She was a Librarian. And in moments like this, that fact was exceedingly useful. The world heard her words and altered itself in response. She could boil wine, open doors, down airships, bring stuffed animals to life - and far worse. Or, in this case, tie a pair of bootlaces together.

‘What?’ the thug asked, predictably confused.

She grabbed and pulled his arm, hard. But the thug, with a leeringly smug smile, kept his grip on her and stepped even closer - before falling flat on his face. His bootlaces had indeed tied themselves to each other.

Irene chopped his hand away efficiently as he went down, freeing herself. She wouldn’t be a very effective field agent if she couldn’t handle herself in a fight. The thug meanwhile was flailing wildly on the ground, so Irene kicked him hard in the kidneys. When she did it again, he stopped moving in favour of gasping for breath. One less to chase us when we make our escape, she thought grimly.

The sounds of combat had died down behind her as she looked over towards Kai. He was brushing dust from his coat sleeves in an unnecessary manner, and the two other thugs for hire were slumped on the ground beside him. One of them had his arm twisted at an unnatural angle, and the other had a nosebleed. The curtains in the windows above the street had stopped twitching, and the fleeting shadow had vanished from the rooftops. Melancourt must have decided to cut his losses.

‘Perhaps the gentleman with the sap would be kind enough to do some explaining,’ Irene suggested.

Kai bent down, pulled the first werewolf to his feet and propped him against the wall. The werewolf’s nails had receded, and his facial hair was back to the level of an extremely unshaven normal man. ‘Now that we’ve been through the preliminaries,’ Kai said, ‘could we discuss the matter?’

The thug gave a coughing grunt. He moved his hand carefully to his face, and when it was clear that Kai wasn’t going to try to stop him, wiped away blood and spittle. ‘Gotta say, you’re a bit more than I was expecting, guv,’ he muttered. ‘All right. Long as we understand that there ain’t going to be no official complaints and the like?’

‘Strictly personal,’ Kai reassured him. ‘Now, perhaps you’d answer my friend’s question. Who are you? And who sent you?’

‘I’ll be honest with you, guv,’ the werewolf said. He probed at his shoulder and winced. ‘Jesus, but you’ve got a kick on you. We met this woman in the Old Swan, a pub three streets over. Said you’d be coming down this way with a lady friend, and gave us your description. She told us she wanted your bag, and to give you a warning to stay out of other people’s business. But didn’t want either of the two of you dead. We were to hang on to the bag and she’d contact us.’

Irene nodded. ‘Can you tell me anything about the woman who hired you?’

He shrugged, then winced again. ‘Proper lady, full purse, but not anyone’s mark for the taking. Carried a parasol and had a knife in her sleeve. Evening coat, hat and gloves, nothing obvious, but top of the line. Her scarf pin looked like gold, but I didn’t get to do more than look. She had a man with her watching her back, but she was in charge. Dark hair under the hat, dark eyes. Nobody I knew.’

‘Was she a foreigner?’ Kai asked casually. It was slightly less definite than Could she have been from the Liechtenstein Embassy, a local den of Fae and the dwelling of a certain Lord Silver, who has an ongoing feud with Vale? But the thought was there.

He shook his head. ‘If she was, it weren’t obvious. Sounded normal enough. Posh accent, like you both.’

‘And nothing memorable about the man?’ Irene was grasping at straws here. ‘Or about her scarf pin?’

‘Well, I’d know him again, miss,’ the thug said. ‘But it’s not like I’m your Mr Vale, is it? Not like I can take one look at him and tell you where the …’ He visibly moderated his language. ‘Where the mud on his shoes come from. And her scarf pin was just a pair of hands shaking each other - nothing special.’

This had been far too easy. Irene turned to Kai. ‘He isn’t telling us everything. Make him talk.’

Kai stepped forward, and the werewolf flinched back. ‘Wait! You said you weren’t going to hurt me!’

‘Actually, he never said that.’ Irene focused. The Language could be used to adjust a person’s perceptions. It didn’t last long, but it could be quite effective in the right time and place. She addressed the werewolf. ‘You perceive that my friend is a truly terrifying person who is willing to do anything to make you tell us the truth.’

Fiddling with people’s minds was on the dubious side of ethical, but, Irene reassured herself, it was preferable to actually beating the information out of him.

He folded before Kai could reach him, cringing and baring his neck. ‘All right, all right!’ he babbled. ‘So we followed her outside, didn’t we? And we saw her take a private cab to the Liechtenstein Embassy to meet her husband … That’s what she told the driver. And he addressed her as “my lady”!’

Now that was rather more useful. While the woman wasn’t necessarily nobility, there couldn’t be that many women at the Embassy who’d rate that form of address.

‘But are you sure that was for real, and not just to fool you?’ Irene asked.

Despite his position, the werewolf looked smug. ‘Naah, it was for real, and you know why? Because the man who was driving the cab, my mate George knew him. He’s a regular Embassy driver. Even if she wanted to pull a fast one on us, the driver was for real.’