“I could hazard a guess or two, perhaps,” said Stephen, sitting down in a chair opposite Green, “but I’m more curious about other things. Whether making homunculi falls under your diplomatic duties, for instance.”
Green’s mouth opened a little in surprise and, yes, dismay. “That’s what you’re here about? I had no idea you’d run into that fellow.”
“No?” He didn’t quite growl the word. “What did you know?”
“Very little,” said Green. He sat up and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I didn’t ask, you understand. Men come to me for assistance, betimes, and their reasons for wishing it are very rarely interesting and even less often my concern. I see that I was wrong in this case,” he added, watching Stephen’s face, “and I am sorry for it. I hope this won’t be a source of any trouble between us.”
“Between my house and your court, you mean,” said Stephen. “And you may get your wish—depending on what you tell me.”
Relaxing, Green assumed some of his previous nonchalance. He turned his hand upward and studied his fingers. “I’m certain I can tell you a number of things. Shall I start anywhere in specific?”
“The man you worked for.”
“I work for no man,” said Green, with a scornful ring in his voice. “Say so again and I’ll remind you less kindly, Alasdair’s son or no.”
Stephen closed his eyes and took a deep breath, stifling the urge to change. A small diplomatic advantage didn’t give him all the power in the room, he reminded himself, and Green was likely to be a lord in his own manner and to serve greater lords still. The world contained mightier things than dragons.
“My apologies,” he said. “I’ve spent too long in this world, perhaps. What can you tell me about the man you…assisted?”
“He called himself Mr. King,” said Green, calming down into his prior languid speech, “and while I doubted the truth of it, I’m hardly one to question whatever name a man pleases to take on himself. He was passing tall and rather more than middle aged, as mortals go. Knowledgeable enough, in a very…scattered…sort of way. Still, he’d found out enough to know that I could make changelings and to actually assist a little in the process.”
“And why did you help him?”
“A few pages of an interesting book from America. I tried to negotiate for more, but—” Green shrugged. “He had no bloodline or prospects of heirs, no secrets, no talents such as my kind value. Nothing else but money, which I didn’t want, and service, which he wouldn’t give. He seemed rather insulted that I suggested it.”
Stephen fought back an ironic smile. “How strange. What sort of money?”
“Gold, of course. He knew better than to offer bank drafts, at least.”
“Or he didn’t have them,” said Stephen. Ward had been not quite penniless when he’d escaped, but he’d spent some time in America learning magic. Stephen had never heard that turning lead into gold was actually possible, but spiriting money out of a bank vault or jewels out of a bedroom would certainly be within the power of most magicians. “Anything else?”
Green smiled now, his eyes dancing. “Well,” he said, drawing out the word while Stephen waited and tried not to glare, “I did have him followed, of course. After he left with his new toy. He went to an office building—give me a moment.” He pulled a silver rope and summoned the butler. “Bring me the book in the top right drawer of my desk.”
“An office building?” Stephen asked when the butler had vanished. “He can’t live there. People would talk.”
“I very much doubt that he does. He came out again an hour later—but so did the sun, and my servant doesn’t do well in the full light of noon. I thought I’d spent quite enough time on the man in any case. He’s unbalanced, he lacks perspective, and he’ll die on his own in a few years. Ah.”
The butler came back and handed Green a small leather-bound ledger, then vanished.
“He has wonderful conversation,” said Green, flicking through the pages, “if only you get to know him. Or so I’d imagine. Thirty-Nine Brick Lane is the building you’re looking for. Consider this a gesture of goodwill on my part.”
“I’ll try,” said Stephen.
Twenty-nine
“What are you doing?”
Colin’s voice came suddenly and without prelude from the previously empty room. Up on a stepladder, her arms full of books, Mina twitched but didn’t jump or scream. “Cataloguing the library,” she said, rather than any of the sarcastic replies that came to mind.
She plucked a final volume from the shelves. It was bound in green leather and newer than some of the others, but the dust was equally thick. Mina held back a sneeze and climbed carefully down the ladder.
“Give over a few of those, will you?” Colin held out his hands, and Mina was glad enough to fill them. When he felt the dust, she didn’t even try not to giggle at the expression on his face. “Good Lord. How long have we had these? And what have we been doing with them?”
“A long time and not much, from what I can tell,” Mina said. She deposited the rest of her stack onto the desk with a solid thump.
“And Stephen still has you messing about with them? He has grown into a tyrant.”
“He’s done no such thing,” said Mina, sharply enough to make Colin widen his eyes and hold up his hands in mock defense. “And he didn’t give me the job. He hasn’t had me do any work, really.”
Colin eyed her as if she were some newly discovered form of life. “You mean to say you volunteered? Why on earth?”
“Because it needs doing, and I needed something to do.”
“Ah.” The new species was a little more comprehensible, it seemed, alien as it might be. Colin looked from Mina to the desk. “And you’ve been doing this all day?”
“More or less.”
Less was more accurate, despite Mina’s best intentions on the subject. Half her records had had blots, misspellings, or other features that had meant she’d had to cross them out and write them again. She’d written down one book twice and completely forgotten about another until she’d found it by the windowsill. Every trip up and down the ladder had taken about twice as long as normal, too.
Mina could have laid some of the blame at Colin’s feet. Their earlier conversation had left her thinking about mortality and humanity, rules and consequences, and coming to no useful conclusion regarding any of it. She wasn’t cut out for philosophy, she’d told herself, but her efforts to direct her thoughts elsewhere had only sent them toward that entry in not-Saint George’s journal, the one about rites and children, at which point she’d inadvertently knocked a set of Johnson’s works to the floor.
Work usually distracted her from troubling thoughts, not the other way around. What was wrong with her?
“Then I’m right in thinking it’s not a very urgent matter,” Colin said. “And that means you can come out with me.”
Coming back from her thoughts, Mina blinked at him. “Out? Where? Why?”
“Out.” He leaned against a bookshelf, counting off the points on his fingers. “Anywhere you want, within reasonable limits. Because London is quite a bit more entertaining than the inside of this library or even, if I may dare to say it, the inside of this house.”
“Yes, but why me?”
“Because you’re—” He looked at Mina’s face, saw the skeptical expression she’d used on dozens of other young men, and grinned ruefully before switching to honesty. “You’re here, and you’re pleasant enough company. And I don’t know many people in the city these days, or at least not many people who’d be glad to see me turn up, looking as I do.”