Irene glanced at Kai for a moment. He shrugged neutrally. But it wasn’t as if it were his decision, in any case; this wasn’t a democracy and he wasn’t an equal partner. The decision, the risks, and the potential for disaster were all hers.
Vale’s story hung together and made sense, which was more than one could usually expect of events. More than that, Irene had the feeling that she could trust him. She wanted to trust him. (Should that in itself make her suspicious?) And there was nothing that said they had to tell him everything. And this was only a single mission, after all. They could leave this entire alternate behind them, and he’d have no way to follow them. There wouldn’t be any repercussions afterwards. And, well—if he had been Alberich, then they’d already be dead. Just like Dominic Aubrey.
She made her decision and leaned forward to offer her good hand. “Mr. Vale, I am grateful for what you have said. I believe we can cooperate.”
Vale smiled briefly and clasped her hand. “Thank you. Then perhaps you can tell me about yourselves?”
Irene glanced at Kai. “You have already made it clear that you believe we’re not English.”
“Indeed not,” Vale said crisply. “Nor are you Canadians.”
“Ah,” Irene said, and quickly rephrased her next statement. “We are representatives of—a society. You will understand if we don’t name it, I hope.”
Vale’s smile was a little bitter. “If you can vouch for its good intentions, that will be sufficient.”
“I can vouch for its non-interference,” Irene said scrupulously. “We’re after one thing: the book that was stolen from Lord Wyndham’s house. We arrived here with the intention of purchasing it”—well, that would have been one option—“only to find the man, ah, vampire, murdered, and the book stolen. Now we want to recover it. If together we can discover the truth behind the book thefts, the murder, and the explosion, well, that would surely be the best of all possible ends.” And, she thought privately, the Library might be interested in those other books as well. Except for the one from Vale’s family. That one they could afford to give back, and he’d appreciate it.
“And your enemy?” Vale gestured at Irene’s bandaged hand.
“We only have his name,” Irene said. It was probably safe enough to give that. “Alberich.”
Vale shook his head. “I know no player in London by that name. But for the moment, yes: I think we can work together.”
“Excuse me,” Kai said. Irene turned to look up at him. He was clearly holding himself in check with a great effort. “May I speak to Miss Winters alone for a moment?”
“Certainly,” Vale said. He rose from his chair. “I will have some tea fetched. That is—your society does drink tea?”
“Always,” Irene said.
CHAPTER 9
“This is a bad idea,” Kai said as soon as the door had closed behind Vale.
“I am listening,” Irene said as she began to pick at her bandage, “and I am paying attention, and if I do scream, it’s because my hand is in worse condition than I thought. Go on.”
“Why do you trust him?” Kai demanded.
“I don’t.” Irene didn’t look up from the tightly wrapped bandages. “Not totally. But I think he’s telling the truth about his family and about his gift. I’m not sure he trusts us, either.”
“And that’s another thing,” Kai said. “How can we possibly trust someone who’d betray their family?”
Irene let the bandages be and looked across at him. He had clenched his fists in his lap so tightly that she could see all the bones of his hands, and the blue veins up the insides of his wrists, clear beneath his pale, pale skin. “We don’t know the whole of that,” she said. “We don’t know what they may have done to drive him away. If—”
“But he left them!” Kai was nearly shouting. He controlled himself with an effort, rising to stand in front of Irene. “He admitted as much. If he really disagreed with them, then he should have stayed with them and tried to change them from the inside. To just leave them, to walk out on them, to disobey his own parents—how can that possibly be justified?”
Irene looked down at her hand again, partly to think, partly so that Kai wouldn’t see her own expression. Didn’t he realize how much he was giving away about himself? Or did he just not care? That sort of openness was, in its way . . . intoxicating. “I hardly ever see my own parents,” she said, and wondered at the quietness of her own voice.
“But you haven’t defied them or deserted them.” Kai looked down at her, meeting her eyes. “You’ve followed their tradition. They were Librarians and so are you. I’m not saying that he should love his family, not if they really were malicious, but he shouldn’t have left them. You can’t trust a man who’d do that.”
“I’m not saying we should trust him,” Irene said. “I’m saying that we need to work with him.” She felt very cold, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of her hand, or the earlier shock, or her own words. “To serve the Library, I would work with murderers, or thieves, or revolutionaries, or traitors, or anyone who will give me what I need.
