CHAPTER 13

Poison. The thought banished all other minor irritations with its potential for disaster. “Yes, of course you did the right thing to call me,” Irene said quickly. “Where is this food, and what is it?”

“We have it in the kitchens,” the man answered. “It’s a dish of apples, sent from the Grand Hôtel du Louvre—or at least, that was what the messenger said.”

“Is he still here?”

“No, he left after making the delivery. Unfortunately it was to the hotel staff, not my people, so they didn’t detain him.”

Irene nodded. “Lead me to the kitchen and the apples. And can you have Vale fetched as well?”

The man pursed his lips. “Your superior Prutkov said that if anyone besides you was to be called, it might cause a disturbance. People will worry.”

“People will worry anyhow,” Irene muttered. She could see his point, but she didn’t like it—but she wasn’t ready to outright challenge Prutkov. Not yet, anyhow. “Very well. Show me the situation. And what should I call you?”

He blinked for a moment. “My name is Hsien, Miss Winters.”

His personal name, Irene assumed. “And your family name?” she asked as she followed him.

“Unimportant.” His tone shut down any possibility of further questions on that subject. “The kitchen is down this way, and through here—ah, here we are.”

Sound and smells and heat washed over Irene as she stepped into the long room. It was clearly a place where people worked, as opposed to the gold-and-white perfection of the parts of the hotel to which guests were confined. Men and women in starched white clothing—how nice to see an equal division of labour—were bending over counter-tops and stove ranges, too busy to pay any attention to her. Knives flashed and thudded against chopping boards as meat and vegetables were reduced to their component parts. There was no casual conversation, only the quick back-and-forth of questions and responses. The place was full of complete and partly assembled dishes, raw and cooked meats and fish and vegetables, dishes being frantically scrubbed in the sinks. Room and people hummed with activity, as tightly wound as an overcranked musical box, running to its own inner melody and trembling with leashed energy. Saucepans and frying pans hissed at intervals along the flat tops of the ranges, and heat came gushing out every time one of the cooks opened a door along the side.

In one shadowy corner of the room Irene noted an out-of-place small bowl of fish heads on the floor, next to a basket with a blanket in it. No sign of its occupant, however—it had probably been chased out of the kitchen while the meal was in progress.

“Over there,” Hsien said, directing Irene to the end of one of the long tables. One of Hsien’s fellow bodyguards was watching a carefully plated dish of apples as though it was an unexploded bomb. The crate from which it had been extracted sat on the floor next to it, and Irene made a mental note to see that it was saved for Vale’s later attention. “What do you need to do?” Hsien asked.

Irene inspected the apples. They were beautiful specimens, dark red and glossy. She didn’t recognise the variety, but then she wasn’t sure what varieties were current in France at this point anyhow. They glistened on the white porcelain platter as though to say, Bite me. “I assume there was no card or letter with them?”

“Only a verbal direction that they were for ‘the lady from the Grand Hôtel du Louvre,’” Hsien answered.

“And do we have any proof that they’re actually poisoned?” Irene paused, considering how naive that must sound. “Well, apart from all the other suspicious circumstances surrounding their delivery.”

“Anonymously delivered, untraceable, and unnaturally attractive?” Hsien shrugged. “I admit I have no actual proof, but …”

Irene nodded. “All right. I’ll need a pair of tongs, a clean bowl, and a small plate.”

Hsien nodded to his colleague, who promptly collected the items from nearby workbenches, ignoring the glares of the cooks. “What do you propose to do?”

“Try a test.” Irene used the tongs to place one of the apples on the plate—the glossiest—then returned the others to their holding crate. “Please move this crate out of earshot. I’m going to use the Language to check this one for poison, as a random sample. If it comes up positive, then we can analyse the others later in more detail. Is this satisfactory?”

Hsien’s brows twitched. He seemed mildly surprised to be asked for an opinion at all, but he nodded. “That seems logical. I bow to your leadership.”

“Good.” Irene glanced at the chefs. Nobody was watching them. She waited for Hsien to get the other apples out of range, then lifted the bowl towards the glistening apple. It was difficult to choose her words without knowing what the poison was—or if there was a poison at all—but she did her best. “Let any substance which is not a natural part of this apple, which has been added with the intent to make it poisonous or harmful, leave the fruit and enter this bowl that I am holding.”

She wasn’t entirely sure whether or not she wanted something to happen. The situation would be a great deal easier if the whole thing was a false alarm.

But then a tendril of black liquid came spiralling out of the apple, sliding through the air and into the bowl she was holding. The apple deliquesced, crumpling in on itself and dissolving into a bag of mush inside its skin. The sound of the viscous liquid collecting in the bottom of the bowl was inaudible against the greater noise of food preparation. All the chefs had their attention on their work. Only Irene and Hsien saw the poison leave the fruit and form a seething black puddle of ooze.

“Can you identify it?” Hsien demanded intently.

“No,” Irene admitted. She was grateful that they’d caught this, but the brief moment of relief was overshadowed by the definite knowledge that a poisoner was at large. Even if it was someone outside the hotel, with an urge towards dramatics. Come to think of it, poisoned apples formed part of a very specific fairy story … A question for Silver later, perhaps.

“I think we’d better quarantine the remaining apples and this poison for Vale to examine later, and keep up all current precautions,” she said, focusing on the current situation. “This is almost too obvious. I wonder if it’s meant to induce false reassurance and make us think we have everything under control. I’m assuming you and the Fae security people have the hotel and this kitchen well secured?”

“Of course,” Hsien said without a moment’s hesitation. “And we are watching their people too. In case of betrayal.”

Just as they’re no doubt watching you for the same reason. “Good,” Irene said. She looked around the room, wondering how secure it was. “How many ways into this room are there?”

Hsien indicated several doors as he spoke. “That’s the cold room over there. That archway at the far end goes down a flight of stairs to the wine cellars. And that one on the left is the storeroom, which has a tradesmen’s door leading directly outside, which they bring supplies in through—but we have a guard out there already. It’s the only one that I can say definitely wasn’t used by any assassins.”

Irene nodded, getting an idea of the geography. “And I take it there are no other exits from the cold room or the wine cellars?”

“Precisely,” Hsien agreed. “We have a sealed area. Any coming and going has to be through the main doors that we came through. I had Wei watching that: only waiters and chefs and hotel staff have been that way.”

And you and all the other security people, of course, Irene thought. Another possibility to take into account. “Are you having any problems with the humans working with the Fae? Any difficulties in cooperating with them?”

Hsien hesitated, looking as if he wished he had something concrete to complain about, then shrugged. “They know their job, and they’re as concerned for their masters as we are for ours. We can work with them. If there is any trouble, it won’t be us causing it.”

“Right.” Irene passed him the bowl of poison. “I’d better go back to the dinner before anyone suspects something wrong. Call me if you need me.”

After all, with one assassination attempt already so far this evening, there were bound to be more to come …

Back at her table, they’d already finished the fish course and had reached the entrees. A waiter, too well-trained to comment on her reappearance, doled out filet mignon onto her plate. Vale gave her an inquisitive look. And he wasn’t the only one. A good half of the people in the elegant room were glancing in her direction, though some were better at concealing it than others. Kai was apparently devoting his full attention to conversation with his uncle, but Irene saw his eyes flick to her in one of the mirrors.

“Anything serious?” Medea enquired. “A problem of some sort?”

“Nothing important,” Irene answered, knowing even a whisper might be overheard.

However, she’d borrowed pencil and paper from Hsien outside and had taken a moment to write a summary of the situation. She passed the folded note to Vale under the table and had a blessed few mouthfuls of filet mignon while he surreptitiously read it. “I hope I didn’t miss anything in here?”

“People are just enjoying the food and wine, I think,” Rongomai answered. “Is the new plan to get everyone so drunk that they haven’t the will to fight? I think I read somewhere—Egyptian mythology, was it? The myth of Bast or Sekhmet or one of those lion or cat goddesses … conspirators got the goddess drunk on ale mixed with red dye, which she’d thought was blood? Or was that Hathor?”

“No, Sekhmet,” Medea corrected him. “Do dragons drink blood?”

“Not that I’ve ever noticed,” Irene said, “but I try not to provoke them.”

Next to her, Vale had gone tense, like a hound on point. He forced himself to relax, tucking the note away in a pocket. “I would agree that it’s nothing important,” he said to Irene, indicating the note. “I cannot think of any other steps I would have taken. I will inspect the items later.”

Part of Irene wanted to say damn the consequences and drag him out to have a look at the situation now, even if it panicked the rest of the room. But her sense of danger warned her just how fragile the temporary peace was. It was a miracle that they’d managed to get dragons and Fae in the same room and eating together. Even if they were at separate tables. They couldn’t risk straining the truce by suggesting—no, confirming—that a poisoner was on the loose.

She nodded to Vale, then turned to Rongomai. “Might I ask where you got those facial tattoos?” she said. “They’re very striking, but they must occasionally be a little inconvenient.”

“That’s the polite way of putting it,” Rongomai said cheerfully. He sliced into his vegetable dish. “My supervisor threw a fit when he saw them. Pointed out how recognisable they’d make me, as if I hadn’t already realised that myself. Such a pity.”

“Are you saying that you had them done deliberately so you wouldn’t have to do undercover work?” Medea asked.

“Well, it wasn’t the primary motivation, but I’d definitely call it a fringe benefit,” Rongomai said.

“Excuse me, Miss Winters.” One of Hsien’s people was at Irene’s shoulder again. “If you would accompany us for a moment …”

With a sigh Irene put down her knife and fork, leaving her half-finished filet mignon behind, and followed him out of the room, conscious of all the eyes on her as she left.

“What is it this time?” she demanded of Hsien, once the door was safely shut behind them. “Another poison attempt?”

“No, something else this time.” Her earlier performance seemed to have given her some credibility in Hsien’s eyes. He was speaking to her like a colleague now, rather than with his earlier wariness. “There’s been another crate delivered—from the Ritz, this time. Or again, that’s where it’s supposed to be from. The men delivering it left after it had been signed for. And before we could question them. At least we didn’t bring it inside this time.”

“I think you’d better have someone waiting at the door in case anyone else tries to make anonymous deliveries and then leave before they can be interrogated,” Irene suggested. But possibilities were speeding through her mind, each more horrifying than the last. “More poison? Wild animals? Spiders? A bomb?”

“They claimed it was a cake.” Hsien shrugged. “We haven’t uncrated it yet.”

“All right.” Irene wished that Librarian powers included X-ray vision. “I think we can agree that it’s highly unlikely that this is going to be a genuine cake, correct?”

“Your logic agrees with mine. I’m reluctant to open it in case we trigger something, but if it has a timed mechanism inside …”

“Yes. We need to get it open now. Can someone find me a cape or a coat of some sort?”

A few minutes later, they were outside in the Tuileries Garden, across the road from the hotel, with the snow drifting gently down around them and glinting in momentary flakes of brilliance in the gleam of the garden lanterns. The other member of their current group had introduced herself as Erda and was the head of the Fae security group. She was a stranger to Irene, with Nordic golden hair and a Valkyrie’s muscular shoulders and arms.

They stood at a safe distance from the crate. It was about three feet across, covered with various requests to handle it with care, and it could have contained anything. Like everything else in this weather, it was acquiring a coating of snow. Ao Ji must still be in a bad mood. A pity—everything else seems to be going quite well. Irene’s borrowed cape was little use against the cold, and she could feel her silk slippers growing damp as the snow melted under her feet, but she almost welcomed the physical sensations. They distracted her from all the potential reasons to be afraid.

Deliberately she listed them to herself, naming her fears and then pushing them to one side to focus on the current emergency. My parents are hostages. The Cardinal in the Fae delegation has promised me a fate worse than death—yes, definitely worse than death—if I fail. Ao Ji will not only retaliate against my parents, but also against me and all the Librarians here and all of Paris if we can’t find the murderer. Vale’s at risk from all sides if things get worse. Someone—possibly the Blood Countess, possibly someone entirely unknown—apparently wants to poison everyone. And my current supervisor is an arrogant idiot who thinks he can manipulate the situation.

“What do we do now?” Erda asked.

Irene had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the security teams on both sides were headed by people who were fine within the scope of their job but who needed firm direction when it came to anything unusual. “Please stay back: don’t do anything unless I tell you to, unless the circumstances demand immediate action.”

Another reason to be grateful for the cold and the snow: nobody except the desperate was wandering through the Tuileries Garden on a night like this, and none of those were nearby either. Irene mentally cracked her knuckles and chose her words. “Without activating any interior mechanisms or triggers, fastenings of the crate in front of me come undone, and planks fall apart to reveal what lies within.”

The planks slowly, silently fell apart into the snow, like the segments of a puzzle box, revealing a large pale object semi-concealed by layers of muslin.

“No snakes,” Erda said with satisfaction. “I hate snakes.”

“They might be concealed inside,” Hsien said. “Cobras, perhaps—waiting to leap out the moment the cake was opened. That would be a very Fae trick.”

Erda gave him a sideways glare that was perceptible even through the snow.

“Gentleman, lady,” Irene said wearily, “do you mind? Let’s get this sorted out before anything else can happen.” And before I die of hunger, she thought. The taste of that half-eaten filet mignon still lingered wistfully in her mouth.

Both sides fell silent and chose to stare at the muslin-shrouded object rather than each other.

“Muslin wrapping the object in front of me, unwind and fall to the ground,” Irene continued.

The fabric fell away in folds as if unseen hands were reverently displaying its contents. Beneath it was a cake.

It was a very impressive cake. It almost shone with its own radiance. It was a confection of spun sugar and royal icing designed to look like some royal palace, ornamented with sugar jewels and a sash of chocolate-stained profiteroles that begged to be devoured. (Or perhaps that was just Irene’s hunger talking. It was hard to tell.) Crystallised rose and violet petals traced an intricate pattern across the top, surrounded by curls of carefully sculpted icing and pallid towers of sugar. A faint aroma of oranges—cointreau?—hung round it, perceptible even from the distance where Irene and the others stood. The falling snowflakes around it were the perfect touch.

“Someone put a lot of effort into that,” Irene said. “Do you think it’s possible to trace whoever made it?”

“We can try,” Erda said. She reached into her cape and pulled out an anachronistic electronic camera, then strolled around the cake, taking photos from different angles. The flash glared mercilessly, and Irene had to look away.

“I’ll get these printed out back at our hotel,” Erda explained, putting the camera away again. “We can explain the photos as a new printing technique. I’ll make sure you and Mr. Vale get copies.”

“Thank you,” Irene said gratefully. Using anachronistic technology in an alternate world was always risky: she tended not to rely on it, because without the physical infrastructure to handle repairs, or the ability to recharge items, it could become more trouble than it was worth. But this would be useful. Craftsmanship like this cake had to be recognisable.

She sniffed again. Perhaps it was her imagination, but there seemed to be something other than the smell of oranges in the air. And the natural scents from the garden and the Seine, of course, but the bitter cold and frost cut down on both of those to some extent. “Can you smell anything?” she asked the others.

Frowns and shrugs. “Perhaps,” Erda suggested. “I’m not sure.”

“You suspect gas?” Hsien asked.

“It’d be a logical trap.”

“Then allow me to spring it.” He reached inside his jacket—getting the same sort of reaction from Erda as his earlier twitch in response to her camera—and withdrew a knife, tossing it at the cake. The blade spun through the air and thudded solidly between two profiteroles, slicing through the icing and into the interior.

The vapour that came spilling out was a malicious, foul yellow-green under the garden lanterns, and the outright stench made them all retreat. The gas flowed over the ground towards them, billowing in nightmarish waves.

Irene had never actually been under gas attack before, but memories of chlorine-cleaned swimming pools told her what the gas had to be. “Toxic vapour, return to the cake and remain inside!” she ordered hastily.

“Reseal the icing?” Erda suggested, as the gas flowed backwards again, leaving a seared trail in the icing around the hole.

“That’d only be temporary. We need to dispose of that stuff.” The Language worked on gas, but only temporarily: gas wouldn’t stay where it was put, unless there was some better way to seal it in. Better to defuse the whole thing, if that was possible. Irene racked her brains for memories of chemistry lessons at school. Chlorine reacted with almost everything, she remembered that much. “Everyone stay well back in case this goes wrong, please—”

The speed with which everyone backed even farther away was gratifying. It was nice to have people pay attention to her orders.

“Snow on the ground around the cake, melt,” she said. “Poisonous vapour”—she wished she knew what the word in the Language for chlorine was—“emerge from the cake and dissolve in the water.”

Once again the gas flowed outwards, with more of the cake drooping and dissolving in its wake, but at the same time the surrounding snow collapsed in on itself, dissolving into water. Fortunately the ground was frozen hard enough that the water couldn’t immediately trickle away. The gas fluxed and shifted, moving like a living thing as it snaked into the growing puddles, which heaved and bubbled as the chemicals reacted.

“If I’d tried to do this at school, they’d have made me use a fume cupboard,” Irene said absently. This was taking more energy than she’d expected. She folded her arms, fingers digging into her forearms as she focused. Frozen ground vegetation wilted and turned yellow as the liquid hydrochloric acid ate into it. Holes formed in the ground as the acid trickled farther down. Some moles were going to get a nasty shock. The cake gave up the ghost, collapsing in on itself in a heaving yellow-smeared morass of spoiled icing, profiteroles crumbling and sugar towers tumbling down.

“You did this sort of thing at school regularly?” Hsien asked. Irene wasn’t sure if his tone was one of shock or jealousy.

“Well, occasionally. With test tubes and so on. Not with the Language, and not with cake.” Irene watched the last of the gas dissolve into the water. Fragments of glass protruded from the remains of the cake. “I think the gas must have been in thin glass containers inside the cake structure. The moment someone stuck a knife in there …”

“You are probably correct,” Hsien said. “Fortunately it wouldn’t have been a danger to my lords, but even so …”

Fury counterbalanced Irene’s weariness and hunger. This wasn’t just a plan to spoil the alliance and cause who knew how many deaths in the process: this was a murder attempt that would have hit the hotel staff first and foremost. It would have been a waiter or chef who cut the cake open, and waiters who were gathered around to distribute it when the gas came pouring out. It would have been ordinary innocent humans who would have suffered.

She wasn’t sure whether or not she liked Hsien and Erda, but she really didn’t like whoever was behind this. Whether it was the Blood Countess or some other totally unexpected villain hiding in Paris. Or some devious machination by the Cardinal. Or … whatever. There were too many possibilities and not enough facts.

“We’d better get back to the hotel,” she said. “Can someone else guard the evidence till Vale’s had a chance to examine it, then dispose of it?”

“I’ll have some of my people do it,” Erda said. She looked at the surrounding damage. “We don’t want to be blamed for this. The gardeners will probably think that wholesale poisoning would have been better than damaging these grounds.”

Irene nodded, brushing snow off her hair and shoulders as they turned back to the hotel. And, really, Erda had put the basic problem in a nutshell. Everyone here viewed damage to their own particular interest as more significant than damage to anyone else’s. Whatever the scale of the damage.

“Wait,” Hsien said, holding out an arm to bar Irene’s way.

A shadow covered the pavement around the hotel. At first it might have been simple darkness, but as the three of them stood there, it moved, sliding over the paving like water. Dozens—no, hundreds—of little eyes glinted in the darkness, tiny and feral, catching the light from the street lamps.

The carpet of rats rippled across the road towards them, slowly enough to make the blood crawl and allow a full understanding of the situation. They were moving to encircle them.