Trained reflexes made her drop flat and roll. Another bullet cut through the air, missing her by a bigger margin this time. The guards also scattered, diving for cover. Irene rolled across the wet grass, cursing her long dress. She could tell the shots were coming from behind the airfield’s fence, but she couldn’t see the shooter or the gun clearly.

Fine. She’d just have to make do with what she had. ‘Fence, fall on the shooter!’ she shouted.

Metal came crashing down. There were screams. She didn’t stop to look – she dragged herself to her feet, gathering her wet, muddy skirts in her fists, and staggered towards the zeppelin. Through the thickening rain she could see Vale waiting by the ladder. There was no sign of Kai and Catherine – hopefully they were already up and safe.

Vale caught her by the arm, hauling her onto the ladder. He shouted to the airship above, ‘Take us up!’

The anchor detached, and with a stomach-churning swiftness the zeppelin rose into the sky. Vale and Irene clutched onto the rope ladder below, swinging like a lunatic pendulum with the impetus of their ascent. Irene wedged her feet around a rung and desperately clung to the ladder, trying not to panic as the airfield sank away beneath them. Her twisting stomach made a wonderful accompaniment to her aching head as the ladder was slowly winched into the belly of the zeppelin. Below her feet, she could see the airfield guards chasing the gunman – no, there were two gunmen, and they were running for it now, heading for a carriage . . .

‘Witchcraft, smugglers, Lord Guantes, corruption, spies, and my sister’s own agents subverted,’ Vale noted, as they finally scrambled onto the decking. ‘My files on Guernsey are sadly lacking. I really must return and update them.’

CHAPTER FIVE

The nuns looking after Kai and Catherine had the crisp manner and white aprons of nurses, but their robes were golden brown and white wimples covered their hair. They ignored Irene in the corner, leaving her alone with her valuable suitcase. Out of sheer boredom she’d resorted to reading a nursing textbook, and she was learning more than she ever wanted to know about the human digestive system.

Kai was the first to wake. His eyes flickered open and he stared at the ceiling. ‘I feel awful,’ he said.

‘You’ve been given activated charcoal and you’ve had a stomach lavage – that’s a washout. Your medical records show a list of the drugs that they injected you with, if you’re interested.’ Irene closed her textbook. ‘On the positive side—’

‘You love saying that,’ Kai muttered.

‘That’s because I desperately cling to any optimism I can get.’ She sat on the chair between his and Catherine’s beds. ‘There was more than ricin in that poison, but we caught it in time. If you hadn’t made yourself vomit on the zeppelin, it would have been worse. Though the captain didn’t look too happy about that. As it is, you should be up and about within twenty-four hours, though your guts may be a little tender.’

Kai sighed. ‘I feel so stupid, being poisoned like that. My whole family would be disappointed in me.’

Irene knew dragons well enough to recognize the problem. It wasn’t the poisoning that would disappoint his family, but the circumstances – he’d been dosed by a ‘mere’ witch in a cheap tearoom. Quite different from a respectable politically motivated assassination attempt. And so much more embarrassing. ‘Your family would understand,’ she said, looking around guardedly. ‘Because there are bigger implications here. We’ve hit a serious problem.’

‘What do you mean?’ Kai tried to sit up, failed, and propped himself up on his elbow as if he’d meant to do that all along. ‘And where are we? I don’t recognize this place. The last thing I remember was the airship.’

Irene answered the second question, because she suspected that once she tackled the first, there wouldn’t be space to discuss anything else. ‘We’re in the basement of St Henrietta’s Hospital, under Whitehall. You and Catherine both passed out while we were over the Channel.’ And she didn’t want to remember just how terrified she’d been that they wouldn’t make it to help in time.

Kai frowned. ‘I don’t remember a hospital by that name in London.’

‘It’s secret,’ Irene explained, reaching over to check Catherine’s pulse. Still asleep. Good. ‘Excessively secret. As in founded by royalty and supported by a hidden order of nuns, secret. Vale says that only the top ranks of the civil service and London’s criminal underworld know about it. Most importantly, it has some of the highest security in London – and some of the best treatment for poisons, too.’

‘Hidden order of nuns?’

‘The Order of St Anastasia. It’s one of those situations where an order of nuns become experts at treating poisons, everyone suspects they’re really poisoners, multiple cardinals die, the nuns have to flee for their lives . . . then they save a king’s sister from dying and he builds them a secret nunnery. You know how it goes.’

‘Oh, that happens all the time,’ Kai agreed. ‘My mother joined a few of those – only appearing in her human identity, of course. She says they’re very convenient in an emergency. Almost as good as universal healthcare.’

Irene blinked. Kai rarely talked about his mother. It must be the effect of the poisons – or the antidotes. ‘Do dragons support universal healthcare?’ she asked curiously.

Kai shrugged. ‘It leads to the general protection and well-being of humans. So my father’s in favour of it, of course.’

Irene knew enough about dragons to recognize that the general protection and well-being of humans usually came secondary to the general protection and well-being of dragons. ‘Sometimes I worry I’m too cynical,’ she murmured.

‘You’re wandering off the subject,’ Kai said, proving that even if he wasn’t telepathic, he knew Irene very well by now. ‘What is the “serious problem” and what have you discovered?’

It was amazing how the words Lord Guantes is back kept sticking in her throat, Irene thought, but she plunged in. ‘Do you remember Lord and Lady Guantes?’

‘Ah,’ Kai said, jumping to the obvious conclusion. ‘She’s trying to murder us all because you killed her husband and destroyed their plans to start a Fae versus dragon war. Quite understandable.’

‘She may be involved – she probably is, actually. But her husband is definitely involved.’

Kai hesitated, his confusion shading into worry. ‘How so?’

It made Irene feel slightly better to see that Kai was as reluctant as she was to consider that Lord Guantes was somehow still alive. It didn’t make sense. And I’m not the only one who’s still afraid of him . . . ‘Let me explain,’ she said.

Ten minutes later she’d finished her account of events, with interruptions, and Kai was digging his fingers into his sheets. She suspected it was pure self-control which kept his nails from growing into claws and shredding them to pieces. Dragons were occasionally prone to letting a few of their natural traits show through their human form when strong emotions took hold – red eyes, claws, scales, local elemental effects . . .