CHAPTER 8

“The traffic is abominable,” Mu Dan complained, looking out of the carriage window. “One would have thought that with such wide boulevards, there would be less congestion. It might have been quicker to walk.”

The streets were full of a mixture of vehicles: horse-drawn carriages like the one they were sitting in, horse-drawn carts stacked with bales of goods, and even the occasional horse-drawn double-decker omnibus—but also a few very primitive motor cars. And bicycles. Bicycles darted in and out of the rest of the traffic, ridden by both men and women, with the women even daring to wear trousers: minnows in the stream of vehicles, but still moving faster than the larger fish. The pavements weren’t quite so full, but they were studded with stalls and kiosks, and every second café had tables and chairs spilling out to impede passers-by. Even in the current wintry temperature, there were people sitting around nursing cups of coffee, or glasses of something stronger, and smoking cigarettes.

“It could be worse,” Irene said. “We could be in New York. I think we must have hit the mid-morning rush hour.” And she had a sneaking suspicion that their driver wasn’t even trying to go fast. He probably thought they were a couple of tourists who’d appreciate a chance to see as much of Paris as possible.

But at least he wasn’t trying to kidnap them.

Irene decided to take advantage of the opportunity. This was as close to privacy as they were going to get. “We should talk,” she said. “If we’re going to work together and trust one another, then some information sharing is probably a good idea.”

Mu Dan turned away from the window to face Irene. “You’re a great deal more businesslike than I’d expected.”

“I know that one never hears anything good by asking this question—but what did you expect?”

Mu Dan looked a little embarrassed. “Given the number of exploits on your record, I’d expected someone a little more Fae-like. I apologise for the insult, but given what you’ve managed to achieve, I didn’t think you’d be so practical.”

“Practicality is a great help when it comes to getting things achieved,” Irene retorted. “If I were going on a heroic quest, I’d probably start off by making a list of things I’d need on the journey. Including some books to read during the dull bits.”

Mu Dan chuckled. “Any particular genre?”

“My personal preference is detective fiction, but I read widely,” Irene said. “Yours?”

“Dystopias,” Mu Dan said. “I find crime fiction tends to be too close to real life for me.”

“Are you an investigator by profession, then? I didn’t realise that dragon society had such things. And I apologise if that’s insulting in any way. I just don’t know much about dragon society.”

“I am a judge-investigator,” Mu Dan agreed, “but I don’t usually investigate dragons. I’m more often called in to examine a situation among the human hierarchies who serve the dragons. You probably know that we govern worlds? Well, my kind don’t exactly handle all the minutiae of the job in person. That would be ridiculous. Impossible, really. Humans handle the day-to-day business, and then—” She indicated a pyramid with her hands. “Then dragons handle those humans. But from time to time, something gets complicated. Conspiracies. Treason. Rebellions. And in those cases, the nobles may choose to call in an independent investigator to find out the truth.”

“You say the nobles,” Irene commented. “Not the monarchs?”

“Oh, I’m hardly high-ranking enough for that.”

Something Irene had half noticed earlier came into focus. “You know,” she said, “usually when a dragon introduces themselves, they give their name, and they add ‘in service to so-and-so.’ Is there some reason why you didn’t do that earlier?”

“You are sharp,” Mu Dan said, sounding genuinely pleased—rather than, as Irene had feared, annoyed. “And you’re quite right. I’m not in service to anyone.”

“How is that possible in dragon society?”

“By being very good at one’s job,” Mu Dan said, “and avoiding political debts. My family—Green River, for your information—is less than happy about it, but …” She shrugged. “They still find ways to make use of me.”

Irene knew that family, or clan, was one of the axes of dragon society, with the other being the royalty and their courts. It would be easy for a dragon to become caught between those two loyalties. The freedom of having only one allegiance might be very tempting to some dragons—except for the way that it might leave them alone and unprotected. Mu Dan was certainly unusual. “Patronage can be a very awkward thing,” she suggested neutrally. “Once you’re in it, you often can’t get out of it again.”

“And is the Library free of that sort of thing? A pure meritocracy?”

Irene would have liked to say that it was—but that wouldn’t have been the entire picture. “It tries,” she finally said, “but it does make a difference who you’ve worked with, or who your tutors were. But let’s change the subject before we get too pessimistic about it all. Do you have that note you mentioned earlier? The one in Greek?”

“I do.” Mu Dan reached into her reticule and passed over a folded piece of paper. “Be careful with it. Vale will want to examine it again once he has access to better equipment.”

“Hopefully Bradamant’s setting that up. She knows the sort of thing he needs.”

Irene unfolded the paper. It was, to her amateur glance, good-quality writing paper—the sort that a high-ranking dragon might use, or that an expensive hotel would supply. “Well, it is Greek,” she judged. “But the bloodstains don’t help.”

“It was in his breast pocket,” Mu Dan noted. “His blood pooled under him as he lay dead. We’re lucky it’s readable at all.”

“Fair enough.” Irene raised the paper closer to her eyes to squint at where the bloodstain had run across some of the text. “Do we know if Lord Ren Shun wrote Greek at all?”

“We don’t know,” Mu Dan said. “And that’s an important question.”

Irene nodded. “It says … Herodotus. The … The Myths.”

“Yes, that was what Vale thought,” Mu Dan confirmed. “But the only work of Herodotus that he knew was the man’s Histories.”

Irene frowned. “Of course—some books are written in several alternate worlds, but others aren’t written in more than one …” She’d never heard of anything else by Herodotus either, though. His Histories, written in the fifth century BC, about the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, were famous enough to have won him the title of the Father of History. But the Library didn’t collect history—it collected fiction. If this note did refer to another book by Herodotus, then just how rare was that book? And what might a Librarian do to get hold of it? “I need to check the Library records, or talk with a Librarian who knows more about Greek literature than I do. The rest of the script …” She frowned at it, trying to make out the writing underneath the smudges of blood.

And then her stomach sank as she realised what the first part of the remaining writing was. Transcription of a letter and a set of numbers—Beta-001. B-001. The classification which the Library would use to designate a particular alternate world. But that means …

“Yes?” Mu Dan enquired in the gap left by Irene’s silence.

Irene had hoped to avoid serious decisions about loyalty and trust until much later in the investigation, if she had to make any at all. Now she was faced with one, with no way to ask any of the more senior Librarians for advice. And if she claimed ignorance now but told Mu Dan the truth later, then Mu Dan would always know that Irene had lied to her at this point. Which was not the sort of thing that built trust.

If she told Mu Dan what the writing said, Irene might be incriminating the Library in this murder. But if she lied to Mu Dan, then Irene herself would be withholding information from the investigation, and that could damage the dragon faction’s trust in the Library. And the writing might not even be a Library designation. It could be pure coincidence.

Decisions, decisions.

Irene made her mind up. “This part says ‘Beta-001,’” she reported. “That could be a Library designation for a particular world.”

Mu Dan drew back from her, eyes glinting with a red that had nothing to do with the light outside the carriage. “Are you serious?” she demanded.

“Note that I said could be,” Irene backtracked. “Not is. And this doesn’t contradict my theory that someone could be framing the Library. It might even reinforce it.”

Mu Dan nodded slowly. “I agree that having a note incriminating the Library, found in the victim’s pocket, could be a little too blatant to be real. But sometimes …” She picked her words carefully. “Sometimes the obvious answer is the true answer.”

“Can we class it as a noted fact and get on with the investigation for the moment?” Irene suggested.

“Does the numbering mean anything?” Mu Dan asked, probing a point that Irene had been rather hoping she’d avoid. “I don’t know how your system works, but does the ‘one’ mean that it was the first world of its type investigated?”

“I think it does,” Irene said uncomfortably. “And I really do need to ask my superiors for more information about this. It’s either a huge genuine clue or a huge fake, but either way we need more actual data before we can hypothesise.”

“That’s reasonable,” Mu Dan agreed. “Is there any more?”

“Well, you don’t need me to translate ‘hell’ there.” Irene indicated the word in question without actually touching the paper, relieved to have changed the subject. “And then more numbers—thirty-nine, two, seventeen. Does it mean anything to you?”

Mu Dan shook her head. “No. Vale said he might have an idea, but he wanted to make enquiries first—something about making sure that a particular place existed in this world as well as his own. He’s very adaptable for a human.”

“He’s an equal partner in this investigation,” Irene said. “I thought you and he were getting on quite well earlier.” A little pang of jealousy surprised her, and she realised that she wished she’d been there rather than Mu Dan.

“I was pleasantly surprised.” Mu Dan gave a sudden charming smile. “You have no idea how many times I’ve been asked to work with someone’s pet scientist or judge! They can be so inflexible, so dogmatic … and sometimes so stupid. Your Vale is a true delight. I’d be tempted to keep him—if he wasn’t under your protection, of course. We may actually manage to get something done now.”

And there, Irene reflected, one had a neat encapsulation of the ultimate position of mortals in the eyes of dragons. I’d be tempted to keep him. Mu Dan was certainly polite, and she might even make exceptions for unusual cases, but ultimately she had the same biases as any other dragon. Humans were tools. Mortals would never have the same authority as dragons.

Irene dragged her mind away from a contemplation of institutional prejudice and was reminded of something she’d wondered about. “May I ask a possibly personal question?”

“You may certainly ask,” Mu Dan said.

“There are legends of dragons in many different cultures. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, the classic Western gold-hoarding sort—even stories of similar creatures like wyverns. And yet every single dragon I’ve met so far, or even heard of, has had a Chinese name. I don’t want to pry, but I am curious.”

Mu Dan’s expression was guarded, but not actually offended or forbidding. “I’m not that old myself, and I’m not a scholar of history. But I will say that the monarchs set the style for the rest of my kin. If there were other matters in the past which have been—erased, shall we say?—then I don’t know about them. I don’t think I can say more than that.”

“That’s a very reasonable answer, and I appreciate it,” Irene said. She politely ignored the fact that I can’t say more than that could be understood in several ways without actually being a lie. “I ask partly because I may need to know more about dragons before this is over.”

“Given my trade, I can hardly object to that.”

The final question in Irene’s mind was one that might be taken the wrong way. She’d offended with badly phrased questions before. And the source of a dragon’s power seemed a private matter. “In the interests of our mutual defence, may I ask if you have an affinity with any particular element?”

“Earth,” Mu Dan said. “And what lies beneath it. I’m not as strong as some, but with time and the situation in my favour, I can be of some use. But you’ve already demonstrated that you’re fast with that Language of yours. I think that between the two of us, we should be quite … effective. Also in the interests of mutual protection, may I ask exactly how far your Language will go? Can you command the knife which committed this murder to fly to the murderer’s hand, or make the dead speak to us? Is there some sort of ultimate word for life or death?”

“I could tell a knife to return to its user’s hand, if we had it,” Irene said. “But we don’t have the knife that committed this murder—and if the murderer had any sense, they’d throw it into the Seine.”

“And the rest?”

“The Language has limits,” Irene said. She wondered how much of a temptation it would be, if she could simply tell someone to die. “It works much better on things than on people. I can’t order someone to sleep, or kill them with just a word.” She smiled, just a little. “Does that make you feel safer with me?”

The carriage came to a stop, and the driver rapped on the roof with the butt of his whip. “Here you are, ladies—the Grand Hôtel du Louvre.”

They scrambled out, and Irene looked up at the hotel’s frontage as Mu Dan paid the driver. The hotel was massive, a four-story castle in creamy gold stone. It ran right along the length of the street, and a flock of carriages nestled in front of it, waiting for customers. Shopfronts were nestled in a long succession of archways, their contents looking suitably expensive for the sort of customer the hotel served.

And, interestingly, there was no frost on the building—not even in the shadowed crevices of the stonework. Very curious.

Mu Dan frowned, rubbing her forehead as the carriage rattled away. “This is going to be unpleasant,” she said with resignation.

“I can’t feel anything myself,” Irene said hesitantly. She knew that she could expect her Library brand to react to a high-chaos environment, but it wasn’t doing so … well, not yet, anyhow. “Is the Fae influence here bad enough to make you unwell?”

Mu Dan hesitated. “Probably not. Just unhappy. Would you care to take the lead? Truce or no truce, I think you’ll be more welcome here than I will.”

“We can but try,” Irene said, and led the way into the foyer.

Now that it was late morning rather than the middle of the night, her unfashionable clothing and short hair attracted glances. Mu Dan was more appropriately dressed—or at least, more expensively dressed, and thus a more normal customer for a location like this.

The atrium was huge, however, and they were easily lost in the crowd as they worked their way towards the hotel front desk. Above, a vast glass ceiling in geometrical patterns leaked light into the room below, assisted by the dangling glass-globe lamps. Marble stairways ran up the wall in sinuous curves to join the balcony that surrounded the room and provided a convenient viewing point for idle spectators, who leaned on the iron railings and gossiped.

They were halfway to the front desk when Irene spotted something she’d half been expecting. A couple of the idlers drooping over the balcony were pointing at the two of them and discussing them with sudden animation.

“Don’t look too obviously,” Irene murmured, “but I think we’ve just been spotted.”

“Where?” Mu Dan followed the jerk of Irene’s head towards that part of the balcony. “Ah. Who do you think they are?”

“Well, they’re either Fae who’ve recognised you as a dragon, or they’re more of the kidnappers from earlier,” Irene said judiciously. “Shall we go and find out?” She didn’t want to leave Vale operating on his own any longer than necessary. The situation was just too dangerous.

“It would save time,” Mu Dan agreed.

The two men were at the head of the stairs by the time Irene and Mu Dan reached them: they’d realised that they were being approached and had obligingly come to meet the two women. Their approach argued that they were indeed Fae, or servants of the Fae, rather than opportunistic anarchists.

The man in the lead spoke first. He and his companion were both in grey, businesslike in good-quality suits, but his cravat was green while his companion’s was purple. He addressed himself to Mu Dan. “Kindly explain yourself.”

Ice entered Mu Dan’s voice. “Who are you, that I should explain myself to you?”

“A whole lot of things, madam,” Green said, “but primarily not a dragon. Certain rules of conduct were agreed. You’re on the verge of breaking them.”

Before Mu Dan could state her credentials in tones that would have suited a declaration of war, Irene stepped forward. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said. “I am a Librarian. My name is Irene Winters. This lady, Mu Dan, is accompanying me, and we are here as part of the agreed investigation into Lord Ren Shun’s murder. I would appreciate your cooperation.”

Green and Purple paused and exchanged glances. Green finally said, “You can prove this?”

Irene wished that she’d been given some sort of safe conduct to wave in their faces. Unfortunately all she had was her Library brand, and she didn’t intend to strip off in a public place so they could see her bare shoulders. “We’re here to collect the Fae member of the investigative team,” she said. “I wasn’t told that identification would be required. I assumed that everyone here had been fully briefed.”

Another pause for Green and Purple to look at each other blankly. Fortunately Mu Dan kept her mouth shut and didn’t make the situation worse.

“Why not take us to see someone higher up?” Irene suggested, growing impatient. “Such as the Cardinal?”

“You want to see the Cardinal?” Green stammered.

“Why shouldn’t I want to see the Cardinal?”

“Because he’s the Cardinal,” Green said, in tones that suggested Irene shouldn’t have needed to ask. His previous poise had slipped. “He’s not to be disturbed. He’s busy. People who intrude on his time have horrible things happen to them.”

Purple drew one thumb across his throat in a significant gesture.

Irene resigned herself to having apparently run into the very bottom scrapings of the barrel when it came to Fae representatives. Please, she prayed to any deity who might exist, let the Fae who’s on the investigative team be someone else. Anyone else. “Good point,” she said patiently. “So why don’t you take us to see the Cardinal’s secretary, or his bodyguard, or his second in command, or whoever the appropriate person is?”

“Oh, right,” Green said. “You should have said so earlier. Come along with us, please.”

He led the way through the swirling throng, with Purple at the rear of the group—not, Irene reflected, that she or Mu Dan had any intention of running away. She glanced sideways at Mu Dan, just in time to catch the other woman wiping sweat from her forehead.

“Are you all right?” Irene asked quietly. The chatter of the crowd would stop Green or Purple from hearing her. She tried to extend her own perceptions, to see if she could feel any aura of chaos in this place. But there wasn’t enough—at least, not yet—to even make her Library brand tingle. The Fae presence in this hotel was apparently keeping itself well under wraps.

“Tolerable, for the moment,” Mu Dan answered. “Have you noticed the temperature?”

It took a moment for Irene to catch her drift. “Yes,” she said in surprise. “It’s almost warm in here.” Maybe it wasn’t so much that the Fae were exerting themselves to enforce their own reality, but rather that they were keeping out Ao Ji’s influence. Whatever the reason, Irene was grateful for a respite from the winter cold.

Green led the way deeper into the hotel, past several normal-looking servants and hotel porters who grew tense as the group approached, then relaxed again at a casual sign from Purple. They passed frescos that rose from floor to ceiling and then spread out onto the ceiling, and drooping chandeliers almost too ornate to support their own weight. The whole place breathed wealth and good taste, though in a different way from the dramatic gold and white of Le Meurice, or the themed colours and rich luxury of the Ritz. Irene could only hope that it would improve the mood of the Fae delegation.

But as they ventured farther in, Irene began to feel the power of the Fae who were staying here. It was like being in the proverbial boiling frog’s saucepan. One moment there was nothing to worry about, and everything was fine—and then somehow, imperceptibly, they had entered a zone of high chaos. Its influence was strong enough to make her Library brand itch and burn, without Irene ever being quite aware of when the transition had taken place. She stole another glance sideways. Mu Dan had a feverish colour to her cheeks, and her forehead was lined as if she was clenching it against a headache, but she wasn’t slowing down.

Green knocked on a random-looking door, then thrust it open. “Librarian and a dragon to see you,” he announced.

“Show them in,” a voice came from inside.

And Irene suddenly realised that she knew that voice.

She stepped quickly into the room, half eager to see if her hypothesis was true, and half wanting to know the worst as soon as possible—because if it was who she thought it was, that person might have a significant grudge against her.

The woman inside had been sitting behind a desk covered with stacks of paper, but she rose as they entered. Her hair was pinned back in a neat bun, and while her features were attractive, they were so bland that it would have been hard to describe her afterwards. While her pearl grey dress was well-made and appropriate to the period, it was styled for the wearer to blend unobtrusively into the background rather than thrust herself forward. It could have been a textbook illustration for a secretary’s outfit. Matching silk gloves sheathed her hands. “Clarice!” she said, stepping forward and offering her hand. “Or should I say Irene?”

“It had probably better be Irene for the moment,” Irene answered, shaking the other woman’s hand. She could feel hard moulded plastic and metal through the silk glove. “Sterrington. It’s been a while.”

It had been several months since the incident when Kai had been kidnapped and Irene had needed to impersonate a junior Fae in order to rescue him. She’d made several acquaintances on that excursion, and Sterrington had been one of them. Of course, Sterrington had signed up with the other side that time and had helped hunt Irene across Venice. And had nearly got her hand blown off in the process.

Irene really hoped that Sterrington wasn’t the sort of Fae who held grudges. She’d seemed the sort of person who saw things in terms of profit and loss, last time. A true … businesswoman. Hopefully that hadn’t changed.

“You know each other?” Mu Dan enquired. She didn’t sound pleased.

“We have met,” Irene admitted. “Mu Dan, please allow me to introduce Sterrington. Sterrington, this is Mu Dan, who’s the dragon representative on the investigative team.” Technically she should be introducing the lower-ranking person to the higher-ranking one first, but she had no idea who outranked whom in the current situation. Possibly as the Librarian on the investigative team she outranked everyone. Now wasn’t that a frightening thought?

Neither of the other two tried to shake hands. “Good morning,” Mu Dan said.

“Good morning,” Sterrington replied.

“Of course, we met previously in a great hurry,” Irene said, trying to bridge the gaping hole in the conversation. “We didn’t get time to do much more than exchange names. I’m sorry that things ended up so—ah—inconveniently for you, Sterrington.” That was true enough: Irene had absolutely no qualms about what had happened to Sterrington’s patrons, but she could sympathise with Sterrington herself.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s just one of those things that happen in the course of business.” Sterrington sat back down again, seeming genuinely unconcerned, as if the previous affair had been no more important than closing a bank account or failing to show up for a lunch appointment. “Now, won’t you pull up a chair and let me know how I can help you today?”

There was one additional chair, besides the one that Sterrington was occupying. Irene and Mu Dan looked at each other.

“Let me be brief,” Irene said, gesturing Mu Dan towards the chair. She wasn’t sure she trusted Sterrington, but she didn’t need trust to work with her. “We’re here to investigate Lord Ren Shun’s death. We’d like to join up with the Fae representative on our team. I’d also like to meet the Librarians—the ones staying here—so that I can get their statements. And anyone else, if they’ve information to give us about the murder. And if you know anything about it yourself, this would be a wonderful time to share.”

Sterrington picked up a fountain pen and toyed with it thoughtfully. “Of course, I am naturally eager to give you all cooperation possible. Not only because of the investigation, but because of how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me.”

“I beg your pardon?” Irene said.

“After your little escapade, I was able to use the information I had to leverage my position.” Sterrington’s smile actually looked genuine. “I made myself extremely valuable to a number of people in high places. It allowed me to get this replacement made.” She flexed her gloved right hand. “And I’ve managed to advance my career much higher and much faster than I’d planned. The positives far outweigh the negatives. In fact, if you’d consider doing a wash-up session at some point with me later to discuss it further …”

Irene didn’t need to look at Mu Dan—now seated—to guess what this was doing to Irene’s credibility in her eyes. No dragon would be enthusiastic about trusting a Librarian when Fae were running round saying how much they appreciated the Librarian and wanted to work with her. Sterrington was deliberately torpedoing Irene’s position. And Irene couldn’t let her continue.

So she smiled in return. “I’m delighted you’ve done so well for yourself. Would you consider that you owe me a favour?”

The pen in Sterrington’s hand stopped moving mid-twiddle. “Well, you know,” Sterrington said, “I’m not sure I’d go that far.”

If a Fae admitted they owed a favour, then they’d have to pay it at some later point.

“Oh?” Irene said blandly. “But you were just saying how grateful you were, and how helpful I’d been.”

“Not to the point of a favour,” Sterrington said flatly, all her effusiveness gone.

“It’s a good idea to get this sort of thing in proportion before any of us start misjudging the situation,” Irene said, letting her own smile fade. “We’re not hostile to each other. That’s good. Let’s keep it that way. And in the meantime—the Fae team member, the Librarians, the statements, and any other information?”

“All in progress,” Sterrington said. She put down the pen. “The Fae member of your investigative team is being briefed on the situation. Incidentally, where’s your human detective?”

“He’s looking into an attempt by someone to kidnap us.”

“Well, clearly we weren’t involved in that,” Sterrington said quickly. “Can you give me any further details?”

Mu Dan finally spoke. “So that you can keep us sitting here even longer? I think not. We are an active team, not some sort of moribund committee.”

“That’s far too harsh! Not all committees are moribund.”

“Mu Dan still has a point,” Irene said. If they needed to play good cop, bad cop to get past Sterrington, then Irene would go along with it. At least she got to be good cop. “Sterrington, you know how urgent the situation is. It’s not efficient for us to be sitting here and waiting. If we have to leave and come back later, then we can certainly do that.”

Sterrington frowned. “I’m not trying to be inconvenient. The situation’s complex.”

“Then perhaps you could explain it?” Irene suggested.

“Your Fae team member is receiving his briefing from the Princess herself,” Sterrington said. “I can’t break in on that. And your Librarians are playing chess with the Cardinal. I don’t want to intrude there either. Neither situation will be helped by interruptions.”

“Nor will it be helped by us sitting here and waiting.” Irene leaned forward, placing her hands on the edge of the desk. “I appreciate that you need a good excuse. Here’s one. Just earlier this morning, before breakfast, someone attempted to assassinate His Majesty Ao Ji. Someone who may have been under Fae influence. He was stopped, of course, but don’t you think that we should make absolutely sure that nobody’s going to try the same thing here?”

Sterrington opened her mouth—and then shut it again, clearly working through the political implications. “You should have said this earlier.”

Irene shrugged. “So far this morning we’ve had an attempted assassination and an attempted kidnapping. And it’s not even midday. Can we please get things moving?”

Sterrington came to a conclusion. “The Cardinal will need to know about this, even if it means interrupting his chess.” She rose to her feet. “Follow me.”