Mina blinked.

Right, then.

Slowly, with careful, controlled movements, she poured tea. Added sugar and cream. Buttered a scone. Pretended that she wasn’t watching MacAlasdair out of the corner of her eye.

Then, when she could trust herself, she spoke. “That’s quite…comprehensive. Everything a correspondent could ask for.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said MacAlasdair. “I’ll be meeting with Carter this noontime, if you’ll be ready by then.” He sounded very casual, but his gaze never left Mina’s face.

She smiled. There was certainly no harm in that. He’d keep his distance now, and so would she. It was a virtue to be gracious in victory, Mina had heard. “I’ll write after breakfast,” she said. “If you’d like to read the letter before I seal it, I’ll be in the study.”

* * *

The door opened as Mina was on the last page of her letter, finishing a paragraph about the view from her bedroom window. It could have been a servant coming in to clean or to tell her something, but she knew it was MacAlasdair even before she lifted her head.

“The first two pages are on the table,” she said. “Have a look if you’d like. I’ll be done in a moment.”

“Thank you,” he said and smiled—diffidently, for the first time since Mina had met him. He ran a hand through his dark hair and seemed about to say something, but ended up crossing the room in silence.

Mina bent to her letter, trying to ignore the way her skin prickled at MacAlasdair’s approach. She saw his hand, large and firm, out of the corner of her eye as he picked up the sheets of stationery she’d already covered with writing. She heard the steady rhythm of his breath and the sound of paper crinkling as he read.

I hope that you’re all doing well, she wrote, concentrating—or trying to concentrate—on making the letters neatly. She’d mastered that particular art some ten years ago, but it never hurt to pay more attention, did it?

I’m not sure when I’ll get to see you again, but I’ll keep sending these letters. You can write to me in care of Professor Carter.

“That’s not a bad story you’ve told them.” MacAlasdair spoke from behind her. “Very close to the truth.”

Mina had said that MacAlasdair wanted her to help put his father’s affairs in order, that some of them were the sort he didn’t want anyone talking about, and that she’d be well paid and get a week’s holiday after she was finished. She intended to take one, too. A hundred pounds should more than cover the time, and Professor Carter would understand. She didn’t mention the hundred pounds in the letter—that much money would make people talk—just that she’d be well paid.

“Lying’s a sin,” she said demurely and then couldn’t resist a smile of her own. “And more importantly, too many lies are confusing.”

MacAlasdair chuckled, deep and rich. “Verra sound philosophy you have there. You don’t think they’ll talk about whatever secrets I want you to be keeping?”

“Not much. It’s business, and business isn’t really that interesting. They might think that your father had some opinions he didn’t want getting around—”

“He probably did, at that,” said MacAlasdair. “He was still bitter about the Rising, when I was young, and all that came after. Talked a great deal about it.”

“The Rising?” It sounded familiar, but it wasn’t new enough to be current or old enough to be antique, and so Mina sought for the reference amid memories of schoolbooks and the smell of chalk dust. “You mean the Scottish rebellion?”

“Aye.” MacAlasdair’s mouth was tight. “I wasna’ born yet, nor for a few years after, but I heard stories enough, and I understand the bitterness.”

MacAlasdair’s hair was rich red-black, without a thread of silver in it; his strong-boned face held a few sun lines near the eyes, but nothing more; and his body was straight and strong and vigorous. Looking at him, you didn’t think two centuries old, and then—

—and then she was in a room with someone who wasn’t entirely human, someone who remembered the world before her grandmother had been born. She wanted to put out a hand and touch his sleeve, just to make sure he was real.

Instead, she said, “But he couldn’t have fought in it. I mean—I don’t think we’d have won if we’d been fighting dragons.”

“And do you think that I and mine are the only such creatures in Creation?” MacAlasdair shook his head and laughed again, this time with a much darker humor. “Ye had your own creatures to send against us, you English, and your sorcerers and artifacts as well, the things that none of the history books mention. And we die from steel and lead if you put enough of it into us. My father fought, and one of his brothers died at Fort William and the oldest of my sisters at Littleferry.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mina.

MacAlasdair shrugged, and the darkness passed from his face. “It’s a family wound, and not my own, nor of your making. As I said, I never knew either of them. I did my fighting elsewhere.”

Still, there was nothing really to say to that, or at least nothing Mina could think of. She started to turn back to her paper, and then something MacAlasdair had said drew her attention.

“Your sister?”

“Our women are more…active than most,” MacAlasdair said. “There’s little difference between a female dragon and a male, at least where size and strength are concerned. It makes a bit of a difference in the way we view things.”

“If only the Pankhursts knew,” said Mina, thinking of the articles she’d read about the suffragists.

“There’s a bit more of a difference for mortal women, I’ll admit, but—no’ as much as people have been in the way of thinking lately. And at that,” said MacAlasdair, smiling again, “I’m surprised that you’re not out there attending meetings yourself.”

Despite the teasing tone of his voice, there was warmth in his smile and approval that Mina felt in her chest. Still, she tossed her head and fired back, “Well, I would be, if I had a bit more time for it. Speaking of which, are you going to let me finish?”

“Forgive me,” he said, still teasing. “I should have known your schedule would be crowded.”

“Oh, if only it were,” said Mina, and went back to writing.

Ten

Not too far from the British Museum and the office where Stephen had first encountered Mina, down several little side streets, one came to an ordinary-looking house. Like its neighbors, it was three stories of neat red brick, secure behind an iron fence and a tidy yard. Nothing was remarkable; everything was respectable.

At night, light and noise stole from behind the drapes, out the windows, and off into the spring air. That, too, was little different from other houses nearby. Some of the neighbors did say that the lights were odd colors at times and that the sounds were almost inhuman. Other, more skeptical sorts said that the first group of people were drunk or dreaming or seeing what they’d thought they’d see.

After all, London had heard rumors about Mrs. O’Keefe for years, and the Society of the Emerald Star was no real secret. Too many of its members were too fond of notoriety for that.

Secret or not, the Society did employ a butler who never spoke and who looked as if he could have given Stephen some serious trouble, even in his draconic form. The man looked over Stephen, his card, and the letter of introduction he offered, all without moving a single muscle in his face. Then he retired to the inner sanctum, consulted with someone inside, and returned to gesture Stephen through the door.

Not only a door, as it turned out, but a set of red, gauzy curtains that clung to Stephen’s evening wear and knocked his top hat briefly askew. He straightened it, took a breath of air that was redolent with both incense and opium, and turned to face the woman approaching him.

Selina O’Keefe was tall, pale, and willowy, with large gray eyes and a heavy mass of raven-black hair, which she was currently letting tumble down her back to match the gown she was wearing: flowing gold silk and lace, as unstructured as it was impractical. Gems gleamed on every finger and dangled from her ears, catching the light from many shaded lamps. Her walk was airy and she gave Stephen her hand as if she was Cleopatra bestowing a favor, yet there was something in her eyes and in the set of her chin that suggested more practicality than the dozen or so similarly dressed women, or their smoking-jacketed companions, who currently disported themselves around the room.

“Welcome, Lord MacAlasdair,” she said quietly but in a voice that made the simple statement a theatrical pronouncement. “In what way might our Society aid you?”

If she mentioned anything about him being king hereafter, Stephen thought, he would leap out a window posthaste.

“I’m looking for a man,” he said. “Can we talk somewhere a bit more private?”

“There’s a couch near the window,” said Mrs. O’Keefe, and put a hand lightly on his arm. The butler had disappeared somewhere. “I’m afraid I can’t leave my guests alone just now.”

As they walked toward the couch, Stephen understood why. He’d expected the lolling figures on other couches even before he’d smelled the opium. He hadn’t expected the woman with snakes winding around her wrists, like living ribbons of bright green and gold, or the man who stood near her casting bone runes onto a velvet cloth. Near them, a tall, lithe man with coppery hair was staring into the fire. As Stephen passed, the man looked up with eyes that seemed to hold the flame themselves for a moment, and the angles of his face were inhuman.