He smelled of spice and honey. She could feel the coldness of his hands through his torn gloves and the fabric of her clothing.
“Say that you’ll be mine,” he murmured, his lips close to hers.
The markings across Irene’s back burst into sudden agony and she pulled away harshly, gasping for breath. He took a step towards her, but she raised her hand, and he paused.
“I belong”—to the Library—“to the Cathedral of Reason,” she spat. “Seducing me so I’ll betray my masters will not convince them to form an alliance.”
“Oh well.” He raised his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss. “I felt like trying. I’ll see you tomorrow, little mouse. Don’t forget. Or I’ll come and find you.”
He turned on his heel and strode across to the safe, scooping up the papers and visiting card. She could see the care that he took not to touch the cold metal. “Merely our private correspondence, my dear,” he tossed over his shoulder. “About library books. Nothing to concern you.”
Irene bit her tongue hard enough to hurt, trying to keep her face inquisitively bland. He could have used the word library just in passing. He didn’t necessarily suspect her. Or he might have been talking in order to keep her attention on him, rather than on anything else . . .
Paranoia gibbered at the back of her mind. Some Fae did know about the Library. The powerful ones. Was this particular Fae that powerful?
The door slammed behind him.
She had nearly given way. He’d been more than she expected, in every sense. If it hadn’t been for her bindings to the Library, she might not have been able to resist in time. And what then? The thought literally made her shiver. There had been other cases of Librarians who had been lost to chaos. The stories weren’t reassuring. The undocumented cases even more so. And there was the one horror story that every Librarian knew, about the man who’d turned traitor to the Library and sold it out. He had never been caught and was still out there—
Her nails dug into her palms as she forced herself into proper posture and composure. She walked across to look at the document on the desk. It was a basic note of admission to the Liechtenstein Embassy, for tomorrow night, for a Grand Ball.
It was signed, Silver.
CHAPTER 5
“I’ve found out all about it,” Kai said as he sliced a bread roll into halves. “Hey, this is real butter. Cool.”
“We’re lucky that it isn’t flash-frozen with chemical supplements,” Irene said. They’d had trouble finding a restaurant that wasn’t billing itself as all new and all special, equipped with the latest scientific devices to preserve, enhance, and cook the food that was served inside. Post-meal condition of the diners was not mentioned.
“It makes a nice change,” Kai said. He laid the knife down between the two pieces of buttered roll. “So, do you want to go first, or me?”
Kai was clearly bubbling with enthusiasm to tell her all about his investigation. Irene couldn’t help but wonder just how discreet a criminal he’d been in his own alternate, before joining the Library. She made him keep quiet until the waiter had brought their wine and retreated into the curtained shadows of the restaurant, and tried not to be too amused by it all. Five years of enforced study had clearly left him with enough spare energy to run the lights for most of London.
“You first,” Irene said. “Give me a full breakdown.”
“All right. Now, first of all, Liechtenstein is a major power in this world. They do the best zeppelins. And everyone knows it. That newspaper seller was right. And they do sell information, but not their big secrets.”
“No industrial espionage?” Irene asked. “No reverse-engineering of technology or attempts to invade other countries?”
“Ah, there’s a reason for that.” Kai took a sip of his wine. “Hey, this isn’t bad. For a cheap little hole-in-the-wall place like this.”
Irene nodded. “So, what’s the reason?”
“The Fae keep them out. They keep the entire country well protected to shield their own goings-on, and it keeps out the industrial and national spies as well. Remember the bit about the ambassador being one of the Fair Folk?” Kai pressed his lips together for a moment in a gesture of pure disgust. “It’s not just him. There’s a lot of them in Liechtenstein. They spawn there, or breed, or something. It’s a nexus for their filth. The local populace tolerates them. They’ve been bought off with trinkets and flashy glamour.”
Irene frowned. It didn’t sound as if Kai was going to be thrilled that they were going to the embassy ball tomorrow night. “Ah,” she said neutrally, and sipped her wine. “So it’s quite normal for Fair Folk to be amongst the Liechtenstein Embassy staff?”
Kai nodded. “They’re known for it, even. Newspaper reporters were trying to get interviews at the embassy gates. One said that other nations dealing with the country carried cold-iron talismans now, it was that bad.”
“Good to know that works,” Irene said. “Assuming it does?”
“Well, they wouldn’t carry them unless it did,” Kai said. “Unless . . .” He paused. “Unless the Fair Folk are just faking the whole thing in order to lure their victims into a false sense of security.”
“Well, that’s possible too,” Irene agreed regretfully. She held up her hand to pause him as the waiter arrived with their soup, and they were quiet until the man had left. “All right,” she said, picking up her spoon. “Go on.”
“The current ambassador has held the post for the last eighty years,” Kai said, picking up his own spoon. “His name is Silver. Or rather, people call him Silver. It seems nobody knows his real name outside Liechtenstein, if anyone does. Though the fact that it’s apparently
