CHAPTER 2
“Who’s dead?” Irene demanded. “Is it someone I know?” She was tempted to add something about how she could in fact imagine pretty bad situations. But then she took another look at Bradamant’s face and decided—just this once—not to be sarcastic. Bradamant, normally one of the most cool and controlled Librarians Irene knew, was worried. Being witty could wait.
Unless Bradamant gave her a genuine excuse to indulge.
“No, you don’t know him,” Bradamant said quickly. “At least, I don’t think you’ve ever met him. It’s not a Librarian. It’s—look, can I just come upstairs and tell you and Vale both at once?”
“Bring your colleague up here, Winters!” Vale called from his room. He’d obviously been listening.
Irene gestured Bradamant towards the stairs. “You know the way, I think.” She locked the door, then followed Bradamant up the stairs and arrived in Vale’s room in time to see Vale and Kai hastily rearranging the chairs. A spare sheet had been thrown over the table, papers and all, in a vague attempt at plausible deniability.
Bradamant gave Kai a cool glance. “And I suppose you just happened to be in the vicinity,” she said.
Kai returned an equally frosty look, and Irene remembered that his protective instincts towards her involved a certain amount of antipathy towards Bradamant—even if she and Irene had technically agreed to be on polite terms now. “I’m visiting my friend Peregrine Vale,” he said. “Is there some sort of problem with that?”
Vale regarded the two of them with an expression that was partly a plea for heaven to give him patience, but mostly a weary impatience for them to cut the chit-chat and get on to the gory details. “Madam Bradamant. Kindly take a seat. I perceive that you have recently come from another world where it happens to have been snowing.” He flung himself into his favourite armchair. “Strongrock, Winters, sit or not as you wish, but I believe the lady’s business is urgent.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask to speak to you in private?” Bradamant said. “And how did you know about the snow?”
“Very little good,” Vale replied. “And it would make me very curious about why you are trying to keep secrets from my colleagues. As to the snow, while your clothing has had time to dry, the marks on the hem of your dress indicate you have been walking through dirty snow, which left traces on the fabric as it dried.”
Irene treasured a little spark of delight at the word colleagues, taking a seat in one of the spare armchairs. Kai dropped into another, leaning forward with interest.
Bradamant turned her hands over in her lap. “Before we start,” she said, “what I have to tell you mustn’t go beyond the walls of this room. And I don’t mean the local newspapers. I’m talking about Fae, dragons, or even other Librarians—if they aren’t already involved.”
“Involved in what?” Irene asked. She’d always tried to stay out of Library politics, but a creeping feeling of doom was suggesting she should have paid more attention. What exactly had she managed to miss?
Bradamant looked between the three of them—Vale, Irene, then Kai—then took a deep breath. “A peace conference has just started,” she said, the words spilling out too fast, as if she was trying to complete her statement before someone stopped her. Or as if she was afraid of what she was saying. “Between the dragons and the Fae. The Library’s playing mediator. And there might be a genuine chance of it working.”
“And I suppose,” Vale said drily, “I’m to attend as a representative of humanity. Those mere common mortals who people the worlds.”
“You must be joking,” Bradamant said, dropping all semblance of tact. “They barely listen to us. What makes you think they’re going to listen to ordinary humans? No, we need you there because the second negotiator on the dragon side has been murdered, and it looks as if the whole thing is going to fall apart. Vale, if you’ve ever felt you owed anything to the Library, if you have any regard for the safety of other worlds besides your own, then I’m begging you to come and help us. The Library can offer you whatever you want. But we need to know who did it, before someone starts a war.”
There was dead silence in the room.
Finally Irene said, “When the hell did this happen?” She saw Vale twitch at the vulgarity. “Please excuse my language,” she added hastily. “But seriously, how? It’s only been a few months since the Alberich drama.” That was the short way of putting it. It sounded better than since Alberich tried to destroy the Library, nearly killing all of us. And I can only hope that he’s dead and stays that way. “How on earth is all this supposed to have happened since then too, and how can you keep something like this hushed up?” The dragons and the Fae came from opposite ends of the universe and were creatures of order and chaos, respectively. The dragons embodied pure natural forces, and the Fae represented fictional narrative tropes—so they were polar opposites. And they didn’t just dislike each other—they loathed each other. Humans were caught in the middle—possessions to be protected, or playing pieces to be used in their games. While individuals from either side might be reasonable and occasionally willing to negotiate, the idea that the two sides might be willing to make peace was something that Irene had never even considered in her most spectacular daydreams.
“What I want to know is how it could have happened at all!” Kai was as stiff as a carved statue in his chair. The colour had drained from his skin, leaving him paler than marble, and his fingers dug into the arms of the chair—as though he would break it apart in order to assert reality as he knew it. “And it is impossible that any of my kindred would consider peace with such beings as the Fae!”
“These are both valid points,” Vale said. He settled back in his chair, calm with the ease of a man who didn’t have an immediate personal stake in the matter. Or perhaps he was simply allowing Irene and Kai to act as lightning rods and ask the questions he wouldn’t know to ask. While his voice was all smooth reason and logic, his eyes were hard and suspicious. “Maybe you should begin from the beginning. Assuming that we aren’t required on the spot immediately?”
“We’ve got long enough for me to explain this to you,” Bradamant said. She folded her hands over each other, stilling their trembling, composing herself. “The scene of the murder’s being kept as untouched as possible. It did get disturbed when the victim was found but hasn’t been tampered with since then.”
Kai swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment as though he didn’t want to ask, but it came out unwillingly. “Who is the victim?”
It might be someone he knows, Irene realised. It might be a friend, or family … She reached across to touch his wrist for a moment, in a vain gesture of reassurance.
“Lord Ren Shun,” Bradamant said. “He was a liegeman of—”
Kai’s sharp hiss of indrawn breath cut her off. “He’s the sworn man of my lord uncle Ao Ji! What was he doing at an event such as this?”
“Well, that’s part of the problem,” Bradamant said. “Your uncle is there too. He’s …” She looked as if she was remembering something extremely unsettling, and her hands clenched in her lap. “Deeply unhappy.”
“My lord uncle has a temper,” Kai agreed, his tone as carefully neutral as Bradamant’s was carefully controlled. “But how could such an attack have happened?”
“Perhaps if you were to permit Madam Bradamant to tell her story without interrupting, we’d find out,” Vale suggested. He was watching Bradamant from under half-closed eyelids, as if he suspected the whole story was an elaborate hoax.
Irene might have agreed with Vale—after all, Bradamant had lied to both of them before—but this time she felt the other Librarian was telling the truth. Those hints of distress were a little too real to be faked. And she could guess why Bradamant was off balance. If she’d been anywhere near a dragon king who had lost his temper …
She made her way over to where Vale kept the brandy, splashing some into four glasses, then returned to hand them round. Bradamant took her glass with a nod of thanks, but both Vale and Kai ignored theirs for the moment.
Bradamant sipped the brandy and pulled her usual air of calm composure around her like the mantle she still wore. “From the beginning, then,” she said. “It all goes back to when Kai here was kidnapped by the Fae.”
“In order to start a war between the dragons and Fae, I thought,” Vale said.
“Yes,” Bradamant agreed, “but when the abduction went wrong, you could say that it galvanised those on both sides who hadn’t originally wanted one. A war, that is. When they saw just how close they’d come to being embroiled in a conflict, one that they really weren’t interested in, just because one dragon princeling had been seized by a pair of manipulators, a number of them reconsidered the status quo. It began to seem like a good idea to get a non-aggression pact up and running. Or so I’ve been told, you understand. I wasn’t actually involved in the early parts of this myself. I only found out about it two days ago.”
Kai was still frowning. “And I didn’t hear anything about this when I was visiting my family—and that was less than a month ago.”
“It must have been kept very secret, even within both sides,” Irene said. She considered. “Were the prime movers planning to spring a peace treaty on their allies as a fait accompli once it had been agreed, and hope that they’d go along with it?”
Bradamant nodded. “Or at least the instigators hoped the allies in question wouldn’t object too strongly. And once one little peace agreement had been reached, more might have come in time. It was a very tentative bridge. But it was a bridge.”
Vale nodded. “And when precisely did both sides approach each other? And when—and why—did they approach the Library?”
“I don’t know exactly when contact was made,” Bradamant said, “but Fae and dragon representatives contacted the Library shortly after Alberich was destroyed—wanting us to act as mediators.”
“You mean, once they’d seen that we were safely back on our feet and he wasn’t going to wipe us out in a ball of flaming debris?” Irene said wryly.
Bradamant shrugged. “Consider their attitude to be a compliment to us—or rather you—for getting rid of him. Ultimately he was a danger to them as well as to us. Library power in the hands of someone who didn’t even pretend to neutrality? Not something that either the Fae or the dragons would sanction.” She must have seen the expression on Irene’s face. “No, I don’t trust either side myself, but what do you actually want us to do about it? Stand on our pride? Or accept the realpolitik and do whatever we can, with the goal being to establish a non-aggression pact which both sides would sign up to?”
“You’re veering between peace treaty and non-aggression pact,” Vale commented. “Which would you say is more accurate?”
Bradamant paused, then shrugged. “It’s still being hammered out. I’d prefer the first one, but I’ll take whatever we can get. Lord Ren Shun was doing a lot of the negotiating. To be honest, he and the Fae second in command were getting on a lot better than the two principals.”
Vale nodded. “A situation not unknown among human beings. Very well. And your Library was brought in as a neutral party?”
“Exactly.” Bradamant sipped her brandy again. “I don’t know the full details—I haven’t been told the full details—but the original idea seems to have been that we organise the location and act as arbitrators. Both sides knew that if we swear to something in the Language, we have to keep our word. That way they could be sure that we’d stay neutral. And I think there are going to be clauses in the final agreement, involving us not ‘acquiring’ books from treaty signatories … which could be inconvenient. Anyhow, we ended up booking hotels in Paris, in a different world to this one.”
“Hotels?” Vale queried.
“Three hotels,” Bradamant said with a sigh. “One each for the two sides and a third one for negotiations to take place. Both sides refused to share a hotel. And this was as neutral a world as we could find.”
“‘We’ booked hotels … ?” Kai said. “I thought you said that you’d only just come in on it.”
Bradamant flushed but kept her tone level. “The senior Librarians organised them. I was using the collective ‘we.’ If I may continue?”
Vale waved a lazy hand for her to go on.
“So skipping over the background, which I can give you on the way there, the crime boils down to this. The second dragon negotiator, Ren Shun, went out yesterday evening—not telling anyone exactly where he was going. He was found the next morning, stabbed in the back in a conference room belonging to the negotiations hotel. The Fae were accused, of course.”
There was a shocked—or possibly thoughtful—moment of silence. Kai opened his mouth. Then he shut it again. Finally he said, “While the personal agenda seems obvious, I wouldn’t have expected any Fae to be so stupid. Unless they actually wanted to cause a breakdown in negotiations.”
Irene was conscious of how large a concession that was from Kai, who had absolutely no reason to like the Fae personally, and whose lifelong antipathy towards them gave him every excuse to think the worst. “I’m guessing any Librarians on the spot stressed that point heavily.”
Bradamant nodded. “Kostchei—he’s one of our lead arbitrators—said that they managed to talk His Majesty out of anything immediate. His Majesty being Ao Ji, head of the dragon contingent. Kostchei promised on behalf of the Library that we’d investigate, as the neutral party, and find the murderer.”
“And who put Vale’s name forward?” Irene asked. She was torn between pride that they’d come to him and concern for Vale himself. There was no way that this could be described as safe—for Vale, or for his world, if things went wrong …
“That I don’t know,” Bradamant said, so smoothly that Irene was sure she was lying. “But I was told to fetch him as soon as possible.”
Vale frowned. “You say the murder was discovered this morning? Or rather, yesterday, since we’re past midnight already?”
Irene could see his point. It did seem a curiously long delay.
Bradamant put down her empty glass and spread her hands. “I know we should have reacted faster. But first the senior Librarians present had to decide on a course of action. And then they had to negotiate who’d be doing the investigation—besides Vale—with the parties involved.”
Vale’s eyebrows rose. “Besides me … ?” he said flatly.
“It wasn’t easy,” Bradamant said quickly. “Everyone wanted their own people looking into it. In the end it was thrashed out into a three-person team who’d be assisting you, one person from each group.” She sighed. “I know it sounds as if they spent hours talking rather than actually doing anything practical. But it took that long to come to an agreement.”
Vale shrugged. “I am not unfamiliar with politically awkward situations. I can work with this, as long as it is understood by all parties that the observers aren’t to get in my way.”
“Well, at least one of them should suit you.” Bradamant nodded towards Irene. “The Librarian member of the team is Irene here.”
“Me?” Irene said, then felt foolish. Apparently some responses were hardwired into the human brain, right up there with this isn’t what it looks like when caught with an open safe and a stolen book. Her second reaction was pure relief that she’d have some influence here—be able to help Vale, to protect Vale, and to actually do something to help sort out this disaster. The more cynical third reaction was to wonder why her. “Surely they’d have wanted someone more senior on the job. And I don’t just mean the Librarians who’ve been masterminding this, I mean all factions. I may be competent, but I’m still junior.”
“No doubt the Librarians believe you’ll be able to sway my judgement, should it prove expedient in some way,” Vale remarked, proving that he was just as cynical as Irene. “Or they think having you around will convince me to accept the case.”
“But you are accepting it, aren’t you?” Bradamant demanded. She clearly didn’t like the idea that Vale might even consider saying no.
“I am taking it under consideration.” Vale steepled his fingers and regarded his nails thoughtfully. “Were all three factions required to approve all the team members?”
A nasty thought trickled into Irene’s mind, spreading like a cloud of ink in water. “Kai isn’t the dragon representative, is he?”
Kai straightened in his chair. “But I’m the logical candidate!” he protested.
“How did you deduce that?” Bradamant asked wryly.
“You’d have said if he was.” Irene put down her still-full glass of brandy. “Besides—forgive me, Kai—the only logical reason for your uncle to choose you as dragon representative would be if he thought you could influence Vale.” Kai was a very young dragon, after all, and even if he was the son of one of the dragon kings, he was the youngest son, and Irene had heard a number of other dragons describe him as “low-born” on his mother’s side. She hadn’t asked for an explanation, but it didn’t seem a recommendation under the current circumstances.
That didn’t mean that she was happy to be going into this without Kai. Far from it. But perhaps there were ways around it …
Bradamant apparently took Irene’s comment as agreement with the situation. “I’m sorry, Kai,” she said. “But I hadn’t even expected to find you here. According to Irene’s report, you’d stopped working with her. I don’t even know what you are doing here.” Her glance towards Irene promised later pointed questions.
“Strongrock is visiting me,” Vale put in before Kai could declare his absolute freedom to be anywhere he felt like. “Can you tell me who the dragon or Fae representatives are, Madam Bradamant?”
“No. But they should be meeting us in Paris, at our hotel. I’m assuming they’ll be competent.”
But competent at what? Irene wondered. Competent investigators? Or competent politicians who’ll just want to cover this up and make sure the treaty gets signed? Unless their goal is for it not to be signed. And if I’m being honest with myself, what’s actually more important—the crime or the treaty?
First things first. Get the facts, then decide what to do next. And hope that there is a next.
“And what are the other possible motives for the victim’s murder?” Vale asked.
“What do you mean?” Bradamant said.
Vale gestured impatiently. “Do not attempt innocence, madam. It doesn’t suit you. We’ve all agreed it would be extremely stupid for any member of the Fae peace-seeking faction to commit a murder like this. But what about those who don’t want peace? And what has been suggested as a motive?”
“I didn’t want to prejudice you,” Bradamant said stubbornly. “And I’ve probably already said more than I should in front of Kai.”
Kai’s jaw set in lines very similar to Bradamant’s—though neither of them, Irene thought, would have welcomed her pointing it out. “I’m of the opinion you haven’t said enough,” Kai replied.
Irene rose to her feet. “Kai,” she said. “Bradamant has a point. This is Vale’s case to investigate. Perhaps we’d both better leave the room for a moment, in case she has something that she wants to tell him. She is his client, after all. And you and I can discuss where you’re going after this.”
For a long moment Kai stared at Irene. Then he stood. “As you wish,” he said. “My coat’s downstairs. I’ll see you all later. Vale, I hope that you can resolve this situation.”
“It has its interesting points,” Vale said. His glance to Irene suggested that he knew exactly what she had in mind and that he wasn’t going to stop her. Instead he leaned forward towards Bradamant, beckoning her to continue. “Motives—” he began.
Irene led Kai down the stairs to just inside the front door—and safely out of Bradamant’s earshot, as long as they kept their voices down—before turning to him. “I want you there,” she said softly. “Vale needs you there. And I think your uncle could use your help in Paris. But do you think you can actually support a peace treaty like this?”
In the near darkness, Kai’s face was troubled. “There was a time when I would have said no,” he answered quietly. “The Fae are creatures of chaos, and they aren’t healthy for humanity—or anyone else. But I am prepared to consider a non-aggression pact, if they are willing to abide by it. And if my lord uncle Ao Ji is in favour of it—he of all people!—then I can follow his lead.”
“He isn’t usually in favour of such things?” Irene guessed.
“Of all my uncles, he would be the most strongly set against it. He’s never made a secret of his opinions. He loathes the Fae. He considers them a pollution that endangers all human beings—and we consider it a duty to protect those humans who dwell in our realms. He would like to see the Fae scoured from the surface of every world they’ve touched.” Kai shrugged. “But perhaps he’s decided that confinement is an acceptable strategy. And if he’s willing to negotiate it, then I can do no less. So what have you got in mind?”
Irene felt her lips quirking into a smile. He knew her quite well by now. “Since you clearly know him reasonably well, could you realistically feel a sudden need to visit your uncle?”
“Unlikely but not unrealistic,” Kai judged. “Of course, the moment I turn up, people are going to suspect collusion.”
“Plausible deniability,” Irene said firmly. “Try to look innocent. Try really, really hard. Besides, if your uncle thinks that you might be able to exert influence on Vale, he’s likely to want you to stay.”
“You think that he’ll want to affect the outcome of the investigation?”
“Your uncle is a ruling monarch. He isn’t going to throw away a possible tool, even if he doesn’t end up using it. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Kai nodded. “And I can make sure you get reliable information, once I’m there. Or deal with any of my kind who might be trying to sow dissension. That was why you marched me out of there right now, wasn’t it? So that I can get there as soon as possible and already be there when you turn up?”
“Pretty much,” Irene admitted. “That whole plausible deniability thing. And I suspect Bradamant may not want to admit how much she’s already told you. We’ll see.” She knew that Kai—like all dragons—could travel between worlds to a person he knew well, wherever that person was. He’d probably reach that world long before she and Vale did, since they’d have to travel through the Library to get there. “Play it by ear,” she instructed. “And try to keep your options open. Is anyone expecting you to be anywhere else?”
“My father’s servant Tian Shu had written to say he’d call on me,” Kai admitted. “I think he wants more details about the recent business in America. But I think I can get away with avoiding that for a while …”
“If you’re sure it won’t be an issue,” Irene said. “I don’t want you getting into trouble.”
“It’s my decision to make. And I thought the two of us weren’t supposed to be teacher and student any more. Or superior and inferior.”
Irene flushed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Some habits die hard.”
“I’d be a fool not to listen to you.” He caught her by the shoulders and pulled her close, brushing a kiss against her forehead. “Be careful, Irene. My lord uncle Ao Ji has little tolerance for impertinence.”
For a moment Irene let herself enjoy the feeling of his body against hers, and bitterly regretted abandoning certain plans that she’d had for the rest of the night. But there was, after all, a crisis.
When wasn’t there a crisis?
“Be careful yourself.” She pulled herself away, giving his hands a squeeze. “There’s already been one death. I don’t want you in danger.” She considered exactly what they were all walking into. “Well, not any more danger.”
“The story of our lives,” Kai said with a sigh. He caught up his coat from the rack by the door and strode out into the foggy night.
Irene trotted back up the stairs, hoping that she hadn’t missed too much. She knew that Bradamant would realise she’d been talking to Kai. She hoped—for the sake of peace and non-aggression between Librarians for at least the next few hours—that Bradamant wouldn’t figure out what she’d been suggesting. She was sure Vale had guessed (that is, deduced) what she had in mind, but he’d be glad to have Kai as potential backup.
As she walked back into the room, Bradamant was saying, “And there’s the Library’s motive.”
Irene stopped dead in the doorway. “The Library’s motive?” she demanded. “What sort of motive would the Library have?”
“I’m no happier about it than you are,” Bradamant said bitterly. “But His Majesty Ao Ji says that the night before the murder, Lord Ren Shun said something about a mysterious book. And given that he’s now dead … Well, who else would kill someone over a book?”