‘Sit her down here,’ Bradamant instructed Kai, pulling command around her like a cloak. ‘I’ll go and fetch some help.’
‘Just a moment,’ Irene interrupted. She suspected that once Bradamant was out of here, she wouldn’t be back for quite a while, and there was something very important that she wanted to say to her first.
‘You can barely stand,’ Bradamant said dismissively. ‘You need help.’
Kai looked round for a chair, found none, and carefully lowered her until she was sitting on the floor. ‘Irene, Bradamant’s right,’ he said in the patient tones that sympathetic men use to hysterical women. ‘You’re hurt.’
‘Shut up,’ Irene said, and watched his mouth drop open at her rudeness. She was dizzy, and her hands felt as if she’d dipped them in molten barbed wire. But she had to get this said before she lost the will to say it. ‘Bradamant. You cut in on my mission, drugged me and tried to steal my book, and generally broke quite a number of unwritten rules. True or not?’
Bradamant looked down at her. As usual, even in tattered clothing, her posture was effortlessly elegant, and Irene felt even scruffier than usual, sprawled on the floor as she was. For a moment Bradamant was silent. Then, finally, she said, ‘True enough.’
‘And?’
Bradamant shrugged. ‘I can apologize, but I hope you don’t expect me to say that I’m sorry.’
‘I expect nothing of the sort,’ Irene said carefully. ‘What I want . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘What I want is for us to stop despising each other quite so much. It’s a waste of time and effort.’
Bradamant raised her eyebrows. ‘My dear Irene, for me to despise you, I would have to bother to—’
‘Oh, please,’ Irene cut in. ‘You told me all about it, remember? You think I’m a spoilt brat and you’d be quite happy to have me fail publicly and obviously, even if you’d rather not see me dead for it. You wouldn’t bother putting an insult like that together if you didn’t want it to sting.’ She saw the colour rising in Bradamant’s cheeks. Kai’s supporting arm behind her was a comfort that helped her hold herself together. ‘I think what you want – what we both want – is to genuinely serve the Library.’
‘Split infinitive,’ Bradamant spat.
‘Put it in your report,’ Irene said, tiredness dragging her down. ‘Just don’t waste time hating me any more, all right? And I’ll try to stop doing the same. Because I don’t think it’s helping. I don’t think it’s helping either of us.’
‘Get that help now,’ Kai said sharply to Bradamant.
‘Please?’ Irene forced herself to look up and meet Bradamant’s eyes. ‘Think about it?’
‘I thought you wanted us to stop thinking about each other so much,’ Bradamant said coldly. She turned on her heel and walked away, skirts swishing.
Irene’s vision was narrowing, as Bradamant faded from view. ‘Think about it,’ she mumbled, the words thick and heavy in her mouth.
Kai’s fingers bit into her shoulder hard enough to make her refocus. ‘If you pass out on me now, I’m going to kill you,’ he said conversationally.
‘A bit counter-productive,’ Irene said.
‘It’d cheer me up like nothing else.’ He leaned in closer, his face inches away from hers. ‘You sent me away, you sent me away and you nearly got yourself killed. Do you have any idea how stupid that was?’
Perhaps his control was slipping, because his skin was like blue-veined alabaster, and his hair seemed dark blue as well, so dark that it was nearly black. There was a deep fury in his eyes that was a long way from human anger. It was about possessiveness, pride and a sort of ownership as well.
‘It worked,’ Irene said, managing to return his stare. His pupils weren’t human any longer either. They were slit like a snake’s, like that other dragon she’d met. But the person behind them was more real to her than Silver and his apparent humanity. Or whatever had looked out at her from Alberich’s stolen skin. She wanted to find the words to tell him as much. ‘We drove him out. Thank you.’
‘He endangered you!’ he broke in. ‘I shouldn’t have left any human alive in there!’
She could have thanked him for obeying or trusting her, or maybe because she could trust him. But for some reason, perhaps to divert him, she said, ‘For helping me save Vale’s life. I like him.’
To her surprise, that made Kai turn aside and duck his head, a scarlet flush blossoming on those pale high-boned cheeks. The fingers digging into her shoulder relaxed their grip, and there was something more human about his face. ‘He is a man to be valued,’ he muttered. ‘I am glad you approve of him as well.’
It might be a major concession for a dragon to admit he liked any human at all. ‘Right,’ she muttered. ‘Definitely. Could you get me some cotton?’ She realized that she’d used the wrong word. ‘Coffee. I mean coffee. Bit dizzy.’