Kai shrugged. ‘If you want me to try and think of some other way to stop a Librarian talking, then by all means encourage me to experiment.’
Evariste didn’t quite flinch, but he drew in on himself, retreating behind that personal barricade again. ‘Yeah, there are ways, and your sort know all about them.’
Irene held up a hand to stop Kai before he could escalate things. ‘What happened when you went to see Julian?’ she asked, keeping her tone as encouraging as possible, though nervousness was a tight ball in her stomach. The suggestion that the dragons had ways to inconvenience Librarians – to use a mild, non-terrifying word – was unnerving. But it was more important to keep Evariste on-track and telling his story. And they had limited time before someone tracked them down, whether it was dragons, police, criminals or all three.
Evariste looked down at his hands. ‘He was dead,’ he said quietly. ‘He’d been dead a few days. It was a heart attack. The local cops had done a post-mortem. There wasn’t anything suspicious about it. He’d left his property to me in his will. But it was too late. I was too late.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Irene said quietly.
‘I didn’t know, right?’ Evariste looked up at her, and she dismissed thoughts that he’d been trying to hide his expression in order to tell a more convincing lie. The grief in his face was too raw to be anything other than genuine. ‘I mean, I knew he had a bad heart, I’d seen him take pills, he’d been to the hospital and all that, I knew that he didn’t do active missions because of it, but I didn’t, you know, I didn’t figure he would . . . die.’ He took a deep sobbing breath. ‘I didn’t know. I wasn’t in time.’
Irene reached across to put an arm round his shoulders comfortingly. ‘You couldn’t have known,’ she said. ‘There was no way you could have known.’ But underneath she was conscious of a colder self saying, Yes, get his confidence, you need the information.
There were parts of herself that she didn’t particularly like.
Evariste swallowed after a moment and his back straightened. ‘I’m okay,’ he said, shrugging her off.
Irene nodded. ‘So what happened next?’
‘It was that night. I’d gone to his house to start cataloguing his books – and to make sure there wasn’t anything that might give away stuff about the Library. Diaries, whatever. I didn’t think he kept any, but . . .’
‘But you had to check,’ Irene agreed.
‘And then they turned up.’ Evariste’s eyes moved to Kai again, and his body tensed. ‘Two dragons. Qing Song and his liegeman.’
‘Hu?’ Irene asked.
‘Yeah, that’s him. The wolf and the fox. I was polite at first, asked them in, figured that I didn’t want to insult anyone. They said they’d known Julian and . . . well, I knew he’d known some dragons, so what was the harm? But then he started making demands.’
‘“He” being Qing Song?’
Evariste nodded jerkily. ‘He said that Julian and he had had an arrangement, and Julian owed him a few debts. And since I was Julian’s protégé, I had to pay what Julian owed. The way he said it, it sounded like I should be grateful for the opportunity.’
Irene could see Kai was biting back a comment so as not to interrupt Evariste’s flow. She suspected he would have agreed with Qing Song. ‘How did they react when you weren’t enthusiastic?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.’ Evariste’s laugh was bitter, grating in his throat. ‘First Qing Song just stares at me, then Hu tries to sweet-talk me, and both of them saying that it’s simply a matter of finding a book for them. Then Qing Song admits it’s something to do with dragon politics – and shit, I know we stay out of dragon politics. So I’m saying not only no but hell no, as politely as I can. And finally Hu takes out this envelope and shoves it across the table and suggests I read it.’
He shut his eyes, his energy draining from him again.
‘It was a letter from Julian. Remember I said my girl broke up with me before I joined the Library? Well, turns out it hadn’t been as neat and tidy as I’d thought. She’d been pregnant. She’d had a daughter. And Julian never told me.’
Irene tried to think of something helpful to say, something that would bridge the gap to him and convince him that she understood, but absolutely nothing came to mind.
‘Anita died a couple of years after I went to the Library,’ Evariste said. His voice was numb now, as if he was reading the lines of a play but had no idea how to put the right emotion behind the words. ‘It was a car accident. Her family looked after her daughter. Miranda Sofia, that’s her name. Julian had kept track of it all. He wrote in his letter that he hadn’t wanted me to be distracted. Distracted, he called it. He wrote that he wanted me to get experience as a Librarian without having to worry about a daughter. That he’d kept tabs on Miranda. That he was sort of an occasional uncle. That he was looking forward to when he could get us together . . .’ Evariste’s hands clenched in his lap. ‘He had no right, he had no fucking right to do that to me, to never even tell me about her!’
One part of Irene was all horrified sympathy. But as she nodded and agreed, the other part of her, the colder part, could guess what was coming next. This is why it’s dangerous for Librarians to have families. It makes us vulnerable. It leaves us open to pressure.
‘That’s what Qing Song’s holding over you, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘He has your daughter.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Yeah.’ Evariste glared at Irene now, his shoulders hunched defiantly. ‘That’s what it comes down to. He has my daughter. He and his men came to talk to Julian – like I said, they’d done deals with him before. Qing Song figured Julian would help him out again. But when they arrived, they found he’d died.’
‘The timing on that is rather coincidental,’ Irene said. Had Julian tried to refuse Qing Song’s request? An old Librarian, threatened and alone, who already had a heart condition . . . could Qing Song’s pressure have prompted that final heart attack?
But Evariste just shrugged, apparently less suspicious than Irene. ‘Qing Song must have really been cursing his luck on that one. But they went through his papers, saw my letters and knew I was going to visit. And they found this letter, too, the one about my daughter. Qing Song admitted he’d read it. One of his people had gone to Anita’s family, pretended to be Miranda’s father and taken her away. I don’t know how he did it, but he convinced them. But he’s holding Miranda now, and I don’t even know where he’s keeping her. I’ve spoken to the family, I’ve seen a photo of her – Miranda’s real, it’s not some sort of hoax. He has my daughter. And if I don’t find the book, he will have her killed. I had to play along till I knew where to find the book – so I had something to bargain with. What choice did I have?’