Kai’s reaction was much faster than Irene’s. No doubt because they’re my parents, she reflected sourly. If it had been his father or mother sitting there, I’m sure he’d still be standing around with his mouth open. He bowed politely, but his eyes were bright with curiosity. ‘We’re honoured to receive you in this household,’ he said. ‘I know Irene has been hoping to see you.’

‘For a while now, actually,’ Irene said, keeping her voice calm but feeling rage focus itself to a needle. ‘You didn’t write.’

She sensed Kai stiffening at her tone. She was glad to see them here, safe and well. But a month ago they’d been hostages, in danger of their lives, and there hadn’t been a single whisper of communication afterwards. She’d sent emails on the Library system – even physical letters when she could.

Didn’t it mean anything that she was their daughter, and that she cared about them?

Except . . . that might be the problem. A huge unanswered question lay between them. She’d found out that she was adopted, and she didn’t know how much that changed things. Certainly it had left a lot for her to consider.

Her mother unfolded herself from the big armchair in a confusion of skirts and newspapers. ‘You must be Prince Kai,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard so much about you! Not from Irene, of course, she never writes . . .’

‘I’ve written three times in the last month,’ Irene cut in.

‘Not about Kai here,’ her mother said. She smiled. Her hair had been blonde when Irene had last seen her, but it had returned to a more natural grey now and was pinned back in a suitably matronly bun. Her dress was dark green, one of Irene’s own favourite colours, and her glasses were set with little crystals in the curves of the frame.

But there were tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, in the hollow of her throat; the marks of growing age and weariness. Irene looked at her father, who was carefully setting aside the books he’d been using. He looked unchanged, unchangeable, with badger-streaked hair, wide shoulders and gentle eyes. But when Irene scrutinized him as if he was a target, rather than as a child looking at her parent, she could see the same traces on him as well. Concern collided with rage and knotted painfully in her chest.

‘Kai,’ she said. ‘This is my mother, whose chosen name is Raziel. And my father, whose chosen name is Liu Xiang.’ Not that either name had anything to do with their origin or nation of birth. Librarians were extreme cultural appropriators when it came to names they liked or found thematically resonant. ‘My parents, please allow me to present Prince Kai, son of Ao Guang, Dragon King of the Eastern Ocean.’

She was wondering what to do next, when Kai politely offered to put together some refreshments. The door shut behind him, leaving the three of them alone.

Something in Irene snapped. She threw her arms around her mother, conscious of how fragile she felt. ‘If you ever,’ she muttered, ‘ever drop off the radar like that again . . . for heaven’s sake at least let me know you’re all right.’

Her mother smelled of cedar. It had always been one of her favourite scents. Irene could shut her eyes and imagine that no time had passed – except that now she was the taller of the two.

‘I am here too,’ her father said with a smile.

Irene hugged him tightly. ‘Are you both all right? I was told you were hostages at one of the dragon courts during the peace conference – held to guarantee the negotiators’ good behaviour . . .’

‘It was the court of the Queen of the Western Lands,’ her father said. ‘Terribly nice people, but we were parked at a country house in their equivalent of Texas, with absolutely no books. And a great many apologies for there being no books. They’d been removed in case we tried to use them to escape, no doubt. We had to spend most of our time watching movies instead.’

‘Or going for healthy walks,’ Irene’s mother grumbled. ‘I despise healthy walks.’

Irene tried to imagine weeks without books, then took a deep breath. ‘We’ve only a minute or two before Kai comes back, and I have a question I don’t want him to hear.’

Her mother settled back down into her chair, shaking out the newspaper again. ‘Can anyone think of a good word for double ace, seven letters, last letter e?’

Irene was about to say ambsace, when something about the question penetrated. The newspaper wasn’t a distraction for her mother any more; it was a shield. Her mother was trying to distract her.

‘There isn’t time for questions,’ her father said. ‘There isn’t even time for crosswords. I’m afraid we didn’t come for a family catch-up. You’re needed at the Library – now, Irene. Coppelia sent us to pass the message on.’

Her trained reflexes had Irene immediately calculating how she could reach the Library if she left at once. But something made her hesitate. She had so many questions, and she was about to lose the chance to ask them. Again.

Unless she asked them now.

‘Why did Coppelia send you to tell me?’ she asked. ‘A junior Librarian could have done the job. Or she could have sent a physical message.’ The Library had ways of getting word through to its agents – admittedly destructive ways, but Coppelia had used them for emergencies before.

Her mother shrugged. ‘We volunteered to take her next message to you. We wanted to make sure you were safe and well. And now we know.’

Irene felt a deep stab of anger at the airiness of the brush-off, and she was about to snap something suitably withering and distant in response . . . But no, they were both trying to distract her from personal questions, from getting closer to them. Again.

She bit her lip, determined to stay calm. ‘I need to ask this one question,’ she said. ‘Before I go. While you’re still here. I know I’m adopted. You wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t wanted me. I accept that. I understand that. I’d just like to know . . . how. How it happened.’

‘Strange,’ her mother said, after a long, shocked pause. ‘You spend thirty years rehearsing the answer to a question, and then when it comes . . .’

‘. . . all the words are gone,’ her father finished.

‘A few simple, straightforward ones would do,’ Irene said tartly. ‘Was I a random selection from a local state orphanage? Did you find me floating down the river in a basket?’

‘Trying to make us feel guilty will not work, Ray,’ her mother snapped. It hurt, as always, to hear a childhood pet name used in anger. ‘Do you want me to say that I hoped this day wouldn’t come? Fine. It’s true. I hoped you’d never find out. Is that so strange?’

Irene paced a few steps, listening to the crackling of the fire. ‘This would be easier if you hadn’t taught me all your tricks,’ she said, trying to find the words that would make them understand. ‘You were the ones who taught me how to divert a question, how to change a subject. How to answer a question with another question. You taught me all of this, and now you’re trying to do it to me. I accept that it really would have been easier for all of us if I’d never suspected. But please, Mother, Father . . .’ She tasted bitterness, and her eyes stung with a childish urge to cry. ‘Please understand that now I do know, I have to know the truth.’

‘Do you really?’ her father asked. It was a sincere question. ‘Would it actually make any difference if I were to tell you that . . . we stole you from a palace and you’re actually a princess?’

Irene put aside the image of herself in archetypal dress and coronet. ‘No,’ she finally said. ‘No, it won’t really make any difference what you tell me. I just want you to want to tell me. I’m sorry, that probably doesn’t make sense.’

‘Stop apologizing,’ her mother said. ‘You’re an adult now, Ray. Irene. You shouldn’t be apologizing all the time.’

‘You forgot to say that we were proud of her,’ her father noted quietly.

‘Oh.’ Irene’s mother looked embarrassed. ‘Darling, we are extremely proud of everything you’ve done, and we want you to understand that before we leave. You do understand that?’

‘Um, thank you,’ Irene said. It was something she’d always wanted to hear from them, but now that her mother was finally saying it, she couldn’t think of any better response. ‘I’m glad. But you’re still not answering my question.’

Her father began to speak, then fell silent as Kai opened the door. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, ‘but may I borrow Irene for a moment?’

‘Of course,’ her father said, waving her towards the door. ‘We aren’t going anywhere – though Irene probably should . . .’

Irene bit back the urge to ask Kai to leave them for just a moment. Instead she joined him in the corridor, closing the door behind her.

There was a glint of anger in his dark blue eyes, a flash of dragon-red. ‘Someone else has entered this house,’ he said. ‘Our rooms have been searched.’

‘Oh, hells,’ Irene said. She realized what must have happened, and flushed. ‘Just to check – was it a serious search, or did whoever it was just turn the place over casually?’

‘The second,’ Kai said. He frowned. ‘But they left my belongings alone.’

‘That would be my parents,’ Irene admitted, feeling embarrassed as well as angry.

‘They searched your room? Why?’

‘Probably not in detail,’ Irene said, trying to reassure him. ‘They’d just want to know what I was up to.’

Kai looked at her. He opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. ‘Irene, we’ve never talked that much about your parents. Is there something you want to tell me?’

Irene wished there was a corner to retreat into. ‘I have a complicated relationship with my parents. It’s a good relationship, but . . .’ But now she had to hurry back to the Library – and they’d finally been about to answer her questions about adoption. Why did everything have to happen at once?

‘You hardly ever see them!’

‘Yes, that’s why it’s a good relationship.’ Somewhere in between her parents wanting to know about everything she did and her not wanting to tell them, they’d started checking her rooms while she wasn’t there. Not her rooms at the Library, of course. Those were locked. Those were hers.

Was it that surprising that a daughter of spies had developed trust issues, she thought wryly.

‘They do it because they worry about me,’ she finally said. ‘And they don’t actually search in depth . . . look, this is sounding worse by the minute. Possibly our relationship does have a few problems. All families have issues. I don’t ask about what goes on in your family, do I?’

She saw him recoil as she retaliated, and was meanly satisfied for a moment. ‘I’ve been called to the Library,’ she said, trying to smooth over the bad feeling. ‘But . . . I need to ask my parents something urgent before I go. Maybe we can discuss this later?’

The door opened before Kai could answer – or disagree – and her father leaned round it. ‘Is anything the matter?’

‘We’re just discussing the brandy,’ Irene said, before Kai could interject.

‘There won’t be time for brandy,’ her father said. ‘The thought is appreciated, but you really need to go, so we’ll leave you to it.’

Irene couldn’t let them get away. ‘I need to talk to them,’ she said again. ‘And I apologize for them intruding like that. Because they won’t.’

‘I think we need to have a serious talk about a few things,’ Kai said, quietly. ‘Once your parents have left.’

Irene re-entered the lounge and shut the door behind her with a thud. ‘I warded this place,’ she said. ‘I thought it was safe from enemies. I did not expect to have to defend my privacy from other Librarians.’

‘If you’re sleeping with a dragon prince, then that’s something that concerns us,’ her father said mildly. As always, his surface calm was smooth and firm. An Olympic ice-skating team could have used it as a rink. ‘I think any parent would be worried about that.’

Irene felt the flush creeping into her cheeks again, but this time it was anger as much as embarrassment. ‘And if Kai mentions to his father that Librarians have been going through his belongings? What then?’

‘We left his stuff alone,’ her mother said. She was shrugging her coat on and doing up the fussy little gilt buttons. ‘Irene, you are about as communicative as granite underneath a glacier. So far in the last year, you’ve faced off against Fae, dragon kings and Alberich himself. You were worried about us? Try to understand that we were worried about you.’

‘But I wouldn’t go through your belongings!’ Irene retorted.

‘You would if you had the chance,’ her mother said.

Irene would have liked to deny that, but . . . if it was the only way of making sure they were safe, she wouldn’t hesitate. And if it was a choice between their safety and her ethics, her ethics would lose. They might be dysfunctional, but they were still a family. Even if she had to know more about her origins. ‘Before you walk out on me – please answer the question this time. How did you adopt me?’

It was her father who answered, his words slow and unwilling. ‘Other Librarians knew that we wanted a child. We couldn’t have one. There was no medical reason . . .’

Alberich had already told Irene it was impossible for two Librarians to have a child, but she wasn’t allowing them to get off topic again. So she simply nodded, willing him to continue.

‘Another Librarian was pregnant. It wasn’t her fault or her choice – we don’t know the full details, we didn’t ask. She was going to bear a child that she didn’t want. She offered the child to us. It was that simple.’

‘Who was the Librarian?’ Irene asked. She stepped forward, her hands clenched on the back of a chair. ‘Who was she?’

‘Nobody you know,’ her mother said, voice raw. ‘And I heard that she died since.’

Irene felt a distant shock as the facts were laid out. Anger, rather than grief, surged in her at the way this last link to her ‘true heritage’ had been snatched away, if she could call it that . . . for if she’d never known her biological mother, how could she feel genuine grief for her death? And yet shouldn’t she feel something for her?

She didn’t even know if her parents were telling the truth.

‘And that’s all?’ she finally said.

‘What do you want to hear?’ her mother demanded. ‘Something more romantic? Everyone tried to do the best they could. Do you blame us for it? Were we that bad as parents?’

‘No,’ Irene said. She didn’t hesitate. ‘No, you weren’t bad parents. You never were.’ It might have been a lie; neither she nor they had ever been perfect. But it was what she wanted to say, what she wanted to believe. They were only human, after all.

Slowly her mother lowered her head. ‘Then do you forgive us?’

Again the words came without thinking. ‘There’s nothing to forgive. You are my parents. That’s all there is.’

‘You need to get going – Coppelia will be waiting.’ Her father picked up his hat. He paused to give Irene a hug, but it felt more perfunctory than their first embrace, as though the conversation had drawn an invisible line between them. Was it their past history as spies making them this emotionally unavailable – and was she in danger of repeating their mistakes? ‘Urgent Library business won’t go away just because you have personal issues, Irene. You should know that by now. We should talk later . . .’

Running off to war like a coward! The words drifted through Irene’s mind, a relic of some long-forgotten film, but she bit them back. ‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. ‘We should.’

Her mother looked at them. ‘Get in touch when you’ve had time to think things over, Irene. You know how to reach us.’

‘When you have the leisure for it,’ Irene said, unable to stop the sarcasm from leaking into her voice. She tried to remember they’d volunteered to see her, to check she was safe, but it was hard.

‘If you want leisure, then you shouldn’t have become a Librarian,’ her mother retorted.

‘Fine,’ Irene muttered, feeling her teenage years surge back on her in an unstoppable tidal wave. Shoulders hunched defensively, she exchanged a brief hug with her mother before dragging the door open. ‘Just . . . take care.’

‘And you, Ray darling,’ her mother said briskly, trotting out into the hallway and heading remorselessly for the front door.

‘Ah, did I miss something?’ Kai enquired.

‘Everything,’ Irene sighed, repressing the urge to snap. ‘Kai, I’m really not good company at the moment, and I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

For a moment he looked as though he was about to object, but instead he hugged her. ‘I’ll be here when you get back,’ he said.