The Masked City (32 page)

No, that was what
he
wanted her to think. She thought of the pendant around her neck. She had done the right thing - the
only
thing she could have done - in coming here.

It was time to make her move.
‘Brandy, boil!’

The glass of brandy and the bottle both shattered in a gush of steam. Brandy was a volatile fluid, and the bottle went up in a gratifyingly dramatic display. The violence of it took Lord Guantes by surprise, and his attention shifted from Irene as his eyes flicked over to the shattered glass.

Irene slipped the gun from her skirt with her free hand, raising it to point at him. ‘Your move,’ she said.

His attention swung to her again, and this time there was no holding back. His eyes were a thousand tons of weight pressing down on her, cold and heavy as lead, and ice seemed to close around her limbs and heart. His hand bit into her wrist and she gasped in pain. The burn of the Library brand on her back and the weight of the pendant around her throat were once more distant things, far away from the present oppression of his gaze.

Play along, pretend he’s won,
part of her mind suggested.
Just put the gun down …

She considered that statement. The most important bit seemed to be
put the gun down
, and that was the last thing she was going to do. She couldn’t stop fighting now. If she did, she’d lose. But it was taking all her strength and, the moment she lost her focus, her will would break.

She could feel herself losing, inch by inch. The gun was cold and remote in her hand, and she could scarcely feel her grip on it.

Do something.

She couldn’t.

‘Answer me,’ he said.

She struggled with the Language for
Break, shatter, fall
, but she could feel her mouth begin to move in a
yes
.

‘I believe the lady declines your invitation,’ Vale said from the darkness behind her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Lord Guantes turned to look at Vale, cutting his connection to Irene. She breathed in great sobbing gasps of air. There was just enough space in her head for her to think, and the thoughts went:
Keep that gun pointed at him.

‘Peregrine Vale, I believe. This box is locked,’ Lord Guantes said. ‘How did you—?’

‘I didn’t,’ Vale broke in. ‘I arrived before the performance and simply waited behind those curtains. I found your conversation most interesting.’

‘I see.’ Lord Guantes’ tone was still composed, but Irene detected a sense of simmering anger and uncertainty. He seemed unsure which of the two of them to target, in terms of directing his will and therefore his powers. She wondered suddenly if he
couldn’t
control two of them at once.

‘And how did
you
reach Venice?’ Lord Guantes demanded. ‘Must I constantly be interrupted when I am busy?’

‘An unfortunate by-product of your line of work,’ Vale said. ‘Winters, shall we go?’

‘I think not,’ Lord Guantes said, gripping her wrist even harder. ‘The lady will be remaining here.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,’ Irene said. She’d regained her self-control now. ‘But if you could tell us where to find the
Carceri
, we would appreciate it.’

Lord Guantes snorted. ‘You seriously think I’d tell you that?’

‘I must insist that you answer her question,’ Vale said. His voice was lethally cold.

Lord Guantes shrugged. ‘Or?’ he said.

‘Or I will blow your brains out. I know that your kind have unusual capabilities, sir, but I don’t believe you can enchant both of us, or you would already have done so. And I think that a bullet in the head from ten feet away will seriously inconvenience you.’

Lord Guantes paused, punctuated by a rattle of drums from the orchestra, which carried throughout the opera house. ‘At least tell me how you reached this place,’ he said. ‘If you are working for Silver, perhaps we can come to some arrangement.’ He wasn’t focusing on Irene any more, but on the more immediate threat of Vale. And was Vale beginning to frown in distraction, now that he had to fight against Lord Guantes’ will?

Guantes is playing for time.
And Kai was running out of time.
‘Chair arms, break,’
Irene murmured.

The arms of both chairs shattered, wrecking what was probably a valuable pair of antiques. Lord Guantes fell forward, as Irene’s wrist swung loose and she dragged it free from his grip. She backed towards Vale, keeping her gun pointed at Lord Guantes throughout.

His eyes widened and for a moment he hesitated. Then he rose from his chair and stepped back towards the edge of the box, raising both his hands as if in surrender.

Irene spared a glance, and saw that Vale was standing near the door. One of the commoner black half-masks hid part of his face, and he was in a plain dark doublet and breeches. She wouldn’t have recognized him, or looked twice at him, under any other circumstances. He didn’t shift his attention from Lord Guantes. ‘See to the door, Winters,’ he said, as casual as ever.

‘It’s open,’ Irene replied. She reached out to test the handle and it shifted in her grasp. ‘We should get out of here.’

The opera house was nearly silent. Tosca was singing. ‘
Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore
…’ Her voice, and the orchestra behind her, filled the air like light through stained glass.

‘You can’t possibly get away,’ Lord Guantes said softly. Power seemed to crystallize in the air around him, almost physical and solid, as he drew himself up to his full height. It wasn’t a threat. It was a prediction. They would not get away. They were lost. He had already won.

I almost said yes to him …
The brand across Irene’s back burned with her anger, as if etched in live acid.
I almost betrayed the Library.

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

Lord Guantes caught the motion and took another step back, grasped the edge of the box with one hand and swung himself over. He dropped out of the line of fire and out of sight, into the audience below.

His action shattered the spell that his power had cast. It was as if a brilliant light source had blinked out, leaving observers dazzled in the ordinary light of day. Irene glanced sideways to Vale and saw that he still had his gun pointed at where Lord Guantes had been standing, his grip so tight that she could see the bones of his hand taut beneath the skin. ‘Come on,’ she said urgently, shoving her own gun back into her skirts. ‘We have to get out of here.’

Some inner tension snapped. Vale nodded, slid his own weapon back into his doublet and was pulling her outside and down the corridor almost before the echoes of her words had died away. Fortunately Sterrington had followed the orders to leave Lord Guantes alone and the corridor was empty.

I should have shot him
, Irene’s brain chattered feverishly.
I should have shot him …

‘
Move
, Winters,’ Vale snapped, dragging her along. ‘I’m astonished that nobody’s reacted to a man dropping out of his opera box.’

‘Well, it was the middle of
Vissi d’arte
,’ Irene argued. ‘Nobody’s going to stir until that aria’s over—’

A burst of shouting and commotion came from the main auditorium, echoing through the walls of the corridor as they scrambled down the stairs.

‘Of course, I could be wrong,’ she allowed. But a more important question presented itself. ‘How on
earth
are you here? Now?’

‘I will be delighted to tell you, when we have the time.’ He steered her through a side door into the backstage passages. ‘If we can get out of here and into the crowd before they can cordon off the opera house, we may be safe.’

Irene decided that was as good a definition of ‘safe’ as they were likely to get for the moment, and nodded. She grabbed someone’s discarded shawl as they ran past it, dropping her own. It might help camouflage her a little. Vale was already anonymous enough.

‘Act normally,’ Vale directed, slowing abruptly to a casual saunter and letting go of her arm. The buzz of voices came from ahead.

‘The sad thing is, this is all fairly normal for me,’ Irene said wryly. ‘It’s spending a few peaceful months in your world that was the unusual experience.’ She followed his lead, smoothing her skirt down. Then they turned a corner together, to find the corridor nearly blocked by a group of stagehands and chorus.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ one of the chorus asked Vale. He was a young man, ready in uniform for the next act, his make-up fresh and lurid in the candlelight. ‘Someone said there had been a duel.’

‘No, I heard it was a murder,’ another man put in, one of the stagehands. He was blotting sweat from his forehead and neck with a dirty rag. ‘The way I heard it, he strangled her in her own box.’

‘Neither,’ Vale said. His Italian was clipped, a little slangy, but his body language had changed to the same absent-minded swagger as the men around them. ‘Someone was about to be arrested by the Doge’s guard. He jumped from his box to try to escape.’

The group fell silent. Most of the men crossed themselves. ‘The guard is still back there?’ one of them asked.

Vale shrugged. Irene shrugged as well, and tried not to look behind her to see if anyone was chasing them.

‘So why are
you
trying to get out the back way?’ another stagehand asked. ‘Got reasons to avoid the Doge’s guard, have you?’

Before Vale could answer, Irene tugged at his sleeve imploringly. ‘Darling, we must hurry! If Giorgio catches us together, you know what he’ll do. These are honourable gentlemen, they won’t betray us to him …’

Glances were exchanged between the men. ‘We didn’t see anything,’ one of them said, extending an empty palm.

‘Quite right,’ Vale said. He dipped into an inner pocket, brought out a purse and dropped a few coins into the meaningfully extended hand. ‘To drink the Doge’s health.’

With a few more nods they were out through the backstage door, and a couple of minutes later Vale was handing Irene into a gondola. No frenzied mob of guards came after them, and Irene was beginning to think they might actually get away.

‘Round to the Doge’s Palace and then around a bit, so we can enjoy the scenery. And let’s have a song,’ Vale instructed, tossing the gondolier another coin. He helped Irene seat herself in the main area of the boat (she still didn’t know the right vocabulary for it, rather important for a Librarian), settling a cushion behind her, before folding his long body down next to her. The posture might have been casual enough - a man and a woman together in a gondola, his arm against her shoulders - but she could feel the tension in his body.

‘Thank you.’ Irene had to make herself say the words. To her disgust, she was shaking in the aftermath of her brush with Lord Guantes’ power. Tackling a Fae at his level was way above her pay grade, she told herself as she gritted her teeth. Vale was here. They were safe - for now. And they needed to talk.

She looked up to meet Vale’s eyes for a moment, and then she reached behind her head to untie the strings of her mask. Nobody was looking, and hopefully nobody even knew what to look for. She massaged her damaged wrist as Vale began to speak. He kept to English, his voice quiet.

‘I apologize for surprising you like that, Winters. When Lord Silver refused to allow me on the Train, I thought it best to make my own arrangements. I regret that this involved deceiving you as well as him, but there was no time to discuss the matter. By leaving as I did, I was able to assemble a disguise and join the Train among the minor Fae.’

She jerked her head in a nod, remembering his hurtful words as he’d stormed out of Silver’s study. ‘I’m concerned about you becoming chaos-contaminated, just by being here,’ she said. ‘Silver wasn’t lying. It is a risk for humans visiting these worlds. You’ve exposed yourself—’

‘I’ve felt nothing odd thus far,’ Vale said briskly. ‘Perhaps I am already somewhat immunized? You’ve said before that my world is higher in chaos than in order. And I had no trouble dealing with the other Fae on the Train. The volume of strangers made it easy for me to pass myself off as one of them. But I assume that you’ve been pursuing your own investigations, Winters? What have you found out?’