The Lost Plot

by Genevieve Cogman

  No, she thought. I would fight all the way to the gates of hell itself to save a book. And I’ll do just as much for another Librarian.

  “Your Majesty.” Her mouth was so dry that the words came with difficulty. “It is possible that I may have been deceived about Evariste’s actions and motivations.”

  To one side she saw Hu’s shoulders lose a fraction of their tension. But if he thought she was going to let Evariste swing for this, then he was in for a shock.

  The queen nodded, waiting for Irene to continue.

  Irene took a deep breath. “My superiors will demand answers when I return to the Library. May I ask a few questions of the others present, in order to establish the full course of events?”

  CHAPTER 29

  The queen weighed Irene’s request, in a moment that seemed as long as tectonic plates shifting. Finally she said, “That seems reasonable. I trust you will not occupy too much of our time in doing so.”

  Irene had to provoke an admission of guilt, and she had to do it fast. The truth might not save them, but it was the only thing she had left. She’d run out of lies.

  The lever in her hands was the question of who had told Jin Zhi about Qing Song hiring a Librarian. And why.

  Irene turned to Qing Song. “I believe you said that Evariste approached you, seeking employment.”

  “You have repeated my words accurately,” Qing Song answered curtly.

  “And he did so at exactly the time that you needed a Librarian’s service?” Irene tried to make the question sound as if it might be incriminating Evariste even further.

  Unfortunately Qing Song was cautious enough to see the possible trap there. “Apparently word had spread about the challenge. He made contact through my servant Hu. Hu, you have my permission to answer,” he finished, with more than a little relief.

  Nice passing of the hot potato, Irene thought. She looked at Hu. “Would you mind giving me more details? If Evariste is in the habit of selling his services to outsiders, this can only add to his guilt.”

  Hu’s fingers twitched as if it would ease his nerves to be holding a cigarette. “To be precise, madam, it was an older Librarian who had spoken with me in the past. When he died, Evariste had our contact details. I believe you would say, in the local idiom, that he knew what number to call.”

  “You appear to be suggesting that the Library is staffed with people who would sell their services to anyone,” Irene said coldly.

  Hu twitched a shrug. “I’m sure these people are not representative of the Library as a whole.”

  “So when did Evariste contact you? Chronologically speaking.”

  “Shortly after Her Majesty”—Hu paused to bow to the throne—“made her request for a certain book.”

  Ya Yu inclined her head in acknowledgement. “That seems clear enough,” she said. “There seems little need for further questioning.”

  Irene glanced at Evariste, but he had his mouth so firmly shut that he might have been biting his lips. He glared at the floor, refusing to meet her eyes.

  She didn’t look at Kai. She couldn’t.

  “This whole series of events has involved a number of poorly timed meetings,” Irene said quickly to Qing Song before the queen could move from hinting to outright ordering her to stop. “The arrival of Jin Zhi in your hotel suite, for instance. I have heard that dragons can fly into an alternate world and appear in the sky above someone they know, but I didn’t realize that it went to the extent of knowing which hotel room they were in.”

  The look Qing Song gave her was sharp enough to flay. “You would have to ask Jin Zhi about the time of her arrival.”

  “And the mechanics of it?” Irene said blandly.

  The red light in Qing Song’s eyes intensified. He turned to Ya Yu. “Am I to be submitted to this questioning in my own queen’s hall, Your Majesty?”

  “Yes,” Ya Yu said. She might have been carved from emeralds or beryls, just as much a piece of stonework as her throne. “You are.” Her face showed nothing at all, but Irene suddenly felt that her line of questioning had caught the queen’s interest. She’d won herself a few more minutes before Ya Yu’s patience ran out.

  Qing Song’s mouth tightened. “Then I suggest you ask Jin Zhi,” he said to Irene, “since it was she who came to visit me, rather than the reverse.”

  “As you wish,” Irene said politely. She turned to Jin Zhi. “Madam, would you care to explain your arrival at Qing Song’s hotel suite?”

  Jin Zhi had lost her expensive coat, but her dress was close to the robes of the surrounding dragons. With her poise, she almost managed to look like a member of the attending court, rather than a witness on trial. “I thought to visit my fellow competitor as a courteous gesture. As I said earlier.”

  “And might I ask how you located him?” Irene pursued.

  Jin Zhi looked as if she would refuse to answer for a moment. Then her eye caught Ya Yu’s and she gave in. “I have a token of Qing Song’s,” she said, touching a chain at her neck that vanished beneath the bodice of her gown. “We exchanged them, some while ago.”

  That did get a reaction. A ripple of murmurs ran around the room. Even Mei Feng stepped forward to murmur something to the queen. Both Qing Song and Jin Zhi avoided looking at each other.

  “I was not aware that you were so closely attached,” Ya Yu said.

  “We are no longer so, Your Majesty,” Jin Zhi answered. She glanced at Qing Song with distilled contempt. He returned a glare of cold fury.

  Good. I’m onto something here. Keep going, keep pushing . . . “Was Evariste’s approach to you general knowledge?” she asked Hu, trying to keep the question as casual sounding as possible. “Or did he confine himself to you and your master?”

  “If he contacted others of my kind, then I didn’t know about it,” Hu parried. “He certainly didn’t mention it to myself or my lord.”

  Irene addressed her next question to Qing Song. “When Evariste blackmailed you, what threats did he make?”

  Qing Song shrugged. “He threatened to say that I had forced him to look for the book. He knew he could disgrace me and my family.” He was clearly aware that he was repeating Irene’s own threats to him, and there was a malicious satisfaction to his tone.

  “So nobody knew that Evariste was working for you?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “I did not even trust my human servants with his identity. Only Hu and I knew who and what he was.”

  Irene saw Hu’s eyes widen at that. Yes, he’s made a mistake, but you don’t realize how big a mistake, she thought. But she nodded, as if deeply impressed.

  Then she turned to Jin Zhi. “Madam,” she said, “will you admit that you spoke with me earlier, before we met in Qing Song’s company?”

  She could see the thoughts playing across Jin Zhi’s face as Jin Zhi considered her options. Then the dragon shrugged. “Spoke with you, certainly,” she said. “Not more than that. Or do you intend to claim otherwise?”

  “I agree that you didn’t try to hire me,” Irene assented. Though you wouldn’t have objected if I’d offered to work for you, would you? “That would be . . . let me see, two nights ago? Do I have the timing correct?” It barely seemed possible that it had been only two nights since then. But with the queen’s deadline approaching, time had been running out for everyone.

  Jin Zhi eyed Irene with the same wariness as Qing Song had earlier, trying to work out where the danger lay in that question. “Yes,” she admitted.

  “And you said, if I recall correctly, that you knew your competitor had also hired a Librarian. So you were merely evening the balance by making an offer to me.”

  “I understood that he had lowered himself to break the rules and do that, yes,” Jin Zhi said. She looked down her nose in Qing Song’s general direction.

  Irene nodded. She was near the crux of it now. “It must ha
ve seemed a betrayal when you were told that Qing Song had hired a Librarian,” she said, keeping the natural flow of the conversation moving smoothly. “No wonder you objected.”

  “I was far more honourable than he was!” Jin Zhi snapped. “I didn’t try to hire one myself. I simply wanted to remove his advantage.”

  “I see,” Irene said, nodding. “Thank you. That does clarify the matter. And may I ask who told you that Qing Song had hired a Librarian?”

  It was the vital question. She’d been leading up to it very carefully, trying to keep Jin Zhi in the pattern of question-and-answer, and it nearly worked. Jin Zhi had opened her lips to answer. Then full realization sparked behind her eyes, and she shut her mouth with a click. After a very obvious pause she said, “My spies.”

  Hu’s face was utterly blank. His freckles stood out like a scattering of copper across his cheek bones. It must be difficult, Irene thought drily, having to keep silent now, when you would so very much like to speak.

  “So you were spying on me,” Qing Song sneered. “I should have expected no less from you.”

  “Fine words from a lord who breaks his oath the moment it becomes inconvenient,” Jin Zhi snapped. “I’m sure you’d have had my movements watched, if you’d been capable of it.”

  “You are too harsh, madam,” Irene cut in. As both of them turned to stare at her, she continued. “Neither of you would do such a thing in person, after all. You would leave that to your servants.”

  And now the queen’s attention was concentrated on Irene like the weight of a mountain. Qing Song and Jin Zhi were too focused on Irene—and each other—to pay attention, but the other dragon nobles around the walls of the room had caught Irene’s implication. None of them made so much as a whisper to break the queen’s silence, but they exchanged quick glances again, remote from the emotional drama in front of them.

  Qing Song jerked a brief nod. “You understand that much, at least.”

  “Unfortunately I do,” Irene agreed. “And it also explains why Jin Zhi came to see me alone and unescorted, and then did the same to you. She’d had a prior example of betrayed loyalties to warn her.”

  “What do you mean?” Qing Song demanded.

  Irene turned to Jin Zhi. “It was Hu who told you, wasn’t it?”

  The silence that filled the room was like liquid ice.

  Qing Song was the first to break it. “You have offended me by insulting my sworn servant,” he said. Each word was laced with threat. “Even though I will not touch you in this place and time, this will not go unpunished.”

  “That you would defend him is the best thing I’ve seen in you so far,” Irene said tartly. “I respect that. But you’re putting your trust in the wrong person. Jin Zhi hasn’t answered me yet.”

  “I have nothing to say—” Jin Zhi began.

  Then Ya Yu raised her hand again. “You will speak,” she said. This time her voice was like the tremors heralding an earthquake. “And truthfully.”

  Jin Zhi lifted her chin like an aristocrat going to the guillotine. There was panic in her eyes, and she had to work to force the words out. “I have told you. My own spies—”

  “Your own spies couldn’t possibly be that good,” Irene broke in. “Qing Song has just told us that only he and Hu knew who Evariste was and what he was doing.”

  “But what would his motivation be for betraying me?” Qing Song said in a growl. Yet his defence of Hu was emotional rather than based on fact, and Irene could see that he was beginning to realize that.

  Irene took a pace towards him. “There is a motivation. But you wouldn’t have seen it. It’s not the sort of motivation that a nobleman of rank would see. It’s the motivation of someone who has gained everything by being your loyal servant, your right-hand man, and who loses his status if you lose yours. It’s the motivation of someone considered weak by the standards of dragons, and who has to take power where he can get it. Your family aren’t the only ones at risk if you lose this challenge. So are your servants. If you fall, then Hu falls with you. It was Hu who suggested you employ a Librarian, wasn’t it?” She saw the momentary shadow of guilt touch Qing Song’s expression. “I know that you’ll say it was your idea. It’s a nobleman’s right to take credit for his servant’s good advice, after all. And it must have seemed good advice, once you started getting desperate. Though it meant breaking the challenge’s rules. Did he convince you that it didn’t really count if you let him organize it? And if you didn’t get caught?”

  She turned to Jin Zhi. “And you, madam. I’m sure Hu told you a number of things. He could say whatever he wanted, as long as he made sure that you and Qing Song never discussed the matter.” Because one of you would be exiled or dead. “If you’d found the book because of his information, would you have taken him into your own service? As a loyal servant who deserved a better master?”

  “Do you think you can avoid the blame by putting it on me?” Hu said, speaking at last. He walked a couple of steps towards Irene, and she shifted her position so that she was facing him head-on. “You’re spinning fantasies out of thin air. You tell stories just as easily as you steal them.”

  “When Evariste ran for it, you saw the key to Qing Song’s success slipping away,” Irene said. “After all the hard work you’d done to get him there. But Evariste had succeeded. He’d proven a Librarian could find the book. Then Qing Song sent you to Boston to destroy the library there. You took advantage of the situation—the fact that you were away from your master for a few days. You went to the lady Jin Zhi and suggested that she do something: hire a Librarian of her own, or expose Qing Song and win the challenge by forfeit. You were counting on her gratitude if she won the contest. And if that happened, Qing Song would be dead or out of power, so you could leave him and go to serve her. She’d owe you a debt of gratitude. Either way, you won.”

  “I was in Boston,” Hu countered. “And I barely know the lady Jin Zhi—”

  “You know her well enough. When she walked into Qing Song’s hotel suite, you prepared a drink for her—without needing to ask what she’d like or how she’d take it,” Irene said. “And you weren’t in Boston that whole time. When I arrived, the gangsters—your local hired servants—said you’d been out of town. You were only just back from visiting Jin Zhi.”

  The queen had curled her hand into a fist. The room was taut with the stillness and pressure that came before an earthquake. That she was angry was beyond doubt, but who was the true target of her anger? Hu, for this betrayal? Jin Zhi or Qing Song, for letting themselves be fooled? Or Irene herself, for exposing it in front of the queen’s court?

  Kai’s face held the faith of someone who had never doubted. Evariste was looking at her with disbelieving hope and the shock of a man caught and pulled back from the very edge of the abyss.

  “These are lies,” Hu said again. The practice of years served him well, keeping the mask of control on his face, but his eyes glittered like verdigris. “You’re desperate. You want to save yourself and your friend, but you’re simply making yourself look foolish. Can’t you see that?”

  “What I see,” Irene answered, “is that it’s very difficult to sustain a lie when you’ve been telling different lies to different people. And now you’re caught out in front of all of them together. Believe me, I’ve been there. I’ve done that.” Her mouth curled as she thought of those moments in Qing Song’s hotel suite earlier that night. “And what I’m saying is that if Qing Song and Jin Zhi answer my questions truthfully—if they obey the queen’s orders—then I would be very interested to see what version of events emerges.”

  She paused for a moment. “Besides, I suspect there are two witnesses that we can call.”

  “Who?” Ya Yu demanded.

  Irene turned to face the queen. “Your Majesty, I think it unlikely that Hu visited Jin Zhi without a single person in her entourage seeing him. Her servants, her own bodyguards,
her attendants—they will have seen him. I understand that Jin Zhi doesn’t want to betray someone who claimed to be acting in her interests, but I believe that in this matter she and Qing Song are both betrayed. And the witness to Hu’s other reprehensible behaviour? Evariste’s daughter. If you believe me, Your Majesty, then I beg you to have her found and brought here. She is old enough to answer questions. She is old enough to tell what happened to her.”

  And Hu’s composure cracked. For a moment his face was disfigured by a brief flash of fury and utter despair. He had it under control a moment later, but it had been long enough, visible enough. Everyone had seen it.

  A whisper of movement ran around the room. The weight seemed to lift from Irene’s shoulders, to be replaced by a vast and improbable hope of success. Did I do it? Is that enough? I think I did it . . .

  “Stop.” It was Qing Song who spoke. “Your Majesty. I request permission to make my apologies.”

  The entire emotional tempo of the room changed. The tension snapped. It was as if a cold wind had passed through it, cooling the growing rise of earthquake anger and bringing a sort of release. The courtiers had caught the emotional resonance as well: there were sidelong glances and nods. Whatever Qing Song meant by “apologies,” things were now falling into what the nobles considered to be the proper pattern.

  Ya Yu sighed. She opened her hand again and extended it towards Qing Song. “You may do so. I grant you permission as a noble of the Winter Forest family and as a member of my court.”

  Qing Song bowed his head. He turned to Jin Zhi. “To you, madam, I . . .” He trailed off, as if certain things were outside his vocabulary. Finally he said, “It is true that I broke our pledge, and on my servant’s advice I broke the rules of the challenge and employed a Librarian. I apologize for that, and for all other matters that are unresolved between us.”