The Masked City

‘It’s not an idea I like,’ Irene said ruefully. ‘Unless you can think of some way to apply pressure?’

‘It’s a matter worth considering.’ Vale rose from his chair to stroll restlessly around the room. ‘For him to be so vague in his warnings earlier might indicate that he is already under pressure from some other direction. Another matter worth investigation. But—’

There was a knock at the door. ‘Mr Vale?’ It was the housekeeper’s voice. ‘There’s a letter for you.’

Vale sighed. ‘Probably some futile request for my assistance. Excuse me a moment, please.’

Irene frowned at her hands, considering options while Vale’s steps rattled down the stairs. Being a Librarian didn’t give her any inherent abilities to track people across alternate worlds. She could travel from one world to another by going through the Library itself, but she would need to know where Kai had been taken.

There was an exclamation from downstairs. ‘Winters! Here, now!’ Vale shouted.

Irene caught up her skirts and stampeded down the stairs after him. He was standing in the doorway, an envelope and paper held carefully between his fingers. A sandy-haired messenger boy in a hotel uniform was cringing in front of him, clearly wishing he’d got away faster. ‘This fellow has news.’

‘What news?’ Irene demanded.

‘Tell us where you got this note.’ Vale’s hands were tight with tension, the lines of his knuckles and tendons showing - but he held the paper delicately, his fingertips barely brushing the edge.

The messenger boy wetted his lips nervously. ‘I work at the Savoy, sir. Gentleman guest there wanted it delivered to you.’

Vale nodded. ‘His name and appearance?’

‘He didn’t give his name, sir,’ the boy said. Vale bit back a sigh. ‘He was a gentleman, though. Had a beard.’

Vale sighed. ‘Very well. Here.’ He fished out a half-crown and tossed it to the boy. ‘For your time and effort. You may go.’

‘Should we be letting him walk away?’ Irene queried softly as the boy dashed off.

‘I can find him if I need to,’ Vale said confidently. ‘You saw how that uniform fitted him exactly? It was his own, not some stolen disguise. And the five buttons on his sleeve? He’s one of the senior boys at the Savoy, with a possible promotion to valet in the near future. His gloves were clean this morning, and his shoes were freshly polished. But he wasn’t able to give us any description, besides that the fellow had a beard and acted like a gentleman, which is probably why he’s still at the messenger-boy level. A higher-ranking employee would be expected to notice more than that, even if he didn’t talk about it.’

Irene nodded. ‘What’s in the letter?’ she asked.

Vale held it so that she could see it. ‘Don’t touch it,’ he advised her. ‘I am still examining it.’

It was clearly expensive paper. The slanting italic handwriting was in black ink:

Kai has returned to his own family. Make no attempt to see him again. This is the only warning that will be given.

Vale held it up to the light. ‘No watermark,’ he said. ‘The same paper as the envelope. I need better light to examine these.’ He was already heading up the stairs again to his room.

Irene followed. ‘It’s a fake of some sort,’ she said. ‘It cannot possibly be from his family.’

‘Oh? You are certain of that?’

‘Absolutely. I saw one of his family’s messages earlier. It was on a scroll, and in Chinese. Nothing like this. And if one of his people had come to collect Kai, it wouldn’t have been done by abduction.’ She could imagine Kai arguing, but she couldn’t imagine him being beaten to the ground and carried off by force. ‘Besides, you already said that you had evidence of Fae magic being used in his kidnapping. No self-respecting dragon would cooperate with the Fae. And most of all …’

‘Yes?’ Vale murmured. He’d thrown himself down in front of his laboratory table and was examining the letter and envelope with a magnifying glass.

Irene was pacing the room now, thinking it through. ‘If this had truly been the action of a dragon - perhaps one who felt that Kai was demeaning himself by associating with human beings, with us …’ More than that. Being our friend. ‘Any dragon who sincerely held those opinions wouldn’t bother to send messages. To you or me.’ She wondered if there would be a matching letter at her lodgings. There wasn’t time to go and check. ‘We would be beneath their notice.’

Vale didn’t look up from his scrutiny of the envelope. ‘Do all of them have that opinion then?’ His tone was academic, but there was something in the way he tilted his head that suggested a similar pride and hauteur of his own.

Of course, he’s an Earl. And an Englishman. And, most of all, the greatest detective in London. How could merely being a dragon compare to any of that?

‘I once met one who did. But he was courteous about it. There was a degree of, I suppose …’ She looked for the right words as she sat down. ‘Noblesse oblige. One does not cause unnecessary distress to lesser beings.’

‘How fortunate for us.’ Vale spun his chair around. ‘No watermark.’ He repeated his earlier comment. ‘Extremely high-quality paper, but not possible to identify it without further investigation. The handwriting is not one that I recognize. Added to that, I would not claim to be one of those people who reads character through handwriting, but the style is somewhat cramped and muted. I would suggest that the writer was attempting to disguise his or her usual script. The envelope was not sealed, so there is no clue to be obtained there. Your thoughts?’