Unfortunately Qing Song was cautious enough to see the possible trap there. ‘Apparently word had spread about the challenge. He made contact through my servant Hu. Hu, you have my permission to answer,’ he finished, with more than a little relief.
Nice passing of the hot potato, Irene thought. She looked at Hu. ‘Would you mind giving me more details? If Evariste is in the habit of selling his services to outsiders, this can only add to his guilt.’
Hu’s fingers twitched as if it would ease his nerves to be holding a cigarette. ‘To be precise, madam, it was an older Librarian who had spoken with me in the past. When he died, Evariste had our contact details. I believe you would say, in the local idiom, that he knew what number to call.’
‘You appear to be suggesting that the Library is staffed with people who would sell their services to anyone,’ Irene said coldly.
Hu twitched a shrug. ‘I’m sure these people are not representative of the Library as a whole.’
‘So when did Evariste contact you? Chronologically speaking.’
‘Shortly after her majesty—’ Hu paused to bow to the throne. ‘Made her request for a certain book.’
Ya Yu inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘That seems clear enough,’ she said. ‘There seems little need for further questioning.’
Irene glanced at Evariste, but he had his mouth so firmly shut that he might have been biting his lips. He glared at the floor, refusing to meet her eyes.
She didn’t look at Kai. She couldn’t.
‘This whole series of events has involved a number of poorly timed meetings,’ Irene said quickly to Qing Song, before the Queen could move from hinting to outright ordering her to stop. ‘The arrival of Jin Zhi in your hotel suite, for instance. I have heard that dragons can fly into an alternate world and appear in the sky above someone they know, but I didn’t realize that it went to the extent of knowing which hotel room they were in.’
The look Qing Song gave her was sharp enough to flay. ‘You would have to ask Jin Zhi about the time of her arrival.’
‘And the mechanics of it?’ Irene said blandly.
The red light in Qing Song’s eyes intensified. He turned to Ya Yu. ‘Am I to be submitted to this questioning in my own Queen’s hall, your majesty?’
‘Yes,’ Ya Yu said. She might have been carved from emeralds or beryls, just as much a piece of stonework as her throne. ‘You are.’ Her face showed nothing at all, but Irene suddenly felt that her line of questioning had caught the Queen’s interest. She’d won herself a few more minutes before Ya Yu’s patience ran out.
Qing Song’s mouth tightened. ‘Then I suggest you ask Jin Zhi,’ he said to Irene, ‘since it was she who came to visit me, rather than the reverse.’
‘As you wish,’ Irene said politely. She turned to Jin Zhi. ‘Madam, would you care to explain your arrival at Qing Song’s hotel suite?’
Jin Zhi had lost her expensive coat, but her dress was close to the robes of the surrounding dragons. With her poise, she almost managed to look like a member of the attending court, rather than a witness on trial. ‘I thought to visit my fellow competitor as a courteous gesture. As I said earlier.’
‘And might I ask how you located him?’ Irene pursued.
Jin Zhi looked as if she would refuse to answer for a moment, then her eye caught Ya Yu’s and she gave in. ‘I have a token of Qing Song’s,’ she said, touching a chain at her neck that vanished beneath the bodice of her gown. ‘We exchanged them, some while ago.’
That did get a reaction. A ripple of murmurs ran around the room. Even Mei Feng stepped forward to murmur something to the Queen. Both Qing Song and Jin Zhi avoided looking at each other.
‘I was not aware that you were so closely attached,’ Ya Yu said.
‘We are no longer so, your majesty,’ Jin Zhi answered. She glanced at Qing Song with distilled contempt. He returned a glare of cold fury.
Good. I’m onto something here. Keep going, keep pushing . . . ‘Was Evariste’s approach to you general knowledge?’ she asked Hu, trying to keep the question as casual-sounding as possible. ‘Or did he confine himself to you and your master?’
‘If he contacted others of my kind, then I didn’t know about it,’ Hu parried. ‘He certainly didn’t mention it to myself or my lord.’
Irene addressed her next question to Qing Song. ‘When Evariste blackmailed you, what threats did he make?’
Qing Song shrugged. ‘He threatened to say that I had forced him to look for the book. He knew he could disgrace me and my family.’ He was clearly aware that he was repeating Irene’s own threats to him, and there was a malicious satisfaction to his tone.
‘So nobody knew that Evariste was working for you?’
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I did not even trust my human servants with his identity. Only Hu and I knew who and what he was.’
Irene saw Hu’s eyes widen at that. Yes, he’s made a mistake, but you don’t realize how big a mistake, she thought. But she nodded, as if deeply impressed.
Then she turned to Jin Zhi. ‘Madam,’ she said. ‘Will you admit that you spoke with me earlier, before we met in Qing Song’s company?’
She could see the thoughts playing across Jin Zhi’s face as Jin Zhi considered her options. Then the dragon shrugged. ‘Spoke with you, certainly,’ she said. ‘Not more than that. Or do you intend to claim otherwise?’
‘I agree that you didn’t try to hire me,’ Irene assented. Though you wouldn’t have objected if I’d offered to work for you, would you? ‘That would be . . . let me see, two nights ago? Do I have the timing correct?’ It barely seemed possible that it had been only two nights since then. But with the Queen’s deadline approaching, time had been running out for everyone.
Jin Zhi eyed Irene with the same wariness as Qing Song had earlier, trying to work out where the danger lay in that question. ‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘And you said, if I recall correctly, that you knew your competitor had also hired a Librarian. So you were merely evening the balance by making an offer to me.’
‘I understood that he had lowered himself to break the rules and do that, yes,’ Jin Zhi said. She looked down her nose in Qing Song’s general direction.
Irene nodded. She was near the crux of it now. ‘It must have seemed a betrayal when you were told that Qing Song had hired a Librarian,’ she said, keeping the natural flow of the conversation moving smoothly. ‘No wonder you objected.’
‘I was far more honourable than he was!’ Jin Zhi snapped. ‘I didn’t try to hire one myself. I simply wanted to remove his advantage.’
‘I see,’ Irene said, nodding. ‘Thank you. That does clarify the matter. And may I ask who told you that Qing Song had hired a Librarian?’
It was the vital question. She’d been leading up to it very carefully, trying to keep Jin Zhi in the pattern of question-and-answer, and it nearly worked. Jin Zhi had opened her lips to answer. Then full realization sparked behind her eyes, and she shut her mouth with a click. After a very obvious pause she said, ‘My spies.’