A guard came hurrying towards them. “Mr. Vale!” he said, moustache quivering. “Now, excuse me, sir, I’m sure that you have very urgent business up here, but this is off-limits.”
“There is no time for that, man!” Vale declared. “Barricade the doors. There are werewolves at large in the museum. Inspector Singh is bringing a force from Scotland Yard to sweep the place. In the meantime, I require one of your zeppelins to stop the perpetrator before he can escape.”
The guard’s eyes widened. He stroked his moustache nervously. “Is it that urgent sir?”
“It’s a matter of life and death,” Vale snapped. “Inspector Singh will explain everything when he gets here. Are you with me, man?”
“Yes, sir,” the guard declared, nearly snapping his heels together in his enthusiasm. Werewolves and assisting great detectives must be somewhat unusual. He turned to look up at the floating airships, waving an arm. “Jenkins! Throw down a ladder, girl—you’ve a run to do!”
With a certain amount of pushing from below and pulling from above, Irene was assisted up the swaying rope ladder. She decided to be grateful that firstly, she hadn’t just been left behind, and secondly, she was wearing traditional underpants rather than anything scantier. The rest of her mind was preoccupied with clutching the rope ladder with sweating hands, trying not to fall off and die.
The pilot was a woman, in canvas and leather clothing—the first that Irene had seen in trousers so far in this alternate. Her goggles were shoved back over a coiled, heavy braid of hair, and she looked more suspicious than the guard had been. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said, “but I’ll have to see some authorization.”
“My name is Vale,” Vale announced. “I require your assistance to reach the British Library as fast as possible.”
“That and a shilling’ll buy you a pound of onions,” the woman said. Unimpressed, she leaned back in her seat, a hammock-like sling of leather straps and creaking rubber. “Go find some other poor sod to risk their job if you want to chase criminals.”
Irene considered the possible mental damage of what she was about to do. Librarians were generally supposed to avoid it, because of the risks of imposing on people’s minds, not to mention the universe occasionally backlashing in interesting ways. But they were running out of time.
“Miss Jenkins—”
“That’s Mrs. Jenkins to you,” the woman snapped. “I’m a respectable married woman, I am.”
“Mrs. Jenkins,” Irene continued, switching fluidly into the Language, “you perceive that the detective here is showing you reliable and acceptable authorization.”
Mrs. Jenkins frowned, staring at Vale. “Well, I can’t say as I like it,” she finally said, “but that seems to all be in order. British Library, you said?”
“At once,” Vale said, with only a quick frown at Irene. “There is no time to lose.”
“Very good, sir,” the woman said. “Kindly have you and your friends hang on to the straps further back in the cabin. This is going to be a bumpy ride. The wind’s against us.”
Irene heard shouting in the background and looked down. Silver was standing on the roof, his cape billowing behind him as he pointed at the zeppelin.
Kai saw him too and took rapid action, casting off the mooring-cable. The whole zeppelin rocked, and Irene had to grab for the straps, but they were moving, jerking away from the museum at the sudden loss of their tether.
“Damn dilettante amateurs,” Mrs. Jenkins muttered, and ran her hands over the controls, flipping two switches and spinning a dial before hauling on a joy-stick. The zeppelin tilted and jolted into forward motion. “Passengers, we are now in the open air and heading for the British Library. Please talk among yourselves while I pilot this damn thing, because I don’t like being distracted.”
“Yes,” Vale said, turning to Irene. “We need to talk, Miss Winters.”
CHAPTER 19
Irene could think of so many things that Vale might want to discuss that it wasn’t even funny. But she was going to sit down first.
She decided, as she perched on a ledge that might be a seat, that this sort of transport must be reserved for very small antiques. The compartment was cramped, with hardly enough room for the three of them, let alone the storage of large items. The engine was also incredibly noisy, which was good—Irene didn’t really want Mrs. Jenkins listening in on this.
Vale himself remained standing, holding on to an overhead strap, using the advantage of his height to tower over Irene. Possibly in response, Kai also stayed on his feet, moving over to loom behind Irene’s shoulder supportively.
Irene wished that they’d both been poisoned too; perhaps then they’d be a bit more understanding about wanting to sit down.
“Miss Winters,” Vale said, retreating into formality, “am I to understand that you have the Fae-like power to glamour and delude the minds of others?”
Oh. So that was what had disturbed him. “No,” she said, then qualified it with, “not precisely. And you’re probably wondering why I didn’t do such a thing before.”
“Or why you suddenly revealed it now, after using it on me without my realizing it,” Vale suggested, brows drawn together suspiciously.
Damn. It was a logical suspicion she’d been hoping that he wouldn’t have. Why did he have to use those qualities that she admired against her? “I’m hardly that stupid,” she said.
“But you might have been that desperate,” Vale answered. “An explanation, if you please.”
Irene sighed. She’d been hoping to avoid this. “All right. You know that I can use the Language to, in blunt terms, make things do things. I can’t change a door from a locked door to an open door, but I can make the lock on a door open
