Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

you will find out why I am here only exactly when I have planned to show you.” She speared the last slice of mango without waiting for his reply and took a bite, licking her lips to catch the juice. She could not help but smile at the exquisite taste of it.

“Do you know,” she asked, swallowing just enough of the fruit to speak clearly, “this is quite nearly as delicious as the mangos one can find in the garden of my father’s house? The difference—though this is very good— is due, I should think, to the different quality of sunlight, the very positioning of the planet. Do you see? There are great forces at play around us, each day of our lives—and who are we? To what do we pretend? To which of these masters are we in service?”

“I applaud your metaphorical thought,” said the Comte dryly.

“But do you have an answer?”

“Perhaps I do. What about…art?”

“Art?”

Miss Temple was not sure what he meant, and paused in her chewing, narrowing her eyes with suspicion. Could he have followed her to the art gallery (and if so, when? During her visit with Roger? More recently? Had he been contacted so quickly by the gallery agent, Mr. Shanck?), or did he mean something else…but what? To Miss Temple, art was a curiosity, like a carved bone or shrunken head one found at a village market—a vestige of unknown territories it did not occur to her to visit.

“Art,” repeated the Comte. “You are acquainted with it…with the idea?”

“What idea in particular?”

“Of art as alchemy. An act of transformation. Of re-making and rebirth.”

Miss Temple held up her hand. “I’m sorry, but do you know…this merely prompts me to ask about your relations with a particular painter, a Mr. Oskar Veilandt. I believe he is also from Paris, and most well known for his very large and provocative composition on the theme of the Annunciation. I understand—perhaps it is merely a cruel rumor—that this expressive masterwork was cut up into thirteen pieces and scattered across the continent.”

The Comte took another drink of coffee.

“I’m afraid I do not know him. He is from Paris, you say?”

“At some point, like so very many people one finds disagreeable.”

“Have you seen his work?” he asked.

“O yes.”

“What did you think of it? Were you provoked?”

“I was.”

He smiled. “You? How so?”

“Into thinking you had caused his death. For he is dead, and you seem to have stolen a great deal from him—your ceremonies, your Process, and your precious indigo clay. How odd for such things to come from a painter, though I suppose he was also a mystic and an alchemist —strange you should just mention that too—though I am told it is the usual way of things in that garret-ridden, absinthe-soaked community. You carry yourself so boldly, and yet one wonders, Monsieur, if you have ever had an original thought at all.”

The Comte d’Orkancz stood up. With his cigar in his right hand he extended his left to her and as a matter of instinctive response Miss Temple allowed her own hand to be taken—her other groping for purchase on the pistol butt. He raised her hand up to kiss it, an odd moist, brushing whisper across her fingers, released her hand, and stepped back.

“You leave abruptly,” she said.

“Think of it as a reprieve.”

“For which one of us?”

“For you, Miss Temple. For you will persist…and such persistence will consume you.”

“Will it indeed?” It was not much of a tart reply as those things go, but the way his eyes glowered it was the best she could do in the moment.

“It will. And that’s the thing,” he said, placing both hands on the table and leaning close to her face, whispering. “When it comes, you will submit of your own accord. Everyone does. You think you battle monsters— you think you battle us!—but you only struggle with your fear…and that fear will shrivel before desire. You think I do not sense your hunger? I see it clearly as the sun. You are already mine, Miss Temple—just waiting for the moment when I choose to take you.”

The Comte stood again and stuck the cheroot in his mouth, his tongue flashing wet and pink against the black tobacco. He blew smoke through the side of his mouth and turned without another word, striding easily from the restaurant and Miss Temple’s view.

She could not tell if he left the hotel or climbed the great stairs to the upper floors. Perhaps he was going to the Contessa’s rooms—perhaps the Contessa had already returned and she had not seen her because of the Comte. But why had he left so abruptly—and after threatening her? She had spoken of the artist, Veilandt. Had that touched a nerve? Did the Comte d’Orkancz have nerves? Miss Temple did not know what she ought to do next. Any plan she might have once imagined had vanished in her moment-by-moment desire to frustrate and best the Comte in conversation—yet what had that achieved? She pursed her lips and recalled her first impression of the man, on the train to Orange Canal, his fearsome bulk seemingly doubled by the fur, his harsh, stark penetrating gaze. He had filled her with dread, and after the strange ritualistic presentation in the medical theatre with a darker dread still. But she was quite satisfied with his reaction to the subject of Oskar Veilandt. Despite the Doctor’s ruthless tale of the stricken woman and of poison, Miss Temple felt that the Comte d’Orkancz was but another man after all—horrid, arrogant, brutal, powerful to be sure, but with his own architecture of vanity that, once studied, would show the way to bring him down.

Thus assured, she used the next minutes to call for her bill and finish what remained of her meal, sucking on a lemon wedge as she dug into her bag for the proper amount of coin. She had contemplated signing the cost over to the Contessa’s rooms, but decided such a mean trick was beneath her. What was more, she felt a profound disinclination to owe the woman for anything (an attitude evidently not shared by the Comte, who had allowed Miss Temple to buy his coffee). Miss Temple stood, collected her bag, and dropped the husk of lemon onto her plate, wiping her fingers on a crumpled napkin. She walked from the restaurant, which was beginning to fill for the early evening service, with a trace of rising anxiety. Chang and Svenson had not arrived. This was good, in that she had not yet accomplished anything of substance and she did truly want to be free of them to work, and yet, did this mean something had happened to them? Had they attempted some particularly foolish scheme without her? Of course they hadn’t—they were merely pursuing their own thoughts, about this Angelique, no doubt, or Doctor Svenson’s Prince. Their not showing up was entirely to the good of their larger mutual goals.

She returned to the main desk, where the same clerk informed her the Contessa was still to arrive. Miss Temple cast a sly look about her and leaned closer to him. With her eyes, she indicated the curved wall with the mirrors, and she asked if anyone had engaged the private rooms for the evening. The clerk did not immediately reply. Miss Temple brought her voice nearer to a whisper, while at the same time adopting an idle innocent tone.

“Perhaps you are acquainted with other ladies in the Contessa’s party of friends, a Mrs. Marchmoor, for one. Or—I forget the others—”

“Miss Poole?” asked the clerk.

“Miss Poole! Yes! Such a sweet creature.” Miss Temple grinned, her eyes conveying to the best of her ability innocence and depravity at the same time. “I wonder if either of them will attend the Contessa, or perhaps the Comte d’Orkancz…in one of your private rooms?”

She went so far as to bite her own lip and blink at the man. The clerk opened a red leather ledger, ran his finger down the page, and then closed it, signaling for one of the men from the restaurant. When the fellow arrived, the clerk indicated Miss Temple. “This lady will be joining the Contessa’s party in room five.”

“There is one other young lady,” the waiter said. “Arrived some minutes ago—”

“Ah, well, even better,” said the clerk, and turned to Miss Temple. “You will have company. Poul, please show Miss…”

“Miss Hastings,” said Miss Temple.