “More deduction than recognition.” The situation was still expanding to reach its potential for full-scale disaster in Irene’s mind. Which was worse? For the head of the Fae delegation to be caught breaking into the Library delegation’s private rooms (quite unlike one of the Librarians, such as her, doing so, of course) or for Irene to have been manhandling the Princess? “Madam—Your Highness—what on earth are you doing up here, and why?”

  “I promised I’d tell you,” the Princess said reluctantly. “But I must ask you never, never to speak of it to another living soul!”

  Irene felt the threads of oath and story forming round her like a strait jacket, trembling against her lips. If she even so much as breathed a half-formed yes, then she’d be bound by her own words. The Fae in front of her might look like a teenage maid-of-all-work in plain black dress and white apron and cap, but she was a nexus of chaos. She was a very long way from being human. In her own way, she was just as much a threat as the Cardinal. If Irene let herself be caught up in the Princess’s narrative, then she wouldn’t be able to drag herself out of that undertow—even with her oath to the Library itself.

  She forced herself to think calmly and logically, to step out of the wellspring of emotion that the Princess inspired. She’s an archetype. The innocent princess, disguised as a working girl, heroically venturing into danger. I have to work with that.

  Irene took a careful step back and curtseyed. “Your Highness, do you know who I am?”

  “No,” the Princess admitted.

  Which meant that Irene’s role in the story wasn’t fixed yet. Good. “I am a Librarian,” Irene said firmly, “and I’m sworn to find the murderer of Lord Ren Shun.”

  “Noble paladin!” the Princess gasped. “Oh, thank heavens that the kindly stars have led us together. Now I know I can trust you. But you must beware. Treason is afoot!”

  Irene found her usual mental reaction of you really shouldn’t trust me, you know being drowned out by a wave of optimism. The Princess was almost sparkling through her commoner disguise, her hair as black as the wings of ravens, her eyes as blue as sapphires, her skin as white as snow. She glowed with the full inner beauty of her royal blood and pure soul. A wave of tenderness washed over Irene, much stronger than any lust that Silver could excite, much purer, much more sincere. She wanted to take the woman in front of her into her arms and . . .

  Irene mentally forced herself to pull back and remember who and where she was. She’d apparently managed to insert herself into the Princess’s narrative as a heroic knight. That was good. That would get the Princess to trust her. The only problem with this was that heroic knights had a tendency to fall in love with the Princess.

  “Your Highness, we haven’t got much time,” she said. “Do your own people know you’re here?”

  “No. I was afraid they might try to stop me.” The Princess looked around nervously, as though a wicked stepmother was about to jump out at her from under the table or behind the curtains.

  “How did you get away from all the meetings?”

  “I said that I needed to powder my nose, and I slipped away before anyone noticed,” the Princess said smugly. “I thought that if I searched the bedrooms of all the important Library officials, I’d be able to find proof which would identify the traitor. But you stopped me.” She drooped like a snowdrop, tears showing in her eyes. “Now I may never be able to find out who it is—unless you can help me.”

  Words along the lines of of course I’ll help you, just tell me what you want me to do bubbled up in Irene’s mouth, begging to be said. She bit her tongue hard. “Your Highness,” she said, wincing, “please tell me why you suspect treason, and why you think one of the Library officials is a traitor.”

  “I just know!” She fixed Irene with a vulnerable deep blue gaze. “A woman knows these things. The Countess is working with one of the Librarians, I’m sure of it.” She shuddered, genuine fear showing in her eyes. “I can’t sleep for thinking about it. Even though she’s of my own kind, she’s in my nightmares. I know she wants to destroy this peace conference, but it’s not just that. She wants the blood of maidens. She wants me.”

  “But the Cardinal—” Irene tried, fighting the urge to take the Princess in her arms and protect her from the cruel world. The more pragmatic part of her mind was noting the Princess’s absolute fear and abhorrence of the Countess. Is she the ultimate wicked stepmother? Or at least an ultimate wicked stepmother?

  The Princess clasped her hands together. “He’s too good, too noble a man to understand the sort of evil that people can do. He’d just laugh at me and pat my head. No, this was the only thing I could do! And now that you understand, you’ll help me . . . won’t you?”

  Irene sourly reflected that this archetypal Princess clearly had the traditional attributes of selfless innocence, courage, purity and sweetness. But she also had another traditional character trait of fairy-tale princesses: the ability to totally misjudge other people and think the best of them while they were plotting to cut out your heart, or poison your apples, or maroon you on a desert island, or whatever. Granted the Cardinal might not be planning to go that far, but Irene wouldn’t in her wildest imaginings have described him as a pure and noble man who was too good for this world.

  On the other hand . . . the Princess was a very powerful Fae, possibly the most powerful Irene had ever met. (Yet, the gloomy part of her mind added.) She lived in a cloud of narrative imperative. She’d managed to escape while “powdering her nose” because th
at was the sort of thing that happened in stories. Irene had come along at exactly the right moment—again, because that was how stories worked. And Irene was now on the verge of agreeing to do anything she said, because that was how people behaved in stories if you were a princess.

  But the story could go many different ways from here. It might have a happy ending, where the Princess told Irene exactly what she needed to know to find the putative traitor. Or on the other hand, it might become a dramatic tragedy, if someone came along at exactly the wrong moment and caught them together—

  There was a knock on the door.

  The Princess opened her mouth to squeak in shock. Irene moved faster than she’d thought was possible and got her hand over the Princess’s mouth. Fortunately she didn’t have to struggle with any chivalric urges. This was apparently the right thing to do, in narrative terms.

  “Nobody in here,” someone in the corridor said. “This’ll do.” A key turned audibly in the lock.

  Irene looked round for a hiding place. They’d never make it to the bathroom in time. The nearest—the only—possibility of shelter was behind the heavy gold brocade curtains. She pulled the Princess over and they scurried behind the curtains together, pressing up against the window, which led onto the balcony. Snow outside lashed against the windowpanes, a hissing wind-driven veil of whiteness that blurred the balcony and the traffic in the street below. It also made the glass bitterly cold to the touch.

  Chaos wrapped around Irene as she stood shoulder to shoulder with the Princess. Her brand itched and burned across her back like the worst excesses of chickenpox or measles, impossible to ignore.

  In the room beyond, the door clicked open. “Dark in here,” a strange woman’s voice said. “Shall I open the curtains?”

  “Just turn the light on, if you must,” Prutkov answered. “Don’t move anything or leave any traces.” It was definitely his voice. Irene froze as she recognized it. She’d wanted to catch up with him and ask some questions, but these weren’t the circumstances she’d had in mind.

  There was a click as the light went on, then the sound of someone sitting down. “This place stinks of chaos. So what’s next on the schedule?”

  “Hopefully nothing,” Prutkov said. Another creak. Him sitting down too? Irene wasn’t going to try peering through the crack where the curtains joined. That was just asking for discovery. “The less you have to do, the better. What’s our team been up to?”

  “They met in Winters’s room, then split up to investigate stuff,” the woman reported. “The prince went back to his uncle. Mu Dan is looking into something at the dragons’ hotel. The detective’s gone to visit the police inspector again. And the Fae’s out hunting the Countess and the anarchists in the city. He’s going round cake shops at the moment. Borges is following him.”

  “He’s not shadowing the detective?”

  “There’s too much chance of the detective spotting someone trailing him. The Fae’s less observant. Do you think they’ll be able to find the Countess?”

  “They’d better.” Prutkov’s voice was distant, as though he was considering multiple options. “We need to locate her fast, before Ao Ji can escalate the situation any further. It was bad enough before Ren Shun’s death, but now it’s even worse. We’re lucky the Cardinal’s playing the long game.”

  “I’ve been wondering,” the woman said tentatively.

  “Yes?”

  “Who did kill Ren Shun?”

  “The Countess, of course,” Prutkov said sharply. “That’s been agreed.”

  “Agreed. Right.” The woman’s voice oozed disbelief.

  “Are you trying to be awkward?”

  “I’m curious. It’s a question you’re going to have to answer, after all. Why would the Countess kill Ren Shun, rather than go for Ao Ji or the Princess?”

  “That one’s simple,” Prutkov said bitterly. “It’s because of all the people involved in this mess, removing him did the most damage. He was one of the few people His Majesty Ao Ji would actually listen to. Other dragons such as Li Ming and Mei Feng didn’t command the same respect. And killing him—like that, in particular—was a mortal insult. It was the most damaging thing she could have done. Short of blowing up this hotel.”

  And how, Irene wondered behind the curtain, did the Countess know that it would cause the most damage?

  “Yes, I heard you almost got dynamited last night—in a library too. Some people would have called that karmic justice.”

  “You’re being very pushy. Are you trying to make a point?”

  “No. We’re all in this together. Though you’d better work out a new way for us to stay in touch. Now that they’ve upped the security here, there’s more chance of someone noticing Borges or me when we come in to report.”

  “That’s true,” Prutkov admitted. “But physical letters are risky as well. Permanent evidence is a dangerous thing.” He hesitated, considering. “For the moment, run silent and don’t try to contact me unless you get a lead on where the Countess is, or if Winters’s team is about to do something drastic. With a bit of luck, we can wrap this up tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know why you put her on the case in the first place,” the woman said with a snort. “The girl’s a magnet for trouble.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” Prutkov protested. “If it had been my choice, I’d have picked someone a bit more versed in the art of manipulation. But at least she’s obviously sincere. That’s buying us more time, and at the moment time is what we need to get the treaty agreed. And if we need a scapegoat at some point, her behaviour’s dubious enough that she can take the blame.”

  Well, they do say that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, Irene reflected drily. This was all highly informative, and she was delighted to be finding out even more about Prutkov than she’d expected. But she knew that it came at a price—falling in with Fae narrative. Hiding behind curtains like this and hearing top-secret conversations was the sort of thing that happened in stories. And in at least half of those stories, the person eavesdropping was dramatically discovered . . .

  Chairs creaked as both the people on the other side of the curtain rose. “Very well,” the woman said. “Good luck with wrangling this lot.”

  “People can be managed,” Prutkov said calmly, “and all the individuals we’re working with here, whether dragons, Fae, or Librarians, are still just people. You do your job—”

  Prompted by some instinct, Irene glanced sideways and saw the Princess screw up her face as she struggled not to sneeze.

  Imagination immediately painted a horrifying picture of what would come next. The noisy sneeze. The pause on the other side of the curtain. The ripping away of concealment as Prutkov found them both there. The possible consequences.

  Irene silently locked one hand over the Princess’s mouth and pinched the bridge of the Fae’s nose with her other hand. Don’t sneeze, she pleaded with her eyes, just hold it in a little longer, just keep quiet for a moment until they’re gone . . .

  “—and I’ll do mine,” Prutkov finished. “Till later.”

  Irene listened to the footsteps on the other side of the curtain, the click of the light switch, and the door opening, then closing. The Princess was wriggling in Irene’s grasp like a kitten, but she couldn’t break free. Apparently really powerful Fae are vulnerable if it’s in line with their own personal archetype. Princesses can be manhandled because that’s what happens to princesses. That might be useful for future reference. Though what would the Blood Countess be vulnerable to? It was something to think about.

  The room was silent. With a prayer that the two others really had left and weren’t just stealthily lying in wait, Irene released the Princess, who promptly started sneezing loudly enough to shake the curtains.

  Irene stumbled out into the room. Staying that close to the Princess had been like being wrapped in a drugged haze, with
the brand across her back a heavy weight that she felt with every breath. She still wanted to take the Princess tenderly in her arms, to look deep into her eyes and to swear with every atom of her being that she’d protect her, that she’d keep her safe, that nobody would ever be able to hurt her again, that through knowing her Irene had become a better person, that . . .

  As Irene had discovered before, knowing that you were under Fae influence did not necessarily help you break free of it. Physical distraction, however, could help. She took hold of the lobe of her ear and pinched it hard enough that tears came to her eyes.

  “I told you there was treason afoot!” the Princess announced triumphantly, her sneezing gone as if she’d never so much as sniffed a grain of dust. “Now we just need to search everyone’s rooms to find out who the traitors are.”

  Irene realized that the Princess hadn’t recognized Prutkov’s voice, thank goodness, and reoriented her priorities. Forget catching Prutkov. Besides, he obviously wasn’t going to answer her questions anyhow. She needed to get the Princess back to the rest of the Fae delegation before she could do anything that might start a war. “Your Highness, leave that to me. I know the people involved. I can find out what’s going on.”

  “Will you?” The Princess somehow caught Irene’s hands in her own tender fingers. “Will you swear that you’ll find out and report back to me?”

  Her innocent gaze caught Irene like a laser cannon focusing its sights, and Irene’s words dried up in her throat. It didn’t matter that the Princess apparently had the brain of a guinea pig, the standards of a chivalric romance, and the sense of priority of a lemming. When she asked someone to cooperate, and put all her heart and soul behind it, her target couldn’t refuse. It wasn’t even deliberate malice and control; it would have been easier for Irene to resist if it had been. The Princess wasn’t consciously trying to manipulate Irene—that wasn’t the sort of thing that beautiful fairy-tale princesses did. She just wanted Irene to help her.