That coaxed a faint smile from Kai. ‘I regret being the one to tell you this, but even languages can’t do everything.’
‘Hush,’ Irene said, raising a finger to her lips. ‘That’s heresy here. Anyhow, Black Mountains and Winter Forest families, right?’
‘Precisely. And no, the two families don’t get on well at all. They’re not exactly enemies, but if they’re involved in a political matter, then they’ll be on opposite sides.’
Irene tried a few searches on those terms. She did wonder, occasionally, if she should be grilling Kai for information on every dragon he knew and then putting it down in the database. But that would put Kai in an impossible position.
‘There’s something here about the Winter Forest family,’ she said in surprise, as it appeared on the screen in front of her.
Kai was on his feet and peering over her shoulder, before she could even consider the protocol of him reading Librarians’ comments on other dragons. ‘What does it say?’ he asked.
‘As you can see,’ she said drily, ‘the author approves of them.’
Honourable, reliable and consistent. Open to negotiation and willing to come to terms over the ownership of certain books, in return for information about Fae, the note said.
‘Qing Song isn’t usually described as open to negotiation,’ Kai said doubtfully.
‘Perhaps they were dealing with a different family member,’ Irene suggested. She checked the author. ‘It was entered by someone called Julian, not anyone I’ve ever met . . .’ She followed the link on his name. ‘And unfortunately he’s unavailable to ask, due to having died a few weeks ago. Heart attack.’
‘The timing’s . . . interesting,’ Kai said. His tone was very neutral, suggesting that he didn’t want to be the first one to jump to paranoid conclusions. ‘Since that would have been about the time the search for the book began.’
‘I’ll mark it as background,’ Irene said, noting it down. Let Security be paranoid: that was their job. ‘How’s your research on the book going?’
‘I have three possible worlds for the book,’ Kai said proudly. ‘A-15, A-395, A-658.’
‘And I’ve got four for the world.’ Irene checked her list and tapped her finger against the second. ‘And one of mine is A-658. We have a match!’ For a moment the pure joy of successful research made her forget why they were investigating. Then the implications caught up with her. ‘So Jin Zhi’s story could well be true.’
She checked her watch. ‘And it’s time to get that transfer shift. Come on.’
Irene and Kai emerged from the transfer shift cabinet into the vaguely central area of the Library. This collection of rooms sprawled over several miles, and was widely believed to be expanding at moments when people weren’t paying attention. It included vital areas such as the main classrooms for new trainees, the sets of rooms belonging to elder Librarians who couldn’t walk far, and the main sorting points for incoming books collected from their native alternate worlds. As such, the area was moderately busy, and Irene and Kai nodded to various other Librarians or trainees as they passed.
‘Over there,’ Irene said, nodding to the main lift shafts. They ranged in size from heavy steel-walled lifts large enough to hold a lorry full of books, to little one-person lifts with brass fold-across lattice doors. ‘Pick a lift. Any lift. As far as I know, they all go down to Security, if necessary.’
‘If you’ve never been down there, how do you know?’ Kai asked. He led the way to a moderately sized lift, one large enough to squeeze in half a dozen other people besides them.
‘Well, that’s what I was told,’ Irene admitted. She scrutinized the bank of buttons inside. They were labelled with a variety of floor names and numbers, but none actually said Security. After a moment she gave up and pressed the one labelled Basement.
The door slid shut, sealing the two of them inside the lift. The ceiling light flickered. Irene saw Kai twitch out of the corner of her eye, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other. A pointed jab of memory reminded her that it wasn’t that long since he’d been locked in a prison cell, waiting to be auctioned. ‘I hope it’s not too far down—’ she began.
‘State basement level,’ an automated voice intoned from the ceiling, with all the warmth and charm of a railway-station announcer.
Irene suppressed her own twitch. ‘Er, Security?’ she said hopefully.
The light went out.
The lift began to fall.
CHAPTER FIVE
Irene’s stomach dropped along with the lift as it fell down into darkness. There was absolutely no light, not even a fraction of a gleam on the lift metalwork or a glimmer in the overhead bulb. Her ears popped as the pressure changed. She reached out in sheer terror for something to hold onto, and caught hold of Kai.
He braced her, his body firm against her, the only thing she could be sure of in the pitch blackness. But he was shaking too, bone-deep shuddering that spoke of panic on the verge of breaking loose.
What went wrong? The thoughts shrieked in her head. Did I say the wrong thing? Is this some sort of security measure? What happens when we hit the bottom?
And then, abruptly, it all stopped. The lift came to a halt gently, as if it had been coasting down at a rate of mere inches per minute, rather than miles per second, and the light came on.
Sanity dribbled back into Irene’s mind. She tentatively detached her fingers from Kai’s shoulders. But it was harder to avoid looking at him, and she realized she was blushing. All her long-held principles about being in loco parentis were apparently much easier to crack than she’d thought. It simply took a dose of panic and here she was, clinging to him like the worst sort of romantic damsel, and wishing she could do more than just cling.
He was holding on to you too, the part of her mind that wasn’t busy lecturing her pointed out. You weren’t the only one who was afraid.
Kai was very nearly smirking. ‘First they assign us together,’ he said, ‘then they put us in a dark box together and shut the door . . .’
Irene abruptly found it very easy to disregard her softer emotions, as she was now boiling over with embarrassment and longing to push Kai over the nearest convenient precipice. Unfortunately he’d probably turn into a dragon and fly away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘That shouldn’t have happened.’
Kai released her, letting her step back. ‘Irene,’ he said carefully, choosing his words. ‘Just because you’re my superior in the Library doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. You’ve seen me at my weakest. I’m not going to say anything now –’
You are saying it, right here and now, Irene thought sourly. She could guess where this was going. He was always a perfect gentleman in his suggestions that she expand their relationship to include the bedroom, but that didn’t stop him making them.