The Queen's Librarian (13 page)

“Move, I tell you. I’m not letting you get away this time, and if I have to tie you down and let Laurie and Alex at you to get you to tell me where Slade is, I swear—”

“Yes, Laurie. Laurie esan prince, ah?”

Lucas blinked then frowned and stopped the tugging. “Sorry, what?”

Mister Scontun nodded sagely and with a somewhat sad twist to his mouth. “You stole my prince. I stole yours.”

“You….” No, that couldn’t possibly be what he meant. Still, Lucas’s stomach dropped a little and he tightened his grip on Mister Scontun. “What are you talking about?”

“You Libe-aar-in. Red Libe-aar-in.”

Oh bollocks, they were back to this again? “Yes, my hair is red and I’m a librarian. What does that have to do with—?”

“Red Libe-aar-in has scontun. Key.” Mister Scontun pointed to the books still clutched tight in Lucas’s hand. “Laurie esan your prince. Slade esan mine. You stole, I stole.” He shrugged then tapped a finger at Lucas’s breastbone. “Red Libe-aar-in give key. I give prince. I give no rain.”

That stomach-dropping feeling of a few seconds ago was turning into a free fall. “The… what? You what?”

“You give key,” said Mister Scontun with what looked for all the world like a friendly wink, “I give prince. No rain for Red Libe-aar-in.” Another sage nod. “For trade.”

And then he was gone. One second Lucas was holding the man’s arm in a very firm grip, and the next, his hand was merely fisted around nothing and the man was gone.

“Oh. That… no.”

Lucas could feel his mouth flapping like a dying fish, and yet he still had no idea how long he stood there, staring at nothing, before some semblance of sense returned and he bolted back up the path to the inn. He didn’t remember there being quite so many roots and rocks to trip over on his way down, but he managed a racing kind of stumble until he reached the inn and barreled through the door, not even caring if he woke every patron in the place as he flew up the stairs, muttering, “Please, please, please,” through gasping breaths all the way.

It took him a second to remember which room was Laurie’s. It took him another second to gather the courage to open the door. And then it took him a full minute of staring at the empty bed in the empty room to muster the breath to start shouting for Alex.

Chapter 6

T
HE
small reception area of the Golden Miller Inn was transformed from a sedate little office to a bustling hive of borderline-hysterical activity. Lucas sat behind Mister Hensley’s desk, slowly sipping his third cup of tea and staring, dull and blank-eyed, at the several constables who questioned and searched and nervously wrung their hands. One of them had apparently leapt from his bed and taken only just enough time to dress, with no consideration to
how
he was dressed: the tails of his nightshirt were sneaking out from beneath his surcoat, and his hair was apparently doing its very best to escape his head, sticking out every which way and making Lucas distractedly wonder if he’d had to fight his way through a nest of hedgehogs intent on sharing styling tips to get here.

“But no one told me he was Prince Laurie!” said Mister Hensley shooting his twenty-sixth—Lucas had been counting—betrayed glower at Lucas. “I would have been certain to have given him a much more stately room, at the very least.” Lucas took a quick glance around. This homey little inn had stately rooms? “And I would have ab-so-
lute
-ly stood a guard.”

The constable was writing it all down in a little leather-bound book. “And the doors and windows were all locked?”

Mister Hensley’s mouth quivered and his face twisted into something like pain. “No one told me he was
Prince Laurie
!” he cried.

Ah. There it was. Twenty-seventh.

“Here,” said Alex as he angled around the desk to hover by Lucas’s elbow. He set a cup of sliced apples and a plate with thick brown toast smothered in butter and jam on the desk. “Eat something.” He was using the tones one might use on someone who was on his way to the gallows and wanting to pretend he was actually on his way to a picnic. “You’re pale.”

“I’m always pale,” Lucas muttered.

“Yes, but this time it’s stunning in a different way.” Alex picked up Lucas’s hand and set a wedge of toast in it. “Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” Lucas dropped the toast back on the plate. “And I don’t want my last meal to be toast and apples.” A condemned man deserved a steak at least. Not that Lucas could’ve eaten that, either. His stomach was doing some rather eye-popping acrobatics just now.

“Stop talking like that,” Alex snapped. Lucas didn’t even have the wherewithal to admire the sexy flash of The Eyes. “This isn’t your fault, Lucas. The way Laurie swans about, it’s shocking it hasn’t happened several times over already. In fact, the way Laurie swans about, it’s shocking anyone would want his company for more than five minutes at all, let alone go out of their way to steal it.”

He was only saying that to make Lucas feel better. Alex liked Laurie, and Lucas could tell he was as worried as Lucas was himself. Alex was just better than Lucas was at not cracking into tiny little pessimistic pieces under pressure.

“Anyway,” Alex went on, “we still can’t rule out the possibility that Laurie simply got bored and wandered off on his own. He does that.”

Well. That was true.

“When Dorset gets here,” Alex said, “I’ll wager he’ll have a hundred more places for us to look, and we’ll have found Prince Annoying before sundown.”

“Oh God. They sent for Dorset?”

They’d sent for
Dorset
. Because this was Lucas’s life.
How
was this his life? It just wasn’t fair.

Lucas covered his face with his hands and slumped over the desk. “I expect they’d have to, wouldn’t they?” And Dorset wasn’t only going to aim chiding looks at Lucas this time and give him a stern shake of the head. He wasn’t going to wait for a trial, either. “Take care of Bramble and Cat for me?” Lucas asked Alex somewhat—oh, there was no use in pretending—somewhat pitifully.

Alex grumbled something under his breath, then louder he said, “Lucas, stop this now. I am not taking care of your devil-pony disguised as a dog, and I am not taking care of your ridiculous excuse for a cat, because you will be doing all of those things for the rest of your life since you know bloody well they’ll live longer than us just to spite us. Now unbury your head, lift up your chin, and tell me what we should be doing next.”

Lucas blinked up at Alex in consternation. “
I
should tell you—?”

“You’re sharper than anyone else in this room, and no one knows your cousin like you do.
Yes
, you should tell me what’s to be done next. You should tell everyone what’s to be done next. Now, what will it—?”

“Pardon me, Mister Tripp, Mister Booker.” One of the constables—Lieutenant Emerson, if Lucas wasn’t mistaken—cleared his throat and looked between them, his little book and a thin charcoal pencil ready in his hands. “I’d like to go over a few things with you, if you don’t mind.” It had politely been addressed to both of them, but Lieutenant Emerson’s suspicious—Lucas was sure it was suspicious—gaze was focused on Lucas.

Lucas picked up his teacup and settled it between his palms so the shaking of his hands wouldn’t be quite so obvious. “Of course.”

“Right, then.” Lieutenant Emerson touched the point of the charcoal pencil to the tip of his tongue and peered at his little book. “You say that the man who accosted you last evening—”

“This morning,” Lucas cut in then sank a little in his seat when Lieutenant Emerson shot him a look from beneath bunched eyebrows. “It… I mean, it was four hours ago now, so it was this morning, and the man accosted me several times, last night was only the”—Lucas had to stop and count in his head—“the third time.”

“Right,” said Lieutenant Emerson, staring at Lucas for a long moment before referring back to his notes. “Once two nights ago at the”—his eyebrows went up—“at the Drunken Duck Inn.” His mouth turned down disapprovingly. That, at least, didn’t faze Lucas; his mother was much better at that particular look. “And then at your house yesterday morning, you say?”

Alex’s hand was a comforting weight on Lucas’s shoulder. Lucas nodded. “Yes. He was waiting for me when I got home. Or, at least….” Lucas frowned. “Well, he wasn’t there when I walked in, at least I didn’t see him, and my house is very small, so I think I would’ve.”

“And did he do that to your face?” Lieutenant Emerson peered attentively at his notebook and not at Lucas. “Or did, perhaps, the Prince have something to do with it?” He looked at Lucas sharply. “Did you have an altercation with Prince Laurie?”

“Alter…? Oh!” Lucas touched gingerly at the new plaster. “No, this one is from a, um….” Exactly how many people was he going to have to admit this to? “Well, it was a bush. But that man was there, now that you mention it. And this one is from a desk.” Lucas touched at his temple then frowned. “Actually, he was there then too. Well, not
there
, but hovering outside the window, which was what made Laurie have his little spasm and how I ended up on the floor, so I suppose you could say Laurie had something to do with it, but it’s only that he has no sense, you see, it isn’t—”

Lieutenant Emerson loudly cleared his throat. “Let’s concentrate on when this man broke into your house, shall we?”

Rude. Lucas scowled. “All right, yes, if you insist, but I don’t see the point when Laurie didn’t disappear until….” He trailed off when Alex squeezed his shoulder again. Oh
fine
. “It was… well, I was changing my clothes and he was suddenly just
there
, in my house—in my
bedroom
, actually, if you can believe it—he just appeared behind me, babbling and waving books at me and going on about some kind of key. But I didn’t know that’s what he meant then, because he was talking in some other language.”

The eyebrows did their bunchy thing again. “He was speaking in another language, so you didn’t know what he meant.”

Lucas carded back over the conversation thus far, decided he was pretty sure that was what he’d just said, and so nodded.

“But you knew what he meant this morning.”

“Well, he’d learned the language since then.” Lieutenant Emerson’s look this time was somewhat narrow. Lucas carded back over that last exchange too, and decided that he perhaps shouldn’t be blabbering to constables things that hadn’t been filtered by his brain before they got to his mouth. “I mean, that was his excuse. That’s what
he
said.” Slight pressure on his shoulder from Alex’s grip made Lucas shut up again. Which was good, because telling the constable about the crazy man wasn’t doing a whole lot for the image Lucas was hoping to project for himself—that being the
not
-crazy man in this particular scenario.

“And he said he would give you back the Prince in exchange for a key.”

“Yes,” said Lucas. “Except it was actually a book.”

Lieutenant Emerson’s mouth pinched down. “The key was a book. Not a key. And this man told you this in another language.” Lucas opened his mouth but snapped it shut quickly when Lieutenant Emerson pierced him with a look that was nearly hostile. “Mister Tripp,” he said slowly, “what is your place in line for the throne?”

“One-hundred and sixty-seventh,” Lucas answered promptly with a stiff and assertive nod of his head. He kept very careful track. He wanted as much padding between himself and the line of succession as possible. And if third-cousin Cenric and his new wife didn’t start producing a few more convenient bundles of ascension-blockages and take Lucas’s number up into the 170s pretty soon, Lucas was going to have words with them both. Some very polite and careful words, but still.

“And have you had any problems lately with money?” Lieutenant Emerson asked.

“With….” Lucas frowned. “Well, I’m not quite certain how that’s important here, but I always have—
yipe
!” Lucas jolted forward and out of the grip that was abruptly squeezing his shoulder so hard he thought maybe it had dented his collarbone. “Alex, what the deuce was that—?”

“Oh, I’m truly sorry, love, how clumsy of me.” Angling his body a little so that only Lucas could see his face, Alex widened his eyes and flattened his mouth in a look that was surely intended to be meaningful, had he been aiming it at someone who was capable of discerning the meaning. And then he mouthed something at Lucas that looked like
dopp lockey
but probably wasn’t. With a minute shake of his head, Alex turned back to the lieutenant with an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry to interrupt—Emerson, wasn’t it? Right, you see, Royal Guardsman Dorset has just arrived, and it seems he’s brought along the Queen’s own magician, so perhaps it would be best if—”

“Oh my god,
Cráwa’s
here?” Because of course he was.

Lucas shot up from his seat, only half noticing that the teacup went flying to crash against the wall behind him, and he’d said that last rather loudly, so every eye in the room was now focused on him. Including Dorset’s. Including
Cráwa’s.
As far as Lucas knew, Cráwa never even left the castle grounds, not once since he’d earned his rank, which was… well, a lot more years ago than Lucas had even been alive, so the fact that he was
here
….