‘Anything, darling,’ Zayanna promised, her eyes huge and dark with emphasis.

‘Tell me how to help a human being who’s been exposed to a world with too much chaos,’ Irene said.

Zayanna frowned. ‘That’s not something people actually need helping with, darling.’ She looked around at Irene, then at Kai and Li Ming, neither of whom looked amused by the way she’d put it. ‘Oh, well, I suppose if someone like me had a favourite whose nature had been really unbalanced and was getting much too pliable, they could take them to the more rigid spheres. But you’d already suggested that. And if you didn’t want your friend Vale to have this problem, then you shouldn’t have taken him along with you to Venice in the first place.’

‘Pardon me,’ Kai said to Irene. He stepped across to where Zayanna was lounging and backhanded her across the face, slamming her into the sofa.

‘Kai!’ Irene snapped. ‘Control yourself!’ God knows she’d wanted to hit Zayanna for that little bit of spite, but this couldn’t possibly help.

‘My friend has helped you, and for that you return an undeserved insult,’ he said, standing above Zayanna. Faint scale-patterns showed like frost marks on the surface of his skin, on his hands and face. ‘You will not do so again, or I will throw you out on the street, and your patron may have you back – living or dead – to serve his whim.’

Zayanna pushed herself up on her elbow, her hair falling around her face in dark tangles. The imprint on Kai’s hand showed scarlet on her cheek. She took a hissing breath, and for a moment Irene saw fangs rather than teeth in her mouth. The expression on Zayanna’s face wasn’t one of Fae pleasure at having found a new enemy to plot against: it was one of outright dislike, and a wish to see Kai dead – or worse. ‘Oh, so now you’re being judgemental because you couldn’t take care of your pets? Everyone knows how far beneath them the dragons think humans are! At least we get involved with them.’

Irene caught Kai’s wrist before he could hit Zayanna again. She had to strain to hold him back. ‘I told you, stop!’

‘You creatures are users and destroyers of human souls,’ Kai snarled at Zayanna. ‘When you interact with them, it’s never to their benefit. You get your perverse amusement out of playing your games with them—’

‘We love them!’ Zayanna shrieked. ‘You’re the ones who are soulless: you don’t understand them, you just keep them as pets, you’re only spending time with Irene because you want her as a concubine. I care about her—’

Irene stepped between them, putting her free hand on Zayanna’s shoulder to hold her back. ‘Shut up,’ she said, her voice as cold and hard as if she had been using the Language. ‘Shut up, both of you, or I’ll make you.’

For a moment she felt Kai’s wrist tense in her grasp. Then he broke free with a twist of his arm and stepped back, folding his arms. His eyes had shifted to true draconic red in anger, and burned in a face that looked cut from marble.

Zayanna panted where she lay on the sofa, her shoulder soft and warm under Irene’s hand. ‘He hit me,’ she murmured.

‘Don’t push me,’ Irene said. ‘I nearly hit you myself.’

She glanced across to Li Ming, but he was still in place, still very much unconcerned, and he shrugged in response. ‘Is this any of my business?’

Well, scratch the idea of leaving Zayanna with Li Ming while we’re out of London, Irene decided. She’d probably accidentally fall down a well, or step in front of an oncoming train, the moment I was out of sight.

She deliberately ignored certain words that Zayanna had said: because you want her as a concubine . . . There was more to her friendship with Kai than that. Just because Zayanna might be jealous, that didn’t make her right. ‘I’m in a hurry,’ she said. ‘If you can’t help me, Zayanna, then fair enough. But I don’t have any time to waste.’

Zayanna looked up at Irene through lowered eyelashes. ‘Can’t I help?’

‘Right now, I don’t see how,’ Irene said curtly. ‘Kai?’

‘Yes?’ He was looking more normal and human again now, but his face was set in lines of resentment. And the way that he was eyeing Zayanna suggested that he was visualizing dropping her – from several thousand feet up.

‘If you must argue, do it in your own time, please. We haven’t the luxury for that now.’

The door opened. Vale stood there, frowning. ‘I thought I heard shouting.’

‘You did,’ Irene said. ‘I think everybody’s about to leave. No, wait: I have a favour to ask you, if you would. Two favours.’

‘Within reason,’ Vale said, but he looked intrigued. Which was much better than weary and self-destructive.

She offered him the small pouch holding the needle that had been used on her. ‘Please analyse this. It’s the poison that was used to drug me. If you can trace it, I might be able to find out who hired the werewolves who kidnapped me.’

‘Excellent,’ Vale said, sounding genuinely pleased this time. ‘And beyond that?’

‘Silver owes us after the Venice business, since we took down Lord Guantes. After all, Guantes was his arch-rival. I need to know if Silver’s heard anything lately about Alberich, or the attempt on our lives, and I don’t have time to ask. Gates to the Library are being destroyed. I need to go and do my job. So, Vale, please, if you would, meet up with Silver and ask him if he knows anything.’