Mei Feng also approached the throne. The courtiers began to murmur to each other, inaudible from where Irene stood. The trial was apparently over.
Irene wondered what she should do next. Probably the best course of action was to wait for a chance to speak to the Queen, to request that her servants collect Evariste’s daughter. She released her grip on his arm. And . . . Kai had turned away from her and was starting to make polite conversation with a nearby noble. She blinked, trying to convince herself she didn’t want to cry.
Then she realized that Hu was standing next to her.
‘Why?’ Hu asked. There was something very distant to his voice, as if he was looking at Irene from the end of a long tunnel, considering her with the dispassion of a man past all wishes and regrets.
‘Why what?’ Irene countered. Everyone else was now deliberately ignoring them both, just as they’d ignored Hu earlier.
‘Why did you involve yourself in this?’
‘Because you brought the Library into this in the first place,’ Irene said. She found that her anger had not left her. She throttled it back: she would not lose control, not now, not in front of the Queen and her nobles. But she would answer him. She wanted Hu and everyone present to understand this. Even if they were pretending not to listen, she knew they’d hear. ‘You and your master tried to involve us in your private politics. You threatened the neutrality that the Library has always fought to preserve. You suborned and blackmailed an innocent man. You blew up the library in Boston and destroyed its contents. You let your master and Jin Zhi push a human city to the breaking point. And then you tried to put it on my fellow Librarian here and leave him to take the blame.’ She met his eyes. ‘We are not just “book thieves”. And we are not your servants or your toys.’
Hu nodded. And then his hand slid inside his jacket and, when it came out again, he was holding a small gun – dark ugly metal in the beautiful throne room. It was pointing directly at Irene.
Now she knew what that expression on his face had meant. It had been the decision of a man – a dragon – who knew that the game was lost and had chosen to take his opponent with him.
Ya Yu cried out, and the Queen’s power filled the room in a choking landslide, weighing down on them all. It clogged voices and forced muscles to stillness. It compelled dragons just as much as it compelled humans and Librarians, and the very earth itself. But it wasn’t quite fast enough to stop Hu’s finger tightening on the trigger.
Something hit Irene from behind at the same moment that the bullet hit her in front.
She tasted blood in her mouth.
And then there was darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY
A single point of fire blossomed in Irene’s upper arm, and abruptly she was conscious.
Irene had always thought that some awakenings were better than others. For instance, waking up in bed on a morning with nothing urgent to do, a pile of books next to you and a mug of coffee within arm’s reach could be described as good. Waking up in the deserted tunnels of the London Underground to the sound of distant werewolf howls was bad. Waking up to find yourself hanging in chains in a private Inquisition Chamber was really bad. (And hell on the shoulders.)
She had no idea what she’d just woken up to this time, but it smelled of antiseptic and plum blossoms. She was in some sort of plain robe, by the feel of it. Her chest ached as if someone had kicked her.
She gathered her courage and opened her eyes.
‘She’s awake, your majesty,’ the man leaning over her reported. He was human rather than a dragon, and he wore a simpler version of the robes the courtiers had been wearing earlier. He withdrew a hypodermic needle from her arm. ‘Will there be anything else?’
‘No,’ Ya Yu said from a position out of Irene’s line of sight. ‘You may leave us.’
The man bowed himself out of view, and the door clicked shut behind him.
Irene tried to sit upright, looking around her. It was a graceful room in shades of white and green, minimally furnished except for the bed and the table next to it. Afternoon light streamed in through the floor-length window, silhouetting Ya Yu as she stood looking down at the view below.
‘I would offer to help you sit up,’ the Queen said without turning round, ‘but I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. Can you breathe freely?’
Irene sucked in a gulp of air, let it out, and touched her chest. Taking advantage of Ya Yu’s back being turned, she pulled open the hospital gown’s neckline and peered down at her chest. There was a small fresh red scar about halfway down, a few inches to the right from her heart, but that was all. ‘Yes, your majesty,’ she reported.
‘Good. Fortunately Hu missed his shot. If your fellow Librarian hadn’t thrust you aside, I believe the bullet would have taken you in the heart, and even the best medical science has its limits. As it was, you required repairs to your lung and ribs.’
Irene touched the scar. It was tender rather than actually painful. That close . . .
‘I’m like Ao Shun.’ Ya Yu turned round. ‘I see no reason not to use scientific advances. Especially when it comes to avoiding a diplomatic incident. Such as the representative of a neutral power being shot in the middle of my court.’
‘Ah,’ Irene said neutrally, desperately trying to think what to ask first. ‘But, your majesty, where is everyone? What happened?’
Ya Yu counted off details on her fingers. ‘Jin Zhi has been invested with her new position. Your colleague Evariste has been given custody of his daughter, and has returned with her to the Library to report on the situation.’ She watched Irene assessingly. ‘Ao Guang’s son Kai has returned to his own affairs.’
Irene tried to nod as if taking this in her stride. But she felt strangely hollow. For months she had been growing used to Kai, depending on him, worrying about him, caring for him. It might not be love, depending on one’s definition of love . . . but she hadn’t wanted to lose him. And now he was gone.
‘I’m glad to see that you are in your right mind and capable of rational behaviour,’ Ya Yu said. It was like the edge of a knife being run very delicately along the skin: not enough to cut, but enough to remind the subject of how dangerous it was. ‘Let’s both pretend that everything Kai said was true. He must get that from his mother. I respect Ao Guang and I’ve borne him children, but he is a stable ruler rather than an imaginative one.’
Irene swallowed. Her scar picked that moment to ache. ‘The Library appreciates stability between the extremes, your majesty. It provides the best environment for human beings to prosper.’
Ya Yu nodded. ‘Good. Now, have you any questions you would like to ask me?’