Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

as this. And if she does manage to expire, then we shall merely move on to one of you—Miss Temple, perhaps—and on and on. It is inevitable as the dawn. As you have opened that door to avoid its being needlessly broken, I offer you the chance to avoid that same breaking of your comrades’ bodies—and, indeed, their souls.”

Miss Temple looked at the faces opposite her—Crabbe’s smug smirk, the Prince’s bemused disdain, Lydia’s fox-faced hunger, Roger’s earnest frown, Xonck’s leer, the Comte’s iron glare, the Contessa’s glacial smile, and Caroline’s sad patience—and found nowhere a suggestion that the Minister’s words were anything but true. Yet she still saw the factions between them and knew their deeper interest lay no longer in what she and the others had discovered, but only in how those discoveries spelled out betrayals within the Cabal’s circle.

“It would be easier to believe you, Sir,” she said, “if you did not so blatantly lie. You ask us to talk to prevent our torture, yet what happens when we reveal some morsel of deduction that points to one among you—do you expect that person to accept our open word? Of course not—whoever is denounced will demand that your cruelties be brought to bear in any case, to confirm or disprove our accusations!”

The Deputy Minister’s eyes twinkled as he shook his head, chuckling, and took another sip of brandy.

“My goodness—Roger, I do believe she is more than you’d perceived—Miss Temple, you have caught me out. Indeed, it is the case—so much for my attempts to save the woodwork! All right then—you will, all four, be killed at length, quite badly. If any of you have something to say, all the better—if not, well, we’re rid of your damned stinking disruptions at last.”

Xonck stepped forward, the saber dancing menacingly in the air before him. Miss Temple retreated, but a single step brought her flat against the wall. Once more the Doctor squeezed her hand, and then cried out in as hearty a voice as he could.

“Excellent, Minister—and perhaps Mr. Xonck will kill us before we talk—would that suit you even better?”

Crabbe stood up, impatient and angry. “Ah—here it comes! The vain attempt to turn us against one another—Francis—”

“By all means, Francis—kill us quickly! Serve the Minister as you always have! Just as when you sank Trapping in the river!”

Xonck paused, the tip of his blade within lunging range of Svenson’s chest. “I serve myself.”

Svenson looked down at the saber tip and snorted—even as Miss Temple could feel the trembling of his hand. “Of course you do—just pardon my asking—what has happened to Herr Flauss?”

For a moment, no one answered, and Crabbe was glaring at Xonck to keep going when the Contessa spoke aloud, picking her words carefully.

“Herr Flauss was found to be…disloyal.”

“The gunshot!” exclaimed Miss Temple. “You shot him!”

“It proved necessary,” said Crabbe.

“How could he be disloyal?” croaked Chang. “He was your creature!”

“Why do you ask?” the Contessa pointedly demanded of the Doctor.

“Why do you care?” hissed Crabbe to her, behind Xonck’s back. “Francis, please—”

“I just wonder if it had to do with Lord Vandaariff’s missing book,” said Svenson. “You know—the one where his memory was—what is the word?—distilled?”

There was a pause. Miss Temple’s heart was in her mouth—and then she knew the momentum toward their destruction had been stalled.

“That book was broken,” rasped the Comte. “By Cardinal Chang in the tower—it killed Major Blach—”

“Is that what his ledger says?” Svenson nodded contemptuously to Roger. “Then I think you will find two books missing—one with the Lady Melantes, Mrs. Marchmoor, among others—and another—”

“What are you waiting for?” cried Crabbe. “Francis! Kill him!”

“Or you would,” crowed Svenson, “if there was a second book at all! For to distill Robert Vandaariff’s mind into a book—a mind holding the keys to a continent—to the future itself!—would have opened those riches to any one of you who owned it, who possessed a key! Instead, the man given the task to do just that did not create a book—so yes, there is one book broken, and another never made at all!”

The Contessa called out firmly to Xonck—“Francis, keep watching them!”—before turning to Crabbe. “Harald, can you answer this?”

“Answer? Answer what? Answer the—the desperate— the—”

Before the Minister could stop sputtering Chang called out again, a challenge to Roger. “I saw it myself, in Vandaariff’s study—he wrote it all down on parchment! If I hadn’t smashed a book they would have had to do it themselves—convincing you all that Vandaariff’s memories were gone, when they held the only copy!”

“A copy I took from the Minister himself,” cried Svenson, “in a leather satchel—and which Bascombe took from me in the ballroom. I’m sure he still has it with him—or is that what Flauss noticed when he joined you at Lord Vandaariff’s study…and why he had to die?”

In the silence Miss Temple realized she had been holding her breath. The words had flown so quickly back and forth, while in between stood Francis Xonck, eyes shifting warily, his blade an easy thrust from them all. She could feel the fearful state of Svenson’s nerves, and knew Chang was tensed to futilely spring at Xonck—but she could also sense the changing tension in the room, as the Minister and Roger groped to refute their own prisoners.

“Aspiche took the satchel from Svenson in the ballroom,” announced Xonck, not turning to the others. “And Bascombe took it from him…but I did not see it when we met up in the study.”

“It was packed away,” said Caroline Stearne, speaking quietly from her place. “When all was being readied for the journey—”

“Is the satchel here or isn’t it?” snapped Xonck.

“I have its contents with me,” said Roger smoothly. “As Caroline says, safely stowed. Doctor Svenson is wrong. They are Lord Vandaariff’s planning papers—notes to himself for each stage of this enterprise. I do not know where this idea of Lady Melantes’s book comes from—two books— no books—”

“Doctor Lorenz identified the missing book as Lady Melantes’s,” spat Svenson.

“Doctor Lorenz is wrong. Lady Melantes’s book—also containing Mrs. Marchmoor and Lord Acton—is safely stowed. The only book missing—the one broken in the tower—is that of Lord Vandaariff. You can check my ledger, but anyone is more than welcome to look in the books themselves.”

It was an effective speech, with just the right amount of protest at being accused and an equally moving touch of professional superciliousness—a Bascombe specialty. And it seemed as if his upset superiors, perhaps persuaded by his own subservience via the Process, were convinced. But Miss Temple knew, from the way Roger’s thumb restlessly rubbed against his leg, that it was a lie.

She laughed at him.

He glared at her, furiously willing her to silence.

“O Roger…” She chuckled and shook her head.

“Be quiet, Celeste!” he hissed. “You have no place here!”

“And you have surely convinced everyone,” she said. “But you forget how well I know your ways. Even then you might have convinced me—for it was a fine speech—if it wasn’t you who actually shot Herr Flauss, after convincing everyone of his disloyalty, I am sure…or was it to keep him quiet? But it was you who shot him, Roger,…wasn’t it?”

At her words the cabin went silent, save for the low buzz of the rotors outside. Xonck’s saber did not waver, but his mouth tightened and his eyes flicked more quickly back and forth between them. The Contessa stood.

“Rosamonde,” began Crabbe, “this is ridiculous—they are coming between us—it is their only hope—”

But the Contessa ignored him and crossed the cabin slowly toward Roger. He shrank away from her, first