The Masked City (The Invisible Library #2)(73)
‘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?’
Last night Irene had been utterly furious with him. But she grudgingly accepted his reasoning. Perhaps it was his casual assumption that he’d barely done anything that needed apologizing for that still galled her. She ran over with Vale the details of the midnight deadline, her bargain to escape on the Train, and Kai’s location within the Carceri - wherever they were.
‘Ah,’ Vale said with satisfaction. ‘That agrees with certain investigations of my own.’
‘I hope I haven’t been wasting my time too much,’ Irene said with some irritation.
‘Not at all, Winters.’ Vale relaxed further back into the cushions with her, lowering his voice to what might have been taken for a lover’s whisper. ‘It was simple enough. Venice is known as a hotbed of crime syndicates, secret societies and spies. The Veneziani, the Mala del Brenta, the ‘Ndrangheta, the Carbonari …’
‘I think the Carbonari were a couple of hundred years later than “now”,’ Irene said pedantically. Of course Vale would know about the criminal side of things. ‘You’ve probably noticed that the chronological period is different from your world.’
Vale sighed. ‘The point remains, Winters, that people here are used to the concept of anonymous masked individuals asking questions and expecting to get answers. Once I’d grasped that this place is run by a mysterious group called the Ten, all I needed to do was masquerade as one of their agents. It was easy enough to trace the movements of Lord Guantes, once he’d arrived here - together with an unconscious man, who must be Strongrock. I have spent most of the day and last night criss-crossing the city, interviewing witnesses and—’