The Masked City (The Invisible Library 2)

‘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?’ ‘My thoughts are more on the content than the context.’ Irene reached out for the letter, and Vale passed it to her. ‘And on the end result. Even if we weren’t aware Kai had been kidnapped, then we certainly would realize something was dubious when we received this. I think it’s a deniable red flag.’

‘A red flag?’ Vale queried.

‘An attempt to alert us that something is wrong, without the person in question admitting to giving us a warning.’

‘Ah.’ Vale nodded. ‘Lord Silver, yes. With that rather obvious dispatch of the letter via a bearded man, to point us in that direction.’

Irene nodded as well. Her shoulders were cramped with tension. She mentally reviewed possible leads. They’d squeezed everything dry for the moment. Which meant that she could finally act. ‘We need to move,’ she said. ‘I need to enquire at the Library, and to see if I can contact Kai’s uncle, if they have a way to locate him. And you—’

‘Will get onto the Guantes, of course.’ Vale rose to his feet, offering her a hand to help her rise. ‘And Lord Silver, while I’m at it. If the fellow is up to something, then I’ll know about it. Where should we meet?’

‘They’ll probably be watching my lodgings,’ Irene said with regret. ‘And they must be watching here as well.’ She frowned as her thoughts came together. ‘If Kai was intercepted at your front door, then they are certainly watching here, and they may be aware that we are both here now and comparing notes.’

‘Oh, without a doubt,’ Vale agreed. ‘However, our going in different directions should help somewhat - will you be able to reach a nearby library, do you think?’

‘I certainly hope so,’ Irene said firmly. There was a thread of satisfaction that he didn’t assume he’d need to escort her to deal with any trouble, or offer to do so. Earned respect from him was something she truly valued. ‘I don’t know how long I may be. I know it’s urgent. But if it’s difficult to reach Kai’s uncle … Should I look for you at Scotland Yard?’

For a moment Vale frowned, then nodded. ‘Go to Singh. He remembers you.’ Irene remembered him, too. Inspector Singh, probably Vale’s closest ally among London’s police. ‘If I have any messages, I’ll leave them with him, and you can do the same.’

He was still holding her hand. In fact he seemed to have forgotten that he was doing so. ‘Do be careful, Winters,’ he said. ‘Our enemies seem well prepared. If it were possible for me to accompany you, I would—’

‘But what you can find out here is more important,’ Irene interrupted. She would dearly have liked to have him at her back, and damn the rules about bringing strangers into the Library. But what she had said was true. They needed to know what the Guantes had been up to here. ‘And there’s no time to waste. I’m relying on you.’

His smile was thin, but present. ‘Then we had better not keep Strongrock waiting.’

CHAPTER SIX

Irene was almost surprised, and somewhat disappointed, when nobody tried to kidnap her on the way to the British Library. If someone had tried to kidnap her, at least she’d have had more of an idea what was going on.

But there were no mysterious hansom cabs waiting to whisk her off to an unknown location, no masked thugs dragging her into back-alleys, nothing at all remotely useful. It left her in a bad temper as she stalked through the rooms to the main Library portal.

The Traverse to the Library opened from a minor storeroom, one that used to be an office, and luckily there were no visitors around to see her entering. It was the work of moments to lock the door behind her using the Language, and she hurried across to the Traverse door. It looked like a store cupboard, and to any other user it would be just a store cupboard. But it was permanently linked to a specific door in the Library, and Irene had the linguistic key.

‘Open to the Library,’ she said, and felt the connection form as her words rolled on the air. She pulled the door open and quickly stepped through.

The heavy iron-barred door on the Library side clanged shut behind her. On the other side there were still posters hanging on rails around the door, proclaiming: HIGH CHAOS INFESTATION, ENTRY BY PERMISSION ONLY and KEEP CALM AND STAY OUT. Irene frowned at the HIGH on the first poster. Last time she’d been through this entrance, a few months back, it had only been standard chaos infestation.

If this was tied to Kai’s disappearance … She hoped not.

Someone had been using the room to stockpile other books, and beside the packed shelves there were stacks of yellow-backed paperbacks all over the floor. Irene had to pull in her skirts to avoid toppling the piles as she made her way to the exit.

The closest computer room was a couple of doors along to her left. It was empty at the moment, so she threw herself down in the chair and logged on, dashing off a quick email to Coppelia: Kai vanished. Dubious circumstances. Request immediate meeting. Irene.

The answer came within five minutes. She’d only just looked up Dragons, negotiations with, but hadn’t progressed much further. The message read: Rapid shift transfer authorized. First turning on left, three floors up, transfer word is Coherent. Coppelia.

Irene logged off, hoisted her skirts to her knees and began to run. Rapid shifts called for high-energy expenditure and weren’t held open for long. The fact that Coppelia had seen fit to authorize one was disturbing in itself.