He considered her thoughtfully. The wolves beside him raised their heads to look at her, their eyes utterly impassive, as if they were assessing her weight in pounds of steak. “I am about to make a request. It will be to your advantage to listen. It will be even more to your advantage to accept.”
“You have my full attention,” Irene said politely. Over his shoulder, in the open windowpane, she could see the reflection of the room. The two thugs who’d been sitting on either side of her on the car ride here were still a couple of paces behind her. Hu had walked across to the sideboard and was filling a glass with water. And the wolves, of course, were all over the place. Making a break for it looked impossible.
But if Qing Song was about to come clean on what he’d been up to, then the next few minutes were going to be very interesting.
“I am looking for a particular book,” Qing Song said. “I require it as a matter of urgency. My previous researcher was kidnapped, but I still have his materials. If you can find it for me, within the next couple of days, then you will have my gratitude. I and my family will remember your conduct.”
Irene had to admire the way he’d explained Evariste’s absence. “Kidnapped?” she asked.
“Fae interference.” Qing Song’s face was set like stone. “They foul all they touch.”
“So when we met this morning . . .”
“I was tracking them,” he admitted. “Their trail led me to your fellow Librarian’s door. He may be another victim of their schemes. But for now, my priority is locating that book. I trust I can count on your service.”
“But I may not be able to find your book within the ‘next couple of days,’” she temporized. “I’m a Librarian, not a miracle-worker.”
“I will be satisfied only by your very best efforts,” Qing Song said. His voice was inflexible. “You will remain here. Hu will provide everything you may require.”
“You’re assuming that I’m going to say yes.” Irene tried to gauge his mood, but the wolves weren’t providing any clues this time.
“I don’t think you can afford to say no. And if you value the health and safety of other servants of the Library, then you will obey me.”
“You’re asking me to break the Library’s principle of neutrality,” Irene said. Anger coloured her voice. “Why is one book so important that you’d set yourself against the whole Library—breaking a truce that has existed for longer than either of us has been alive—if I don’t help you find it?”
“You don’t need to know,” Qing Song replied. He was addressing her as a subordinate now, as if she’d already given in. “And it will be up to you what you tell your Library, once you’ve found the book.”
He watched her and waited.
But before Irene could decide exactly how she was going to say no, there was a knock at the door.
Qing Song raised a hand and glanced at Hu. “Investigate,” he ordered.
Hu moved to open the door, then fell back a step, startled, as the person on the other side strolled into the room. The two thugs both reached into their jackets, but dropped their hands again when they saw it was a woman. Qing Song rose to his feet.
It was Jin Zhi.
She casually kicked the door shut behind her. Her golden hair was pinned up in a loose coil around her head, and her evening coat was a wide-sleeved golden velvet wrap that draped like a court robe. She simply walked in, confident that the rest of the world would catch up, get its act together, and be ready to take orders. “Good evening, Qing Song,” she said. “I’m sure you don’t mind me joining you.”
It was only training that kept Irene’s expression of mild confusion pinned to her face: her stomach was dropping like the express lift down to Security in the Library. Jin Zhi knew who Irene was. If she shared that information with Qing Song, and he realized that Irene had been lying to him from the very beginning, then . . .
“Be welcome to my lodgings, small as they are,” Qing Song said. His voice was emotionless, but his wolves were all awake, watching Jin Zhi with burning eyes. “I had thought you were in China. Might I ask what brings you to this place, alone and without attendants?”
“Servants aren’t always reliable,” Jin Zhi said. “And China didn’t reveal what I sought. You must feel the same way, or you wouldn’t be here.” She shrugged off her coat and allowed Hu to take it, which he did without a word. Her trailing dress beneath it was in a harmonizing shade of gold, sculpted to bare her shoulders. Even without her heels she stood an inch or two taller than Hu—with them, she easily overtopped him, dominating the room like an open flame. Her eyes flickered from Qing Song to Irene and narrowed. “You’re keeping curious company.”
“An offer of employment,” Qing Song said flatly. “A minor matter. Your visit takes priority, of course.”
“A minor matter?” Jin Zhi moved across to take a chair while Qing Song resumed his seat. “Given our circumstances, I’m not sure I’d call hiring a servant of the Library a minor matter. I seem to recall that we were absolutely forbidden to ask for help from the Library.”
Irene felt her stomach tie itself slowly in knots. The dragons had been ordered not to get Librarian help? Then Qing Song hadn’t only gone against custom—he’d outright broken the rules of their competition. He couldn’t allow the slightest chance of that information getting out. Evariste would never have survived handing the book over. And as for Irene’s own survival . . .
And Jin Zhi had just revealed that she knew Irene was a Librarian, even if Qing Song hadn’t realized it. How fortunate Qing Song had so much on his mind, Irene thought gratefully. If he’d spotted Jin Zhi’s slip, and assumed that the two of them were in collusion, then the situation would have lost whatever traces of civility it had left.
“I am not asking for help,” Qing Song said dismissively. He signalled to Hu, who moved noiselessly to pour him some water and offer a second glass to Jin Zhi. “I am commanding it. There is a difference.”
Jin Zhi flicked a finger towards Irene. “Has she accepted your service, then?”
Qing Song’s mouth tightened very slightly. “The Librarian Marguerite was about to give me her pledge,” he said.
Jin Zhi’s lips slowly parted in a smile. She took the glass from Hu and turned to Irene. “How very interesting. Perhaps I should bid for her service too. I could offer good terms.”
She’s figured out that Qing Song doesn’t know who I am. Irene felt a metaphorical precipice yawn in front of her. And she’s going to use that.
“It is discourteous in the extreme to attempt to steal my servants,” Qing Song said coldly. But this was something he clearly hadn’t considered.
Jin Zhi laughed. “Qing Song, I would pity you if I didn’t know you so well. I’ll make what offers I please to her. Or do you want to throw me out?”
The fingers of Qing Song’s free hand tightened on the arm of the chair, but he didn’t reply. Apparently the rules of engagement between high-ranking dragons prevented that sort of action. He flicked a quick glance at Hu, who twitched a shoulder very slightly in response: very much a question-and-answer, a query of Can you think of anything and a response of There’s no help for it. Hu might be the servant here, but it seemed Qing Song trusted his opinion a great deal.
“Very well, then.” Jin Zhi turned to Irene. “Marguerite.” She pronounced the name as if it were a dollop of honey, drawing out the syllables. “I’m not sure what Qing Song has offered you, but I imagine that I can offer you more. In addition to my personal gratitude, and my guarantee of your safety.”
“My safety?” Irene said, breaking her silence.
“From the rest of this room, for a start.” The curl of her smile was, as Kai had commented a day ago, extremely gracious. “You must be aware that you are in a dangerous position.”
“Believe me, madam,” Irene said, “I am very much aware of that fact.”
“Then w
hy hesitate?”
“Perhaps because she is not the sort to be cowed by threats,” Qing Song said.
“I’m not the one threatening her,” Jin Zhi answered. This time there was a note of venom underneath the honey. “She is in danger, but I’m not the one who put her there.”
“A rational man keeps his temper within bounds,” Qing Song said. “Even if she might offend me by refusing, I am hardly going to behave like some sort of child.”
For some reason that made Jin Zhi twitch, her whole body going rigid as her glass splintered in her hand. Water trickled down over her briefly scale-patterned fingers. “Apparently you have nothing better to do than recall past insults.”
“And apparently you have nothing better to do than repeat them.” Qing Song’s tone was vicious.
Irene looked back at the reflection in the windowpane. The men behind her were both still in the same position, but their attention was on Qing Song and Jin Zhi rather than on her. For the moment, the bickering pair weren’t looking at her either.
Unfortunately it was probably only a matter of time until the dragons turned back to her and demanded an answer.
She should have been afraid. She should have been terrified. But a swell of anger was rising inside her. If Jin Zhi wanted to play Use the Librarian just like Qing Song, then Jin Zhi would get exactly the same treatment. They were the ones who were breaking their own competition’s precious rules. If they’d left themselves open to blackmail by doing so, then that was their own fault. It was time to get out of here.
She took a step forward, and both of the dragons turned to look at her. “Madam. Sir. Before going any further, I would like to make it absolutely clear that the Library knows I’m here and what I’m investigating. You can’t just snap your fingers and make me disappear. However great your powers, and however noble your families.”
“Must I repeat myself?” Qing Song asked. “I am not making that sort of threat.”
“Let’s at least agree that everyone in this room is threatening me in some way,” Irene said. And this was where she tore up her cover story and danced on the fragments. “And my name is not Marguerite.”
Jin Zhi leaned back in her chair in surprise. Clearly she hadn’t expected Irene to deliberately blow her own cover. For a moment her eyes showed confusion, not calculation.
Qing Song, on the other hand, leaned forward. His fingers dug into the arm of his chair, and around the room the wolves stirred, their heads rising and their eyes focusing on Irene. “You lied to me?” he demanded. There was an undertone to his voice like the wind in heavy forests.
“I was not entirely honest with you,” Irene said. She saw his lips tighten as she threw his earlier words back at him. “Nor was I honest with Hu. I came to this world to investigate what had happened to one of our own Librarians. Evariste. I believe you know the name?”
Qing Song was silent.
Irene could feel the coldness entering her voice. “We’re aware of your arrangement with him.” She saw the brief flash of confirmed suspicion in Jin Zhi’s face, and wondered briefly how she’d known about that in the first place. “He is out of the picture—for now.”
“Out of the picture?” Qing Song said slowly.
“Under investigation.” Irene looked down at him. “Such an investigation can stretch to great length. All the way to his family, for instance. It would be a shame if it should spread to yours as well. Since I understand that you have broken any number of rules.”
Qing Song hadn’t expected that. The arm of the chair actually creaked as his hand dug into it, and his nails pierced the leather. Irene could see the scale-patterns flicker across the skin of his face and hands, deep emerald as dark as holly leaves. His anger was palpable in the air, as thick as the tension before an earthquake. “You—how dare you threaten my family—”
“You will return your hostage,” Irene said, cutting him off. “And in return we will keep silent about your actions. You will make no attempt to take vengeance on him.” She took a step forward, her Library brand burning across her shoulders in the face of his power, her anger a deeper and hotter fire within her. “That is the only deal I’m offering. I suggest that you take it.”
“I would know your true name,” Qing Song growled. A red light flickered in the depths of his eyes. “I will be remembering it for a long time.”
“Irene,” she said. She saw his eyes widen. “Some people call me Irene Winters.”
Hu’s left arm came round her throat from behind, tight enough that she couldn’t breathe. He caught her right wrist with his free hand, twisting it up behind her as she struggled for air, trying to speak—to use the Language—and failing.
“My lord,” he said, “she’s lying.”
CHAPTER 20
“Careful, now,” the man in charge of the group said. He patted the side of the crate that held Evariste and Kai. “That’s expensive stuff in there. Worth more than your salary.”
Kai heard the other men carrying the crate grunt in agreement. For a moment he anticipated a smoother ride for the two of them.
It didn’t happen.
The last few hours had been a frustrating sequence of steps, each of them with the deadline burning down like the lit fuse of a bomb. The first step had been to find a speakeasy where there would be men for hire. The second step had been to convince them that, as part of a joke, Kai wanted himself and a friend carried into the Museum of Metropolitan Art, crated up as a new exhibit. The bribe helped. But it had all taken time, too much time, and it was getting near to sunset already.
“Whatcha got there?” someone demanded. One of the museum’s security guards, Kai assumed.
A pause as the leader of the crate-carriers fumbled in his pocket. “It’s a set of Ming Dynasty sculptures,” he said, reading from the note Kai had prepared. “To be delivered to Professor Jamison’s rooms. Got this letter for the professor too.”
Another pause. Kai resisted the urge to push the crate lid off and ask whether this was going to take all day.
“I guess if it’s arranged,” the guard finally said, after far too long a delay. “You’d better take them up. Professor Jamison’s on the third floor, along from the Asian art section there. Peters here will go up with you, show you the way. The professor’s out at lunch right now, but he should be back soon.”
Five minutes later the crate had been deposited inside Professor Jamison’s office. Kai listened to the door slam shut, and to the sound of feet retreating down the corridor. He gave it another five minutes before he nudged the bowstring-tense Evariste. “Now,” he whispered.
“Thank God,” Evariste muttered. “Crate fastenings, come undone. Crate lid, open.”
Kai straightened with a sigh of relief, shoving the crate lid the rest of the way off. He looked round the office. It was part of a small set of rooms—one actual office, and two store-rooms that had once been dignified little anterooms. They were now piled high with disorderly stacks of notes. Miniature skyscrapers of books rose towards the ceiling as though they would blot out the light. The faint odour of rotting cheese suggested that sandwiches had been lost in the trackless wastes of paper and never found again.
Evariste rubbed the small of his back and surveyed the area. “Shit,” he said succinctly. “We don’t have time to search through all this. The book could be anywhere.”
“Then I suggest we get started,” Kai said firmly. He checked that the door was locked. “Before Professor Jamison comes back from lunch.”
“Assuming he’s coming back at all.” Evariste glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly five o’clock already.”
“The longer he’s out, the better for us,” Kai said.
They’d powered through the room, by the expedient of checking everything they came across and dumping everything that wasn’t their target in a big heap, and were just about to try the store-rooms. Then Kai heard f
ootsteps, and a key grating in the lock. He gestured Evariste to silence, and stepped to one side of the doorway.
The door swung open and an elderly man stepped inside. He’d already shut the door and was removing his hat before he noticed the state of the office. “What—” he began.
Kai clapped one hand over the man’s mouth, grabbing his wrist with the other. “Don’t say a word,” he warned.
The man stayed silent, allowing Kai and Evariste to hustle him across to one of the chairs and bind him there with his own tie. Kai locked the door again. “Now,” he said, feeling a bit guilty, “I understand that you may be worried—you are Professor Jamison, aren’t you?”
“I am,” the man said. He was looking at them with fascination. His grey hair was receding, leaving most of his head bald, and the redness of his nose and the stains on his jacket suggested that his lunch had been largely alcoholic. “Tell me, are you the Tongs?”
“No,” Kai said, a bit confused.
“Triads?”
“No.”
“Yakuza?” He looked at Evariste. “Leopard Society?”
“Absolutely not,” Kai said. “Are you expecting them?”
“I’ve been predicting it for a while now,” the professor said gloomily. “It’s the logical consequence of removing valuable artefacts from native cultures. This sort of pandering to American greed, at the expense of the dignity and self-determination of the cultures concerned, is certain to cause long-term results—”
“If you really believe that,” Evariste broke in, “then why are you working here?”
Professor Jamison shrugged. “A man must eat, my dear boy, and there are remarkably few jobs on the market unless you’re in the alcohol trade.”
“All right,” Kai said slowly. “Now if you’ll just stay quiet, we’ll be out of here as soon as we’ve found what we’re looking for . . .”
“Tell me what it is?” the professor suggested. “I might be able to help.”
It was a little too easy. Kai glanced at Evariste and received a brief shake of the head in return. Clearly Evariste didn’t trust the man either. “I think we can manage,” he said.
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