The Lost Plot

by Genevieve Cogman

  Jin Zhi’s eyes glittered like gemstones. The fern patterns of dragon-scales showed on the skin of her arms and face. “I do not regret anything.”

  “I will take that with me,” Qing Song said.

  He looked at Evariste. “Your daughter is being held at my household in Zagreb: the queen’s servants can take you there. My servants there will surrender her to an official request. I . . . realize that my threat may have been . . .” He looked for words again. “Unkind.”

  “Is that an apology?” Evariste rasped. Irene could hear the unspoken profanities, the sheer anger, behind the barely controlled snarl of his voice. But his sheer relief almost drowned it out.

  “Yes,” Qing Song said slowly, as though he could not quite believe he was lowering himself to apologize to a Librarian. To a human. “I believe it is.”

  He turned to Hu. “You,” he said. “As you were my servant, I accept full responsibility for your actions, and for any advice that you gave me, and which I took. But I now dismiss you from my service.” The scorn in his voice was just as much for himself as it was for Hu. His body was tense with anger, with self-disgust and despair.

  Hu stood alone. He was as white as chalk. Nobody else was even looking at him or acknowledging his existence. He was, Irene realized, effectively a non-person amongst dragons now: he had no rank, no power, and he had been caught breaking what should have been his greatest loyalty. He’d played for the highest stakes and he’d lost. His petty ambitions had nearly started a conflict that could have dragged down the Library and involved both ends of reality. His life now hung on the queen’s mercy, and Irene didn’t think she was feeling merciful.

  Qing Song turned away from Hu and glanced at Irene. “I make no apologies to enemies,” he said, “and you have been mine, Librarian. However, I grant you my respect.”

  Irene bowed her head in response. She could guess what was going to happen next, just as she would have been able to do at any theatrical tragedy, and it didn’t help. There was nothing she could do to stop the pattern of events she had unleashed. She knew that she’d done the right thing for the Library, for Evariste, and for herself, but at the same time she regretted what would come next.

  Finally Qing Song turned to Ya Yu. He stepped forward and went down on one knee before her throne, in the same manner as earlier. “Your Majesty,” he said. “I apologize to you and to my family for my failure.”

  “Your apology is accepted,” Ya Yu said. She gestured, and one of the guards walked across from by the door. He drew a knife from a sheath at his side and offered it to Qing Song.

  Evariste’s indrawn breath broke the silence. He hadn’t guessed how far the apology was going to go, Irene realized. Her hand clamped down on his wrist and she met his eyes, trying to communicate, There’s nothing we can do now. And Qing Song admitting his guilt has saved you—and saved the Library.

  This was someone else’s story. The Library should never have been involved in it in the first place.

  Qing Song took the knife. In the deathly hush, he set it against his chest and thrust.

  The only sound was his body crumpling to the floor.

  He lay there, looking as human as Irene herself, or Evariste, or Lucky George, or Captain Venner, or any of the people that Irene had met over the last few days. Death had no respect for him: it did not straighten his limbs, or restore him to a dragon’s form, or stop the blood that slowly pooled on the floor. The assembled nobles were still, giving him some form of final acknowledgement.

  “Jin Zhi,” the queen said. “Attend me.”

  Jin Zhi knelt beside Qing Song’s corpse. The hem of her gown trailed in the pool of his blood. “Your Majesty,” she said.

  “You will receive Minister Zhao’s place.” Ya Yu’s glance flicked to Qing Song’s body. “Since your fellow competitor has admitted defeat, and since you have kept to the rules of the challenge, you are the victor. I will take your oath in full court tomorrow.” Her eyes hardened. “It is my wish that no vengeance be taken over any part of this matter. You will embrace our visitors and part from them as allies. Is that understood?”

  Jin Zhi swallowed, and Irene could see her throat working. “Your Majesty. I lied earlier in court before you. Should I also apologize?”

  Ya Yu sighed again. “I have already lost one servant today, child. Your work and your life will be your apology to me. Rise. Mei Feng, attend me: we must discuss the new minister’s position. And let Qing Song’s body be removed and returned to his family for the funeral.”

  Mei Feng also approached the throne. The courtiers began to murmur to each other, inaudible from where Irene stood. The trial was apparently over.

  Irene wondered what she should do next. Probably the best course of action was to wait for a chance to speak to the queen, to request that her servants collect Evariste’s daughter. She released her grip on his arm. And . . . Kai had turned away from her and was starting to make polite conversation with a nearby noble. She blinked, trying to convince herself she didn’t want to cry.

  Then she realized that Hu was standing next to her.

  “Why?” Hu asked. There was something very distant to his voice, as if he were looking at Irene from the end of a long tunnel, considering her with the dispassion of a man past all wishes and regrets.

  “Why what?” Irene countered. Everyone else was now deliberately ignoring them both, just as they’d ignored Hu earlier.

  “Why did you involve yourself in this?”

  “Because you brought the Library into this in the first place,” Irene said. She found that her anger had not left her. She throttled it back: she would not lose control, not now, not in front of the queen and her nobles. But she would answer him. She wanted Hu and everyone present to understand this. Even if they were pretending not to listen, she knew they’d hear. “You and your master tried to involve us in your private politics. You threatened the neutrality that the Library has always fought to preserve. You suborned and blackmailed an innocent man. You blew up the library in Boston and destroyed its contents. You let your master and Jin Zhi push a human city to the breaking point. And then you tried to put it on my fellow Librarian here and leave him to take the blame.” She met his eyes. “We are not just ‘book thieves.’ And we are not your servants or your toys.”

  Hu nodded. And then his hand slid inside his jacket, and when it came out again, he was holding a small gun—dark ugly metal in the beautiful throne room. It was pointing directly at Irene.

  Now she knew what that expression on his face had meant. It had been the decision of a man—a dragon—who knew that the game was lost and had chosen to take his opponent with him.

  Ya Yu cried out, and the queen’s power filled the room in a choking land-slide, weighing down on them all. It clogged voices and forced muscles to stillness. It compelled dragons just as much as it compelled humans and Librarians, and the very earth itself. But it wasn’t quite fast enough to stop Hu’s finger from tightening on the trigger.

  Something hit Irene from behind at the same moment that the bullet hit her in front.

  She tasted blood in her mouth.

  And then there was darkness.

  CHAPTER 30

  A single point of fire blossomed in Irene’s upper arm, and abruptly she was conscious.

  Irene had always thought that some awakenings were better than others. For instance, waking up in bed on a morning with nothing urgent to do, a pile of books next to you, and a mug of coffee within arm’s reach could be described as good. Waking up in the deserted tunnels of the London Underground to the sound of distant werewolf howls was bad. Waking up to find yourself hanging in chains in a private Inquisition Chamber was really bad. (And hell on the shoulders.)

  She had no idea what she’d just woken up to this time, but it smelled of antiseptic and plum blossoms. She was in some sort of plain robe, by the feel of it. Her chest ached as if someo
ne had kicked her.

  She gathered her courage and opened her eyes.

  “She’s awake, Your Majesty,” the man leaning over her reported. He was human rather than a dragon, and he wore a simpler version of the robes the courtiers had been wearing earlier. He withdrew a hypodermic needle from her arm. “Will there be anything else?”

  “No,” Ya Yu said from a position out of Irene’s line of sight. “You may leave us.”

  The man bowed himself out of view, and the door clicked shut behind him.

  Irene tried to sit upright, looking around her. It was a graceful room in shades of white and green, minimally furnished except for the bed and the table next to it. Afternoon light streamed in through the floor-length window, silhouetting Ya Yu as she stood looking down at the view below.

  “I would offer to help you sit up,” the queen said without turning round, “but I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. Can you breathe freely?”

  Irene sucked in a gulp of air, let it out, and touched her chest. Taking advantage of Ya Yu’s back being turned, she pulled open the hospital gown’s neckline and peered down at her chest. There was a small fresh red scar about halfway down, a few inches to the right from her heart, but that was all. “Yes, Your Majesty,” she reported.

  “Good. Fortunately Hu missed his shot. If your fellow Librarian hadn’t thrust you aside, I believe the bullet would have taken you in the heart, and even the best medical science has its limits. As it was, you required repairs to your lung and ribs.”

  Irene touched the scar. It was tender rather than actually painful. That close . . .

  “I’m like Ao Shun.” Ya Yu turned round. “I see no reason not to use scientific advances. Especially when it comes to avoiding a diplomatic incident. Such as the representative of a neutral power being shot in the middle of my court.”

  “Ah,” Irene said neutrally, desperately trying to think what to ask first. “But, Your Majesty, where is everyone? What happened?”

  Ya Yu counted off details on her fingers. “Jin Zhi has been invested with her new position. Your colleague Evariste has been given custody of his daughter, and has returned with her to the Library to report on the situation.” She watched Irene assessingly. “Ao Guang’s son Kai has returned to his own affairs.”

  Irene tried to nod as if taking this in her stride. But she felt strangely hollow. For months she had been growing used to Kai, depending on him, worrying about him, caring for him. It might not be love, depending on one’s definition of love . . . but she hadn’t wanted to lose him. And now he was gone.

  “I’m glad to see that you are in your right mind and capable of rational behaviour,” Ya Yu said. It was like the edge of a knife being run very delicately along the skin: not enough to cut, but enough to remind the subject of how dangerous it was. “Let’s both pretend that everything Kai said was true. He must get that from his mother. I respect Ao Guang and I’ve borne him children, but he is a stable ruler rather than an imaginative one.”

  Irene swallowed. Her scar picked that moment to ache. “The Library appreciates stability between the extremes, Your Majesty. It provides the best environment for human beings to prosper.”

  Ya Yu nodded. “Good. Now, have you any questions you would like to ask me?”

  Irene shifted her position so that she was sitting on the side of the bed. It made her feel slightly less vulnerable. “I do, Your Majesty, but I’m not sure what it’s politic to ask—and what I should pretend I never knew.”

  Ya Yu raised her hand to her mouth, hiding her smile behind a trailing sleeve. Her presence was subdued now, not weighing down on Irene as much as it had been in the throne room. “This is a private audience, child. It’s the meeting where we decide what you should forget about and never mention again. That would be difficult if you can’t talk about it now.”

  This was all pointing towards a relatively optimistic outcome, Irene tried to convince herself. Except for Kai . . . “So the Library is cleared of collusion or theft?”

  “There were no such charges in the first place,” Ya Yu said blandly. “There was an internal enquiry in my court, in the course of which two Librarians were requested to provide information. They generously and disinterestedly did so. The Library itself was not involved. Am I correct?”

  Irene mentally reviewed the precise meaning of disinterested—not influenced by personal considerations, neutral, uninvolved—and decided she could live with that. “I believe my superiors would agree with you,” she said carefully. “Though since this is your court’s internal business in any case, it wouldn’t be a subject for general discussion.”

  “It’s certainly not going to be for general discussion,” Ya Yu agreed. “But the families involved will need to be made aware of the facts.”

  Irene didn’t want to raise the question, but she needed an answer. “Will the Winter Forest family hold a grudge against the Library, for the way events turned out?”

  “I’ve ordered them not to,” Ya Yu said crisply, “and Qing Song himself apologized for his errors. I think they’re more likely to avoid Librarians than seek revenge.”

  “You ordered them, Your Majesty? That was very generous of you towards the Library.”

  “I am far older than Jin Zhi or Qing Song,” Ya Yu said, “and certainly older than Hu. I know better than to discount the Library. I know what you do to stabilize our realms, and why. And while I will certainly take advantage of you if you put yourself in my debt, child, I do not wish to make you my enemy. Or the Library.”

  “Nor we you, madam,” Irene said quickly. She chose not to think about the fact that Ya Yu apparently considered her worth personal mention. “If I may ask—what happened to Hu?”

  Ya Yu’s face drew into rigid lines, and her eyes glinted red with personal offence. “I have spared him, for the moment, in case you wished to be present at his execution . . .”

  Irene tried not to pale at the thought. “No, Your Majesty. I don’t.”

  “Then he will be returned to the Winter Forest family, to answer for his actions towards his master.”

  Which was probably the worst fate Irene could wish on him.

  “You have time for one more question,” Ya Yu said, watching her.

  Irene weighed her options and decided to chance it. “Your Majesty, did you intend for Jin Zhi and Qing Song . . . well, for anything to happen between them while they were trying to find that book for you?”

  Ya Yu was silent for a long moment, giving Irene all the time in the world to reflect on how she might just have said exactly the wrong thing, and to calculate her chances of walking out of this room alive.

  Finally the queen said, “It would have resolved certain difficulties between their families if they could have found an . . . original solution to the situation. I reward solutions that work, Irene Winters. I was aware of their previous relationship. If they’d come to me together with the book, then I would have found some way to reward them both. As it is, I have lost one servant and another is mourning him. But I have you to thank that matters are not worse.”

  Ya Yu had assumed her role as queen again. The previous intimacy, fragile as it had been, was gone. So Irene rose to her feet and bowed. “Thank you for your time, Your Majesty. I am glad this issue has been resolved in a manner agreeable to both sides.”

  At the back of her mind she wondered: if Qing Song had successfully manipulated Evariste and found the book, then would the queen have punished him? Or would she have approved it as a solution that worked? And what would the consequences have been for the Library? Irene locked the thought away. After all, she wanted to leave this place alive.

  She was more tired than she had thought possible. It wasn’t just the weariness of recovering from a near-fatal wound: it was an exhaustion of the soul. She was tired of playing politics, of walking a knife’s edge between danger for herself and danger for the Library. She wanted
to get back to her books, to go back to being a Librarian. And she knew, with a cold, truthful bitterness, that she had cared about Kai. And she was going to keep on caring about him for a very long time—now that she’d lost him.

  Ya Yu acknowledged the bow. “One of my servants will show you to a castle library. If you can’t reach your own Library from there, then she will escort you to another world where you can do so. Oh, and ask your superiors if you will lend me that copy of the Journey to the West.” She smiled as she left. “They do have two copies now, after all. And I still want to read it again.”

  The attendant who appeared a few minutes later led Irene to a set of interconnected rooms, which almost had Irene wishing she could stay a bit longer. The shelves brimmed with interesting possibilities, neatly stacked scrolls and well-organized books.

  But with a nod of thanks to the servant, she touched a nearby door and said, “Open to the Library.”

  This was the highest-order world that Irene had ever visited. It was set in its ways, rigid and unchanging. It didn’t want to obey the Language at all. But right at this precise moment, Irene wouldn’t allow it to refuse. Her brows came together in a frown and she wrapped her hand around the door-handle, focusing her will on her own connection to the Library, on her certainty that all libraries could reach the Library and that this one was no exception.

  The wood of the door shuddered and then relaxed, and she knew the connection had formed.

  She opened the door and stepped through, closing it behind her.

  CHAPTER 31

  Irene managed to reach Vale’s world a few hours later, after writing a number of reports and changing her clothing to something more appropriate. She hadn’t yet been summoned by Coppelia or Melusine or any other senior Librarians to explain herself in person, so she’d decided to slip off to her current world of residence before any of them could demand an interview. There had been a very brief note of thanks from Evariste. He’d managed to combine gratitude with a subtext of hoping that he’d never need her help again. She couldn’t blame him.