The Masked City

Irene ran through the events of the last couple of days: the auction, the brawl, the scarcely seen watcher, Silver’s warning and her own investigation. She barely noticed the housekeeper or the tea the woman had brought. She was focusing on providing Vale with every last bit of data, everything that he might be able to use. While she had her own plans for searching elsewhere if necessary, outside this world, Vale was the local expert, and she wanted his expertise.

He listened to her, only interrupting with a couple of questions, until she came to a stop. Then he nodded. His hands were curved around his cup of tea, but he hadn’t drunk from it.

‘Your turn,’ Irene said. Her anger had ebbed a little and now focused itself on more long-term planning. ‘I’m assuming that you’ve just returned from hunting for Kai. Please tell me everything you know.’ She was aware that Vale, as London’s leading private investigator, was the one who normally made such requests of his clients. He knew it, too, and his mouth quirked drily in what was almost a smile.

‘You are correct, Winters.’ Vale put down his untouched tea. ‘I was called out this morning quite early, on a case that I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss. However, it became clear that my presence was not necessary. Whatever had impelled the Inspector to summon me …’ He frowned.

‘A deliberate attempt to distract you, you think?’ Irene suggested.

Vale nodded. ‘Given subsequent events … In any case, I returned here to find that Strongrock had come by. He was met at the door by a street urchin, who directed him to an address in the East End. Fortunately, one of the newspaper vendors was close enough to hear the details. I followed.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘I was too late.’

‘What happened?’ Irene demanded.

‘You must understand that I assembled the facts after the event.’ Vale’s tone was corrosive, but this time it was a self-directed bitterness. He was clearly blaming himself just as much as she was, Irene realized, though with less cause. ‘It was not difficult to follow his trail. Once he arrived at the address where he thought that he’d be meeting me, another man - disguised as a Scotland Yard constable - redirected him to an address half a mile away. This was an old warehouse, where I was supposed to be investigating a murder. On the way he was lured into a side alley, by an apparent assault on a helpless innocent. He was struck down and rendered unconscious by a combination of superior numbers, Fae magic and drugs. From there, he was taken - elsewhere.’

‘That’s quite a convoluted trail,’ Irene said thoughtfully. ‘Why not just direct him to the location of the kidnapping? Or simply try to overpower him inside a cab, where he wouldn’t have had room to manoeuvre?’

‘I think the point was to make the trail convoluted, Winters.’ Vale stared thoughtfully into the middle distance. ‘At any of those points, someone attempting to track him might well have lost his traces.’ Except me, he didn’t have to say. ‘But as it is, I have descriptions of two people at the scene who might be these Guantes. A middle-aged man, slightly shorter than me, with grey hair and beard. He’s well dressed, with a commanding voice. The woman had black hair and was slender. She wore a mantle over clothing that was “foreign”, though my informant couldn’t say precisely how.’

‘And did both of them wear gloves?’ Irene asked.

‘Yes,’ Vale said slowly. ‘Both of them did. Though, to be fair, most well-off men and women would wear gloves.’

Irene nodded. That was true. But it still felt significant somehow. ‘Where did they take Kai?’ she asked.

‘That’s the problem, Winters.’ Vale looked annoyed. ‘The woman was escorted to a cab waiting nearby. I have the address to which she directed it, and I intend to investigate. But the man - apparently he left London by some Fae route. And he took Kai with him.’

Irene’s hands clenched in her lap, rumpling the folds of her skirt. ‘You should have said that sooner,’ she said. Her mind ran in circles. How to trace where he had gone? How to follow and rescue him?

Vale sighed. ‘Winters, let us leave the blame for some other occasion. What I need to know now is how fast you can find him and retrieve him. We cannot leave him in their hands for any longer than we must.’

For Vale, this was high emotion, and the urgency in his voice would have indicated standing up and stamping around the room in any other man. Irene had known that Kai considered himself to be Vale’s friend. She hadn’t realized quite as much that Vale considered Kai to be his friend.

Then again, she was the last person to judge people for keeping their feelings under control. ‘We have three main routes of enquiry that I can see,’ she offered, after pausing to think. ‘One is to trace the Guantes within London, here. Even if Lord Guantes has taken Kai elsewhere, we may learn something from the woman. The second route is for me to look for more information within the Library - and, if all else fails, I can approach Kai’s own family.’

‘How?’ Vale asked.

‘I can find out where his uncle, who was his guardian, is based - in the world where Kai was originally recruited - and go and ask for information.’ Irene didn’t like the idea. Nobody liked getting bad news, and she suspected that dragons liked it even less than most. But if anyone could find a lost dragon, then it might be another dragon.

Vale nodded, accepting her words. ‘I take it that your third idea is to ask Silver?’