CHAPTER 16

Irene’s dreams had been as peaceful as the snow falling outside; unformed and indistinct, but quiet and unthreatening, free for the moment from fear and desperation and worry. When she opened her eyes, trying to work out why she’d woken up, the only noises were the crackling of the fire and Kai’s breathing next to her in the bed.

Then the thunder came again, tearing away her last shreds of sleepiness. Someone was rapping on the bedroom door. Actually, rapping was too minor a word for it. Someone with absolutely no concern for sleepers in this bedroom—or neighbouring bedrooms, or possibly the entire corridor—was pounding on the door.

“Winters!” It was Vale’s voice. “Winters, are you awake in there?”

“I certainly am now,” Irene muttered, staggering out of bed. Pale greyness outlined the window, leaking around the edges of the thick curtains. She flipped the light switch and blinked in the sudden illumination; the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece said it was seven o’clock in the morning. She shook her head, pulling herself together, and looked round for her dressing-gown. “Yes!” she called, more loudly. “Give me a moment …”

Kai had come awake and was sitting up in the bed, his black hair ruffled but his composure untouched. “Should I be found here?” he asked softly.

“I have news about that explosion,” Vale explained through the door. “Lord Silver’s with me. May we join you?”

That settled Kai’s question without Irene even having to reply. It would be bad enough putting up with Silver’s verbal barbs on the subject of whom Irene might choose to share her bed. But outright confirming to him that she was sleeping with one of the dragon delegation, when he might report it to the Cardinal …

Irene pointed at Kai, then towards the bathroom. “Just a moment, please,” she called to Vale, wrapping her dressing-gown round her. She was still shivering with cold—now that she was out of bed, the wintry temperature was much more palpable, and her dressing-gown was the lacy peignoir variety rather than the heavy flannel type. She dragged the counterpane off the bed to drape it over her shoulders as well.

Kai slipped out of the bed and caught up his clothing from the chair where he’d left it. He touched Irene’s hand for a moment—an acknowledgement, and a wish that they had time for more—and glided into the suite’s bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Irene stumbled across to the door, handling her multiple layers with some difficulty, and opened it. Vale and Silver were standing in the corridor. They were both still in last night’s evening dress. Vale looked a bit raw around the edges; he had the air of a man who could certainly do with sleep but was far too busy to bother with it for the moment, and would simply make up the difference later. She’d seen him stay awake for two or three days on end and then catch up on his sleep as a lump sum once the current case was over. She rather envied him that talent.

Silver, on the other hand, looked in the prime of life, his eyes sparkling and his hat cocked jauntily. No doubt given his usual schedule—rise mid-afternoon, then stay out partying and debauching until the early hours of the morning—this was nothing unusual for him. Or perhaps his ebullience was simply due to getting to see her in a lacy dressing-gown. She tugged the counterpane tighter round her.

Vale strode in without bothering to wait for a formal invitation, and dropped onto one of the flimsy chairs. Silver followed, settling himself with more grace. “Rather cold in here,” he commented. “I hope that you found some way to keep yourself warm last night.”

Well, that level of innuendo settled any questions about whether or not Silver knew about Kai’s presence. Irene ignored his comment and knelt down to poke up the fire. “You said you had information about the explosion,” she remarked over her shoulder in Vale’s direction.

“I do,” Vale agreed. He slipped off his gloves and rubbed his hands together. “I’ll say this for the current weather—anyone out on the streets last night or this morning has a reason to be there. Unfortunately, this has resulted in rather fewer witnesses than usual, or so Inspector Maillon informs me.”

“Fewer than usual?” Irene took the remaining chair, huddling under the counterpane. She would have liked to get some clothes on, but this information was more urgent, and Vale in this current mood would barely notice if she was naked and painted with woad, other than to check her decorations for relevance to the current case. “Paris nightlife, I suppose?”

“Sadly curtailed at the moment,” Silver agreed.

Vale nodded. “We do have witnesses to when the explosions took place—yes, explosions, Winters, and kindly don’t interrupt me with questions, I’ll get to that point in a moment. Small charges were laid at various rooms in the Richelieu Library, most of them dealing with matters of the ancien régime; histories, lineage, whatever. One of the other rooms was the one which we arrived through when we came to this world, which is now unfortunately past saving. Of course, to Inspector Maillon this only supports the anarchist theory, though he did remark to me that he found the activity almost too obvious.”

Irene rubbed at her forehead. “Which it probably is. Given that it’s an attack on a library, rather than anywhere more significant in terms of royalty or authority, can we assume that this is someone just using the anarchist movement to cover their strikes against the peace conference? Rather than genuine anarchist activity? Though if the inspector’s noticing that something’s off-key, then we may have even more problems. I’d rather not cope with the Paris gendarmerie as well as everything else.”

“The inspector will probably be satisfied with the current story so long as no other compelling motive presents itself. And while we cannot be certain, the balance of probability seems to me to lean towards this attack being linked to the conference.” Vale leaned forward. “Which brings us to the next point. Why? Why set off explosives in the Richelieu Library, rather than at some more useful location? Granted, the Countess did try to blow up this hotel, but if her primary motivation was to assault the dragon delegation, would it not have made more sense to attack the Ritz? I think you may need to reassess her priorities, Winters. The evidence suggests that she is targeting the facilitators of this potential alliance just as much as the participants. Are your superiors well-guarded?”

Irene rejected the immediate thrust of fear, forcing herself to think practically. “I believe so,” she said slowly. “Besides Prutkov and Bradamant, there are half a dozen other Librarians currently in this hotel. They’ve been taking precautions.” Though there were very few precautions one could take against an assassin who didn’t care whether or not they survived, as long as they completed their mission. The thought chilled her more than the icy air. She withdrew from it into logical analysis. “But attacking the Richelieu Library isn’t really very …” She looked for words. “Effective. Even if it did break the direct Traverse between this world and the Library, it wouldn’t stop Librarians from being able to force a connection and get there from some other collection of books here in this world. I’m sure that there are other libraries in Paris which could do the job. Either the Countess is very poorly informed—”

“Which is possible,” Vale interrupted. “She might have thought that she was cutting you off from escape.”

Irene nodded, acknowledging his point. “Or she thought that we’d all be haunting the place like bats, rather than sleeping in our hotel rooms. Though her spying efforts argue against that. Cancel that theory.” She frowned, thinking about it. “Or it’s another diversion.”

“From what?” Vale demanded.

“I don’t know. And that worries me.”

Silver had been watching them both thoughtfully. Now he spoke. “I’d appreciate a private word with Miss Winters.”

The fact that he was addressing her by her name, rather than some irritating epithet, was almost as disturbing as the fact that he wanted a private word with her. “I don’t think I have anything to say that I’m not willing to share with Vale,” Irene said carefully.

“I think you do.” Silver’s golden eyes glittered, for a moment as inhuman as any dragon’s gaze as he considered her. “Detective, you have my word that I don’t intend any harm to Miss Winters. But all of us have our own private loyalties, don’t we? I’d like to discuss a little point with her out of your hearing. She can make up her mind whether or not she wants to tell you about it afterwards.”

Vale frowned. “Your choice, Winters,” he said, dropping the decision in Irene’s lap.

“You can go and wait in the bathroom with Prince Kai,” Silver suggested helpfully. “Compare notes, if you like. Tell him what you noticed during the night’s events that you haven’t told me yet.”

Vale shot him a look of pure dislike. “I assure you that I have not been concealing matters from you in particular. If I have been silent about some of my thoughts, it is because I require more information first.”

“A shame that can’t be said for everyone in this … hotel,” Silver murmured. “Well, Miss Winters? Your decision?”

Irene would have liked the chance to think about it first—and, preferably, be fully dressed. But this was obviously related to Silver’s earlier comment, yesterday, that they’d “talk later.” Later had arrived. And she wanted to know what he was thinking. Reluctantly she nodded. “As you wish, Lord Silver. I apologise, Vale—hopefully this won’t take long.”

Vale rose. “I trust you won’t be forcing your attentions on Winters,” he said coldly to Silver.

“For a situation where everyone’s talking about trusting each other, you both have remarkably little trust to spare for me,” Silver said. He leaned back on his chair—though, Irene noted, he took care that the flimsy piece of furniture wouldn’t give way and drop him ungracefully on the floor. “I’ll try to be brief. Though that may depend on Miss Winters.”

Vale snorted and retired to the bathroom.

Irene pulled the counterpane around her again. She was grateful for anything that shielded her from Silver’s eyes. They were remarkably speaking, and right now they were conveying a message that he’d like to see her naked. “Well?” she asked.

“I should be asking you that.” Silver permitted himself a languid smile. “For once, Miss Winters, I think I have you at my mercy, rather than it being the other way round.”

Irene’s throat was dry. “I don’t understand you.”

“You want to pretend ignorance? Understandable. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have to outright admit what you’ve said to anyone else.” Silver’s smile sharpened. “I can understand that. You can bind yourself to speak the truth in your Language, while I can bind myself by my name and power. Really, Miss Winters—my little mouse—we have so much in common.”

Irene should have known the polite nomenclature wouldn’t last. In a way, it made things easier: she could simply be irritated, and use that to ward off softer thoughts about his eyes, or his skin, or his lips … damn it, he was getting to her even in spite of everything she knew about him. “I’m going to guess that you think you have some evidence about me or the Library that I don’t want shared,” she suggested.

“How very hypothetical. But yes.” He had lowered his voice enough that it wouldn’t be easily audible through the bathroom door. No doubt Kai and Vale were doing their best to listen. “Something along those lines. I can understand your wish to keep silent. The question is, how much are you prepared to give to keep me silent?”

Irene’s heart sank. She’d been operating throughout on the principle that the Library was innocent of Ren Shun’s death. But if Silver knew something that proved otherwise, then …

Her mind ran frantically through possible alternatives, and every single one came up with the same answer. She had no options. The Library was at stake. Her parents’ lives were at stake. Silver had her trapped, and every passing second saw his smile widen as he enjoyed her silence.

He could be lying. This could all be a huge bluff. But she believed him when he said that he wanted the treaty signed. The Cardinal—and the Princess—had him boxed in on that side. Whatever else he might be up to, he wasn’t trying to personally torpedo the negotiations.

Perhaps she could use that. “Will the Cardinal be pleased with you if you share this information publicly?” she asked.

Silver shrugged. “He certainly wouldn’t. But there are all sorts of people I can tell about it without making things public. Including the Cardinal himself. I haven’t told him yet. And let’s be reasonable, my little mouse. Information can be released in many ways. Some are more damaging than others.”

Irene could feel the metaphorical wall at her back. She was running out of manoeuvring room. She swallowed, gathering her thoughts. Silver held all the cards. He obviously thought that what he knew was significant enough that she’d have to make a deal with him. But what could be that damaging …

… and why did he assume that she already knew what it was?

“Let’s assume that I’m prepared to agree,” she said carefully. “But I have a condition.”

Silver reached across to take her hand. His fingers stroked the underside of her wrist, as possessively as if he already owned her. “Very good, little mouse. Then it just comes down to negotiating the price.”

Irene set her teeth, trying to ignore the pull of his presence. It urged her to believe that she was warm and comfortable, as soft as moulded wax and ready to relax into his arms. She took a deep breath of the cold air. The temperature is freezing cold. This man is not a friend.

“What is the secret?” she asked.

Silver’s eyes narrowed, and his fingers tightened around her wrist. “Don’t try to be funny.”

“I’m not.” Irene saw that she had thrown him off balance, and it helped her regain her own stability. “I accept that you have—or that you believe you have—information. I am prepared to negotiate. But I’m being quite honest here when I tell you that I don’t know what the information is.”

Kai and Vale probably had their ears plastered against the bathroom door. She wondered how long it would be before they decided that she needed protection whether she wanted it or not.

“Little mouse,” Silver said, rising to stand over her, “I know from experience that you’re extremely good at bluffing. That isn’t going to work here and now. I want a decision from you.”

Irene broke her hand free from his clasp and rose to her feet to look him in the eye. She left the counterpane on the chair. The cold air helped her focus, kept her mind clear and untangled from the heated interests of the body. “You don’t believe me? I’ll convince you. I swear to you in the Language that I don’t know what this piece of information of yours is.”

Her words hung in the room like the chord of an organ. Silver took a step away from her, swaying back like a leopard. For a moment, almost too fast to be perceived, his face was full of indecision, and then he was all calm and grace again, but Irene had seen his uncertainty. It had been the expression of a cat trying to claim that he hadn’t been going for the cream in the first place, after being found in the middle of shattered crockery and a destroyed kitchen.

A dainty knock came from the corridor.

Irene stalked across to the door and opened it. “Yes?” she demanded.

Mu Dan was standing there, fully dressed, fresh snow crusted on her hat and coat. “Ah, good,” she said. “I’m glad you’re already up. May I come in?”

“Certainly,” Irene said. She decided that her best move at the moment was to keep Silver off balance. Throwing a dragon into the mix would certainly help.

Silver dropped back down into his chair and draped his arm across his face theatrically as Mu Dan stepped into the room. “These constant interruptions …”

Mu Dan frowned. “Really, Irene. Receiving a visitor like this, and in this state of dress—are you sure that you should be behaving in such a way?”

“I’ve got chaperones,” Irene said, banging the door shut. She decided that there was no point in concealing things any longer. Silver already knew, and as for Mu Dan … well, Kai had said he’d been told to seduce Irene. Ao Ji wouldn’t object if he’d succeeded. “Vale, Kai, you might as well come out of there now.”

Vale was the first to emerge from the bathroom, with Kai a step behind him. Both of them scowled in Silver’s direction: Silver very obviously ignored them.

Mu Dan’s brows rose higher as she took in the gathering. “I wasn’t aware that we were having a full meeting of the investigative team here and now. Or that His Highness”—she nodded to Kai—“would be present.”

“Miss Winters is so enticing that we just can’t stay away from her,” Silver informed the ceiling.

“Have you finished your private conversation with Winters?” Vale enquired. “Then perhaps we can continue.”

“For the moment,” Silver said.

“I don’t think so,” Irene contradicted. She walked across to look down at him. “I think Lord Silver is about to share some valuable information with all of us.”

Silence filled the room, spreading like ink in water. Finally Silver said, “Are you quite sure about this?”

Mu Dan’s interruption had given Irene the chance to get her mind in order. And the thought that had come most prominently to her attention was that any attempt to cover things up was going to make things worse. She could certainly make a temporary bargain with Silver to cover this up—whatever this was. (It would be very embarrassing if this turned out to be something as petty as Kostchei being a vegetarian, or Coppelia using whale-oil on her clockwork joints.) She could sacrifice her own dignity or personal life if she had to.

But the moment that this piece of information came out via other means—whether through Silver or Irene or some other misdemeanour by the culprit—and people found out that Irene had tried to cover it up, then the Library would lose its credibility. At the moment the Library had to be open, public, and thoroughly non-secretive.

Irene could only pray that this secret would be manageable … and that the people in the room with her would react in a more rational way than, say, dragon kings or Fae cardinals.

“We’re a team,” she said. “We’re here to find out the truth. If you happen to know something relevant to the case, Lord Silver, then I would like you to share it with us. Whoever it incriminates.”

“Fine. Very well.” Silver flicked a glance around the room. “I would just like to point out, before this goes any further, that I offered Miss Winters the chance to discuss this in private first. I am not trying to cause trouble for her Library or impede the negotiations. And is it fair that the prince here should be listening?” His gesture indicated Kai’s general area of the room. “Do I get to bring in more of my own kind, if we’re adding more dragons to this … team?”

Kai was distinctly pale. It wasn’t just the cold: whatever he was thinking had caused him to lose his colour. “Lord Silver”—he emphasised the lord—“has a point. And I’m prepared to leave the room, if you all wish me to. However, given that I already know that there’s some sort of secret here to which Lord Silver is privy, and that it involves the Library, I’m not sure that having me leave at this point will make things much better. If I know what it is, that might at least mitigate the damage.”

Assuming it’s insignificant, Irene thought numbly. Because if it is significant, then you’ll be bound to share it with your uncle, and then who knows which way the cards may fall … She wished that she could rewind the last half-hour of her life and somehow wipe Silver out of it.

“Lord Silver,” she said. “I’ll overlook your private discussion about this fact with me, if you’ll overlook Kai’s presence while we thrash this out. Deal?”

Silver’s eyes glinted, and Irene had the impression that he was making a mental note for some future bill that she’d have to pay. With interest. But he nodded. “Very well. Deal. Here’s what I was thinking.”

He straightened up in the chair, no longer stressing the back to the breaking-point, and leaned forward in an imitation—conscious or not—of one of Vale’s characteristic poses. “There is another hell in Paris besides the Cabaret de L’Enfer. And after all, Ren Shun’s note only mentioned ‘hell’—he never implied the cabaret connection. This hell—this enfer—is a place where one might reasonably think one could find books too—so it seems far more relevant. To me, at least, much though I prefer cabarets … We can’t forget that Ren Shun overheard a conversation about a book the night before he died, one that apparently could be more important than the conference itself. But I digress. I’ll be honest … no, astonishingly honest with you. When my little mouse here didn’t mention it, I assumed she had a good reason for keeping her mouth shut, and due to my charitable and generous nature I decided to play along.”

Irene searched her memories desperately. She couldn’t think of anything that matched Silver’s train of thought. “I’m sorry,” she finally admitted—to the room, rather than to Silver. “I don’t know what you’re thinking of. I really don’t.”

“Your tastes in literature must be more limited than I’d thought,” Silver said with relish. His eyes strayed to the unmade bed for a moment, and Irene felt herself flush with embarrassment. “But to the point. There is an area within the Richelieu Library known as the Enfer. And, yes, detective, before you raise the issue—it was one of the places targeted in last night’s bombing. Or should that be this morning? One loses track.”

Irene’s growing indignation got the better of her and took the reins. “How on earth could you know something about any library in Paris that I don’t?”

“A question I asked myself,” Silver murmured, “and the reason why I kept silent.”

“Of course I know it was one of the places targeted in last night’s bombing,” Vale said calmly. His restraint was so carefully honed that the anger behind his words was obvious. “Did you really thing that I hadn’t checked the records, Lord Silver? I was going to raise the matter myself—but you insisted on speaking with Winters in private first.”

Silver looked at Vale sidelong. “Ah. So it’s not a case of you finding out, wanting to discuss it in private with Winters, and hoping that I hadn’t realised about it? How suspicious of me to think that you might have your own motives.”

“I would find you more tolerable if I thought you had any motive besides blackmailing her for your personal gratification,” Vale snapped. “This is hardly the first time either.”

Irene realised with alarm that the fragile peace was about to shatter. Vale and Silver would only need a moment’s push to be at each other’s throats. Kai would unhesitatingly side with Vale, in defence of Irene’s honour: Mu Dan would be only too glad to join any faction against Silver. She had to get them back on the subject, fast.

“So what is the Enfer?” she demanded of Silver, stepping between him and Vale. “What books are stored there?”

“Erotica and pornography,” Silver said with relish. “Only rare or valuable pieces, you understand. And other banned books, though they’re not as interesting. One needs special authorisation to enter. I have visiting permission for the area in your own world.” He smirked. “But my point, Miss Winters, is that even if you didn’t know about it—which I admit is possible—are you confident that your superiors wouldn’t? If they knew there was a library in Paris called Hell, and it might be related to the note in Ren Shun’s pocket, why didn’t they share that information with you?”