‘Guilty as charged,’ Irene said, and watched him chuckle at the metaphor. ‘I figured someone professional like yourself would get in touch before I had to leave town.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘The cops may not have anything definite on you yet, but the longer you’re around, the more chance there is that they’ll make something up, just to hang a charge on you. Even if it’s just the Sullivan Act.’
Irene raised an eyebrow.
‘Being caught carrying without a licence,’ he clarified. ‘Something that a good half the guys and a quarter of the dolls in the speakeasy next door might have a problem explaining. An awful lot of people in this town are afraid of catching a cold if they go out of doors without a bit of preemptive self-defence.’
‘I’m English,’ Irene said. ‘We handle it a little differently.’
‘So how are you going to handle it when you find out who talked?’ George asked, a little too casually.
‘The English way.’ Irene lifted her glass and swirled the liquid in it, watching it catch the light. ‘Whoever it is will vanish and never be heard of again. Except for the part where somehow everyone knows what happened to them, and why.’
She took another sip of her Black Russian, savouring the jolt of caffeine and vodka, but enjoying the look of approval in George’s eyes just as much. It occurred to her that she might be getting a little too far into character. She ignored the thought. She didn’t often get to play mob boss.
‘All right. Now that we’ve got an understanding, I’d better not detain you. Don’t want the cops sniffing round.’ George jerked a thumb towards the door at the back of the room. ‘That goes through to the private establishment under Armstrong’s, and you can have yourself a drink before calling a cab. I’ll be in contact with you at your hotel this evening and we can work out the details. And I’ll put out the word on the street that you’re in good with me, and nobody is to try anything. That okay with you?’
‘Sounds good,’ Irene said. Especially the bit about no more random assassination attempts. ‘But there is one thing I’d like before I go. I’d like a private word with Lily here. Woman to woman.’
George glanced up at Lily, then shrugged. ‘Sure, no problem. Mind if I ask why?’
‘I want to talk about guns,’ Irene said.
George nodded, satisfied. ‘Fit our guest up with something in her size, Lily darling. Dave, come along with me – I need another drink.’
Lily stayed sitting on the arm of the chair as the two men left, considering Irene as thoughtfully as a raven would consider a tasty-looking snail. ‘Well?’ she said as the door clicked shut.
‘Are we being listened to?’ Irene asked bluntly.
‘No,’ Lily said. ‘George knows I’m as loyal as it gets. So what do you really want to talk about? And who are you?’
‘I have a question first,’ Irene said carefully. She wanted some answers, but not at the price of being shot.
‘Sure,’ Lily said, without a moment’s hesitation.
‘And I’d like you to give your word – by your name and power – that the answer’s true.’
Lily’s visible eye narrowed. If she had been a raven, she would have been looking for a nice edged stone to smash the metaphorical snail against. ‘If you can ask me that, then you know too much.’
‘Or not enough,’ Irene said regretfully. ‘But if you will answer my question truthfully, then I can be more honest. I think that just this once, we might have no reason to be enemies.’
‘Who are you?’ Lily asked. Then more carefully, she said, ‘What are you? You’re no dragon.’
‘My question gets answered first,’ Irene said. She leaned back in her chair, as casually as she could manage, and sipped her drink.
Lily hesitated, then sighed. ‘What a fuss. All right, it’s a deal. I give you my word, by my name and my power, that I’ll answer your question truthfully.’
‘I accept your word,’ Irene said. The Fae were punctilious about keeping their oaths, even if they were prone to sticking to the letter and not the spirit. ‘Now tell me: were you, or any other Fae, involved in bombing the Boston Public Library?’
Lily stared at Irene blankly. ‘No, and no again. What would be the point?’
‘That was pretty much my thinking, too,’ Irene admitted. ‘And in answer to your question, I’m a Librarian.’
‘Oh, interesting.’ Lily rolled the word out, savouring it. ‘I’ve heard about your sort before, but I’ve never met one. You’re the book thieves, right? The hoarders?’
‘We don’t like to put it that way,’ Irene said, ‘but yes. For a higher purpose, of course.’
‘You just keep on telling yourself that,’ Lily said sympathetically. ‘So what’s your name?’
‘I have many names but a single nature,’ Irene quoted. ‘And if my real name did get to certain people’s ears, then I’d be in deep trouble.’
‘What makes you think you aren’t?’
‘We’re talking like rational people, aren’t we?’
‘Rational’s an arbitrary sort of concept,’ Lily said. She might as well have been discussing drinks, or stockings, or a game of cards. ‘Some would say I wasn’t at all reasonable by nature.’
‘Then they don’t know Fae,’ Irene said, from experience. ‘You choose a story to model yourself upon – and then you become it. You’re what you’ve made yourself.’
‘Now you’re saying something interesting.’ Lily swung herself off the arm of her chair and paced towards Irene. Irene couldn’t help wondering how many guns the other woman was carrying, and how she managed to fit them under her tight knee-length dress. The smell of gun-oil and metal cut through the woman’s sweet floral perfume as she stood in front of Irene. Fae might have an aversion to cold iron, but apparently they had no problems with steel. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you think I am?’
‘I’ve met seducers and libertines,’ Irene said. One of them, Lord Silver, was a frequent irritation back on Vale’s world. ‘You’re neither.’
‘True enough,’ Lily murmured. ‘Guess again.’
‘I’ve met Machiavellian plotters.’ And killed one. But that was in another country, and in another story, and hopefully Irene would never have to face the results. ‘I’ve met storytellers and snake-tenders, lords and ladies and minstrels.’
‘None of which is me.’ Lily held herself like a drawn weapon. ‘If this was a story, you’d be on your third guess.’
Irene took a deep breath. If she guessed wrong, then she might have overstepped for the final time. Once Fae locked themselves into story patterns and narrative tropes, they didn’t want to leave them. And if a character in a story guessed incorrectly three times, they often ended up as a cautionary example to the next protagonist.
But she thought she knew what archetype Lily was choosing to embody. It all fitted.