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A leader’s job was a crock of shit

This was beco one of Irene’s least favourite missions ever And that included the one with the evil dwarves under Belgiu a cartload of carved amber plaques to be shipped across Russia Or even the one with the cat burglar

‘Would it help if we could find out more about his family?’ she offered ‘If we find out that they’re not as bad as he’s painting, we can re-evaluate how much we trust him’

Kai shook his head decisively ‘That makes no difference We should reject his offer of help’

‘That,’ Irene said quietly, ‘is not an option’

They looked at each other for a ether, his eyes darkly furious as he stood there, glaring down at her In thatal fiercer – ht he ht actually disobey her

In the end, he was the first to drop his eyes ‘As you command,’ he said But I don’t approve of it was unspoken and unnecessary

Irene had e their subordinates using shallow gender tactics Brada to try to sugarcoat this for Kai by softening now or by fluttering her eyelashes at hiot me out of the British Library?’ she asked

‘I did,’ Kai answered stiffly ‘Both your document case and the jar with thethe skin’

‘I’m impressed,’ Irene said ‘It must have been difficult to handle both the that he was pleased ‘I found a larger suitcase in the rooet the jar and your document case in it Do we tell Vale about those?’

‘No,’ Irene said quickly ‘That he doesn’t need to know Did anything else happen while you were gettingus, attacks, whatever?’

‘Nothing worth ly ‘I wrapped your face in your veil and propped you against ot my arm round your waist, and sort of steered you, and I kept on telling you how you shouldn’t have had so ht Nobody looked at us twice’