The Lost Plot

by Genevieve Cogman

  “He isn’t my ally, he’s my student,” Irene said, conscious that this might look like splitting hairs. “And I am a full Librarian, sent by the Library to find out what you’re up to. It will make things a great deal easier for us both if you tell me, here and now. I think we both know just how dangerous the current situation is.”

  Evariste flinched. Guilt and desperation fought visibly across his face. He took a deep breath, attempting to calm himself. “All right. If you let me go, then we can talk about this.”

  He might have been a good researcher, Irene decided, but he wasn’t a good liar. Perhaps it was because he was exhausted. He looked as if he hadn’t slept properly for days. But the way his eyes flickered around the room, looking for options, indicated that he was going to try something the moment she ordered the table to release him.

  She hoped she was a more convincing liar than he was. It would be embarrassing to be that obvious.

  “Very well,” she said with an inner sigh. Best to give him the chance to behave, even if she suspected he wasn’t going to take it. This was not going to be tidy. “Table—”

  A sound from outside made her break off mid-sentence, and all three of them turned towards the window.

  It was the howling of wolves.

  CHAPTER 11

  Sheer panic filled Evariste’s face. “Floor—” he began in the Language.

  Kai’s fist caught Evariste in the jaw, cracking his head back against the wall. Evariste sagged across the table.

  “That was a bit hasty,” Irene said, picking her way across the book-strewn floor to the window. She was feeling conflicted. Normally she’d be absolutely against the idea of Kai punching other Librarians. But the next word out of Evariste’s mouth would have been something like collapse, to facilitate his escape.

  Kai shrugged. “You’re the one who’s always saying an operative needs to know when to take decisive action.”

  “My life would be easier if you didn’t have such a good memory,” Irene muttered. “Or at least it wouldn’t involve you using the word hypocrisy quite so much. Or giving me meaningful looks.” She peered out the side of the window, to avoid being spotted from the street below.

  The wolves were just turning the corner at the intersection a block away. There were half a dozen of them—large, vigorous-looking creatures, their glossy dark coats gleaming in the shadows as they stalked along the sidewalk. They weren’t running. They moved with a slow deliberate pace that nevertheless ate up the yards.

  A burst of cold atavistic fear told Irene they’d be reaching this building within a minute or so.

  Behind them walked a couple of men, their pace making it clear they were following the wolves, not guiding them. It was difficult to see them clearly from this distance, but the one in the lead was obviously in charge.

  “Is that Qing Song?” Irene asked.

  “I don’t know what he looks like,” Kai replied. “But if it is . . .”

  They both turned to look at Evariste.

  “Right,” Irene said briskly. There was no time to waste. “You take him down the fire escape—no, wait, go up the fire escape, not down, and along the roof if possible, and see if you can break the trail. Then get a cab. Tell them he’s sick. Get a hotel room somewhere. And give me the map.” She held out her hand for it. “I’ll catch up with you later—I’ll track Evariste and find you both. You’ll need to make sure he doesn’t escape.”

  Kai handed her the map reflexively, then stared at her. “What do you mean, I’m doing this? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to slow down pursuit.” She tucked the map under her arm and quickly unwound the locket from round her wrist, fastening it around her neck again and hiding it beneath her blouse. “I’m going to delay them while you get Evariste out of here. We need answers from him.”

  “But what if he wakes up?”

  “Gag him, tie him up, whatever; tell him it’s all my fault. You know what I can do—assume he’d be able to do the same. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of tying me up to keep me in one place.” The way he avoided her eyes confirmed her suspicions. “Come on, Kai, we’re running out of time here.”

  “And what if Qing Song takes offence at something you say? He does have wolves, after all . . .” But he was already dragging the table away from the wall and bundling the unconscious Evariste over his shoulder.

  “I’ll make it clear that the Library knows exactly where I am. Right now you’re my big ace in the hole.” Irene tried the room’s other door. It gave onto a small hallway leading to a little kitchen and an even smaller bedroom. The window looked out onto the back of the building. “As long as they don’t know you’re here, or who you are, I want to keep it that way. Come on!”

  She wasn’t surprised to find that the window giving onto the fire escape had been well-oiled, and the furniture had been arranged to make it easy to climb out. Irene held the window open while Kai dragged the other Librarian through it and gave them a cheerful wave. “Be careful!” she said.

  “Oh, certainly, I’ll just follow your excellent example,” Kai said drily. He closed the window behind him with a thump.

  Irene quickly moved to check Evariste’s bedroom. It was small, dingy, and packed with books. She checked the underside of the mattress, the bedside chest of drawers, the washstand, and everywhere else that came to mind. But there were no convenient caches of secret documents or diaries, hidden stashes of gems, or anything else that might explain Evariste’s behaviour. She left the room as it was, with the drawers open and the covers pulled back. It would support the story she was going to tell.

  A glance out the front window showed that the wolves had gathered at the door of the building. The street had, unsurprisingly, emptied of bystanders.

  A number of things were coming together now in her mind. The books scattered around this apartment were a jumbled assortment of fiction, ranging from cheap dime novels to second-hand hardbacks going mouldy at the edges. There was only one reason why a Librarian would have gathered such a haphazard assortment of low-cost texts and then not even tried to put them in order. Evariste hadn’t been collecting them to read: he’d been using them to create a Library ward. By creating a metaphysical link between this apartment and the Library, he’d been trying to hide from someone or something. And, given his reaction to Kai—and to the wolves outside—it was a reasonable deduction that he’d been hiding from dragons in general, and from Qing Song in particular. Though she didn’t yet know how Hu and Jin Zhi were involved in this picture.

  She’d told Kai that he was her ace in the hole—that she wanted to keep him a secret. But there was more to it than that. The moment Kai came into conflict with other dragons here, he would have to decide which side he was on. Whether he was going to help the Library, or whether that would be a betrayal of his family and his own kind. And for both her own sake and Kai’s, Irene intended to put off that moment for as long as possible.

  Outside, the wolves set up a clamour. Irene took a deep breath, mentally crossed her fingers for Kai and Evariste, and walked out of the apartment. She began to descend the stairs.

  There was a crash. Probably someone kicking the building door open. The growling of wolves echoed up the stairwell.

  Irene reminded herself forcibly that if the wolves were randomly attacking anyone who came near them, Captain Venner would have known about it. She kept on walking.

  Unless they completely devoured the victims and disposed of the skeletons, her imagination inconveniently suggested.

  Don’t be stupid, wolves can’t dispose of skeletons, she told herself firmly. Even unnaturally intelligent wolves that are the personal pets of dragons. That’s the sort of thing a dragon has human minions for . . .

  She turned the last corner on the stairs and looked down at the ground-floor below. Although there were only half a dozen wolves, they managed to fill the
corridor with a sea of dark fur and gleaming eyes, weaving back and forth and around each other. Their breathing was loud and heavy on the air, a raw edge against her nerves. But even when compared to the pack of predators, it was the two men behind them who drew her attention.

  She paused in her descent, trying to slow her suddenly rapid heartbeat. If she didn’t get them on the defensive immediately, she’d already lost.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, raising a disdainful eyebrow. “What are you doing here?”

  The frozen pause at the other end of the corridor gave her a better chance to assess the men—one clearly a dragon, the other not—as they stood there. The one in the lead was obviously in charge, from his poise, his manner, and the fact that his suit looked about twice as expensive as the other’s. His skin and hair were both black, though his hair had a very slight tinge of dark green to it, like the sheen of a starling’s wing. He was broader in the shoulder than Kai. He looked up at Irene, with an air that suggested he’d rather have been looking down. He had the same powerful presence as Jin Zhi. He stood like a statue formed from the living earth, a more-than-human entity that had temporarily taken on the form of a human.

  The second man was instantly classifiable as a professional—the sort who fixed problems for his employer, permanently. He was dapper and smooth-looking, but his eyes were thin and careful, and he didn’t stop scanning the room. But he held back, waiting for the first man to speak. Bodyguard, Irene decided, though he might not know his employer’s true nature.

  Finally the first man spoke. His voice was bass, clear, and definitely not local. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

  Irene stamped down her inner flame of relief that she hadn’t been eaten already. “My name is Marguerite,” she said coolly, “and I work for the Library. I assume you know of us?”

  Now was that a flash of guilt she saw flicker across his face? How very interesting. “Of course,” he said. “And I assume you know who and what I am.”

  Time to roll the dice some more and hope they came up as a winning combination. “Naturally. Lord Qing Song, I believe?”

  He didn’t visibly react. But the wolves did. They retreated to surround him, pressing against his legs and raising their heads to rub against his hands.

  Lord Qing Song, Irene reflected, if you want to remain unfathomable, you shouldn’t surround yourself with pets who respond to your moods.

  When he replied, she detected a note of caution. “I didn’t realize the Library knew me well enough to recognize me on sight.”

  Irene shrugged. She began to walk towards him. Of course this meant approaching the wolves too, but no plan was perfect. “Well, we do try to keep records of prominent members of the dragon courts. But I have no idea what you’re doing here.”

  She wanted to keep him off balance. Her words were technically polite, but her tone was so casual, by dragon standards, as to be verging on an insult. And the longer they baited each other, the more chance Kai had to make a clean getaway.

  One wolf padded forward to sniff at Irene’s hand as she reached the bottom of the stairs. She desperately tried to remember whether she’d touched Evariste. She didn’t think she had: she’d only gone through his belongings. She held her hand out for the wolf to inspect, and mentally crossed her fingers that she wouldn’t be drawing back a bloody stump. “How charming,” she said, listening to it growl deep in its throat.

  “My own personal breeding,” Qing Song said. “Dire wolves, of course.”

  “They certainly look it,” Irene said drily.

  “A very early form of wolf, that is,” Qing Song explained. He rubbed behind the ears of the largest of the six. “Every man needs a hobby.”

  “Unfortunately I spend so much time chasing books that I have very little opportunity to do anything else.”

  “And are you here to ‘chase’ a book?” Qing Song slid the question in quickly, like a knife between armour plates.

  Irene had been planning her answer to that question. Now she just needed to make it look natural. “No. To be honest with you—should it be Prince or Lord, by the way?”

  “Lord will do,” Qing Song said. “For the moment.” He seemed more comfortable, now that they were standing on the same level and Irene no longer had the advantage of height.

  She nodded. “I’m here because we’ve misplaced one of our own.”

  Qing Song frowned. “Another Librarian? Has something happened to him?”

  Now, it could be that Qing Song habitually defaulted to male exemplars, as in his comment that every man needed a hobby. Or maybe he knew it was a male Librarian. Vale would have said they didn’t have enough data. Vale would have been right.

  “We don’t know,” she said, with a slight shrug. “That’s part of the problem. He was on record as coming to this world, but he’s dropped out of contact. I was quite astonished to see you in the vicinity when I came downstairs. I mean, what are the odds that we two should meet up, in such a large city?”

  Qing Song hesitated. “I will explain,” he finally said. “I would not normally share these matters with an outsider, but possibly you can help.” He paused, as if expecting her to express her gratitude for the opportunity to be of service. When she didn’t react, he continued. “I am hunting down a thief. The trail led me here.”

  Irene took an angry step forward, even though all her reflexes would have vastly preferred backwards. “Are you suggesting a Librarian has stolen from you?”

  “Certainly not!” Qing Song said quickly. “It occurred to me that the thief might have stolen from your colleague as well. That would explain why his trail led me here.”

  It would have been easy for Qing Song to claim that this Librarian had stolen from him. It might even be true. So why should Qing Song emphatically deny that? Unless he wanted to keep Irene on his side for some reason.

  Irene nodded slowly. “I must admit that, from his apartment upstairs, it looks as if my colleague was kidnapped.”

  Qing Song turned to the bodyguard. “Lucci. You know something of these things.”

  “Have to look the place over first, boss,” the man said, touching his hat.

  “On the fourth floor,” Irene said helpfully. “The door is open. I’m not an expert, but it looks as if there was a struggle.”

  Lucci glanced to Qing Song for permission, received a nod, and padded up the stairs to investigate, as silent as the wolves.

  Irene wondered how long she could keep him here. Kai would be going as fast as he could, but an unconscious body was an inconvenient deadweight to carry. If she could just keep Qing Song’s attention on her for a little longer . . .

  She sighed. “This is so irritating. I was in the middle of quite an interesting piece of research about Gnostic imagery in the literature of post-revolutionary France, and I was called away to come and look for a very junior Librarian who’d simply overstayed his holiday. And now it looks as if he’s got into trouble. Why would someone be kidnapped in this place?”

  “Have you considered the possibility of Fae action?” Qing Song suggested.

  “They’re here too? Our records are badly out of date. I’d been told this world was comparatively untouched by interference.”

  “Did that come from other dragons?” Qing Song enquired. “We might have acquaintances in common.”

  Irene’s composure vanished like ice in a kettle. She couldn’t risk compromising Kai. She didn’t even want to risk compromising his uncle Ao Shun, or Li Ming. But claiming that she’d never met any dragons would lower her importance in Qing Song’s eyes. “None that I am at liberty to discuss,” she said, in a tone that implied he should understand her position.

  His slow nod suggested that he did. “I will shortly be taking up high office in the court of the Queen of the Southern Lands. Possibly we may assist each other in future . . .”

  “Congratu
lations on your future elevation,” she answered neutrally. “I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job.” But if he was that certain of the role, did he have the book? And if so, what was he still doing here, hunting down Evariste? The awareness of her current ignorance chilled her with the thought of all the things that might already have gone wrong.

  One of the wolves whined, and a trickle of panic wormed its way down Irene’s spine as she wondered if it had smelled out a lie. Then a moment later she saw Lucci coming down the stairs.

  “Report,” Qing Song ordered. “You may speak freely in front of this woman.”

  “He’s gone,” Lucci said. The wolves cleared a path for him as he walked across to Qing Song. “This dame’s right—there was a struggle. Books all over the place. Someone went out the back window: it wasn’t locked. There were scuff marks. I figure it was one, maybe two people, and they were carrying someone with them. They turned the place over before they left. Pulled out the drawers, checked under the mattress—all the usual tricks. Sorry, boss, but we’re too late here.”

  “How long ago was it?” Irene demanded, cutting across Qing Song before he could ask any questions. “And was there any sign of who they were?”

  “Not more than an hour ago,” Lucci said, after a glance at Qing Song for approval. “And no, lady, they weren’t the obliging sort who’d leave a ransom note behind. But I can tell you that whoever it was, he opened the door for them.”

  Irene frowned. “How can you tell that?”

  “No scratches from picklocks, the lock wasn’t forced, and the door wasn’t kicked in.” Lucci’s eyes slid to the building door, which still hung open. “Speaking of which, boss, we might want to consider taking a walk before the cops get here. The neighbours might get nosy and call it in.”