A curl of the river still held itself aloft, curving towards where Kai stood. It wasn’t quite like a serpent: the head had features something like a human and something like a dragon (yes, that again). There was also something of the lion, mane wet and draggled with weeds and dirt. Its eyes gleamed as yellow as fog-lamps, burning under heavy brows. This spirit was as polluted as the water itself, its body entwined with fragments of garbage and long streaks of filth. A heavy smell of oil and weed clung to it, wafting thickly along the dock.
Kai faced it and gave a small, precise inclination of his head. “Your service is acknowledged,” he said firmly. “Return with my thanks and the thanks of my family.”
The river spirit bowed its head in a long fluctuation that rippled along its body, then reared up and crashed back into the river in a spray of black water. The eyes were the last thing to vanish beneath the surface of the river, disappearing slowly rather than simply closing, visible for a long moment under the dark water.
Vale took a step forward. “What was that?” he demanded, shocked. “What did you do? What is it that you have brought into my London, sir?”
Kai turned with a snarl, his eyes an inhuman shade of blue, as fierce and dangerous as gas flames. “What it was, sir, was—”
“Was under my orders,” Irene said, stepping between them. She couldn’t allow this to degenerate into a shouting match. And more than that, she could sense something archaic and furious within Kai, the dragon under the human skin now very close to the surface. She had to divert it now, give him familiar channels to work in, and give Vale a target—herself—whom he simply couldn’t shout down without shattering his own rules of custom and propriety. She regarded Vale firmly, refusing to show him an inch of fear or terror or even, she hoped, nervousness. “I have promised you more information, sir, and you shall have it, but I suggest we return to your lodgings first. Mr. Strongrock acted on my instructions to protect and save us all.” It was a fairly small lie, really only a half lie as lies went, because Kai had certainly known she would want him to protect all of them. “And this is no time for us to be arguing, when we are all fighting a greater enemy.”
Vale regarded her for a moment, then granted her a small nod, nearly the mirror image of Kai’s own salutation to the river spirit. “Very well, Miss Winters. We shall return to my lodgings. I can only have faith in you, I suppose, as I have done before.”
That stung. As no doubt it was meant to. She smiled as sweetly as she could, then turned to Kai. “We can talk later,” she said softly, “or we can talk now, but either way, I know what you are, and it doesn’t matter.”
“You think very highly of yourself,” Kai answered, equally quietly, but far more deadly, “if you believe that it doesn’t matter.”
This was very different from handling Vale. There she had needed to hide her fear to convince him to wait for information. Here, with Kai, she needed to show her control and dispassion or—she could feel it in her bones—she would lose him to his true nature.
She couldn’t afford that. She had a responsibility to the Library. And she had a responsibility to him.
“Are you still my student?” she asked him directly. “Am I still your mentor?” Nothing more than that. The bond of loyalty and the bond of trust. Anything else was something that they would have to work out later.
He looked at her, and something inhuman seethed behind his eyes. “Do you think you can command me?”
“Yes,” she said, and she spoke in the Language.
The word hung in the air between them. Then Kai closed his eyes and reopened them, and now they were a human blue, sharp but no longer alien. “Then I believe I am still under your orders,” he said, and he managed a very small smile.
“Miss Winters, Mr. Strongrock, over here!” Vale called. He had walked to where the dock ended and the houses began and had somehow managed to conjure up a carriage. As Irene followed Kai across to the carriage, struggling with her soaked skirts and cloak, she couldn’t help but notice that Kai was perfectly dry. It didn’t seem fair. But it was a comforting, small thing on which to concentrate. She could be aggravated by something simple, rather than floundering in terror at what she had just faced down.
CHAPTER 14
“I would appreciate that explanation, Miss Winters,” Vale said as he refilled their teacups.
There had been hot baths and bandaging of injuries. Even Kai, untouched by the dirty water of the Thames, needed to clean himself after the exertions of the reception and its accompanying alligator blood. As for Vale and Irene, they were soaked and filthy. The driver had been muttering audibly about getting his carriage cleaned, even after a very generous tip from Vale.
Irene would gladly have soaked for a few more hours, but she hadn’t felt it safe to leave Vale and Kai alone to talk for too long. Kai’s temper was still touchy, and Vale might ask a question that was more dangerous than he realized. With a virtuous feeling of self-sacrifice, she’d dragged herself out of the hip-bath that she’d been allotted, wrapped herself up in the heavy flannel dressing-gown Vale had lent her, turbaned her hair in a towel, and gone out to join the others in
