The proprietor raised her near-invisible eyebrows. ‘Madam, I realize that a lot of spiders may seem large to you—’

‘Eight inches to a foot across.’ Kai stepped forward, giving the woman his most serious and winning look. Irene wasn’t normally a supporter of the ‘go persuade people through your good looks’ school of thought, mostly because she didn’t have the sort of looks that one needed to make it work, but she could appreciate it when it was being done to help her.

The proprietor hesitated. It might have been because Kai was handsome, well dressed and charming. Or it might have been because however much he tried to play it down, he inevitably came across as someone from an aristocratic background, with more money than he knew what to do with. ‘Well, I suppose I could take a look at them. Perhaps a consultation fee . . .’

‘Of course,’ Kai said, with casual disdain for precise amounts. ‘Do you have a glass tank or something similar, which we can release them into?’

The proprietor signalled an assistant to fetch a large glass tank. Kai took the smaller suitcase and laid it inside the tank. It held the few stragglers that they’d found, plus some tiny specimens that Irene had forced to hatch early, and which she still eyed with suspicion, small as they were. Kai snapped open the catches, but left the suitcase lid down. ‘When I open it,’ he said, ‘please stand ready to close the tank lid, and make sure that nothing has a chance to get out.’

To Irene’s relief, the proprietor nodded professionally. ‘Let’s have a look,’ she said.

Kai flipped the suitcase lid back, pulling his hand and arm out of the tank in the same motion. Spiders came spilling out of the suitcase in a drift of waving legs and heaving balloon-like bodies the size of tennis balls. With an astonished curse, hastily cut short, the assistant brought the tank lid down firmly and slid the bolt shut.

The proprietor pursed her lips. ‘Why, I do believe – can it be?’ She leaned closer to the tank, nearly squashing her thin nose against the glass.

The spiders swarmed inside the tank, dashing up and down on the sandy bottom and running up the interior glass walls. Irene felt something squishy bump against her leg, and nearly jumped away in automatic reaction, before she realized it was a bystander moving closer to peer in fascination.

‘How splendid,’ the proprietor exclaimed. ‘Pelinobius muticus! A king baboon spider! Dozens of them – an entire breeding colony!’ Irene didn’t need to be a mindreader to see the little signals tipping over in the woman’s head and pointing to EXCLUSIVE SUPPLIER and HUGE PROFIT. ‘Are you intending to bring them onto the market yourself, sir?’

Kai glanced at Irene. Irene stepped forward. ‘Not exactly, madam—’

‘Miss Chester,’ the woman said, with a narrow-lipped smile which tried to look friendly and failed.

‘Miss Chester,’ Irene said, ‘we recently had a crate of bananas delivered, a gift from a friend in Brazil.’ Did they grow bananas in Brazil? She’d forgotten her basic school geography and national products, let alone whatever they were in this alternate world. ‘We honestly didn’t expect to find these, um . . .’

‘Pelinobius muticus,’ Miss Chester said, pronouncing it very clearly to make sure that Irene got it right.

Irene liked being underestimated. It made people less likely to suspect that she was lying. ‘We just didn’t have the resources to take care of them ourselves,’ she said. She tried to look like a woman who might actually like spiders, rather than one who preferred the drown-them-in-a-vat-of-acid option. ‘If you feel that you can give them a good home, then perhaps . . .’

‘I’m sure that we can come to an arrangement,’ Miss Chester said, her smile growing toothier.

‘It would have looked suspicious if we hadn’t bargained,’ Irene said later. They were in a cab and were finally on their way to Vale’s rooms.

‘You don’t think it looked suspicious anyhow?’ Kai queried drily. ‘Two people showing up with suitcases full of giant killer spiders—’

‘Pelinobius muticus,’ Irene said. ‘I wrote down the details. We can ask Vale about them.’

Kai brooded, leaning back and folding his arms. ‘Irene . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m concerned.’

‘Well, that’s quite understandable. Someone did probably just try to kill us.’ Not to mention the gate going up in flames. But were the two connected?

‘And while we did survive . . .’

Dragons yet again proved themselves masters of the obvious. Irene nodded, waiting for him to continue.

Kai seemed to be looking for the right words to finish his sentence. Finally he said, ‘Should we reconsider our mission here?’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, we could move to a more protected environment.’

Oh. Another attempt to bring her under the draconic wing. However, he had a point about people trying to kill them. After two near-death events in one day, it wasn’t paranoia, it was simple caution. ‘I admit that the evidence shows that they – whoever they are – know where we live,’ Irene said. ‘And I also admit that doesn’t make me particularly comfortable. However, I wouldn’t call them very efficient murderers.’

‘You want an efficient murderer?’

‘Heavens, no,’ Irene said. ‘Give me an inefficient murderer any day. I’d far rather have someone trying to kill me by shoving spiders through my letterbox than by hiring a sniper with a laser-sighted rifle or setting fire to our lodgings.’ Actually verbalizing the thought cheered her up. But she was by no means as insouciant as her words suggested. Dead was still dead, whether the killer was exotic, professional or amateur. Getting killed was incredibly easy. Anyone could do it. Staying safe and alive was much harder.