Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

“Doctor—look out!”

Svenson scuttled back as Chang finally scooped up the saber, forcing the Comte to pause. Miss Temple could not see the Comte’s face, but she doubted his alchemical knowledge included swordplay—not when he faced a bitter opponent like Chang, even if Chang was weaving on his feet.

But her scream had another effect, which was to remind the Prince and Lydia of her presence. Karl-Horst dropped into a cunning crouch and leered at her, yet to her greater distress she saw Lydia weave the other way, behind the open hatch, where Eloise hung gagged and bound to the wall. Lydia clawed at the ropes with a determined grimace, watching Miss Temple across the whistling open hatchway.

Too much was happening at once. Chang was coughing horribly, Miss Temple could not see Svenson or Chang for the Comte’s broad back and his enormous fur. Lydia pulled apart one knot, attacked another. Coming at her, his hands clutching wickedly, was the Prince, pausing to stare at Miss Temple’s body. Miss Temple realized how exposed she was without her robes, but that the Prince could find the time—at this pitch of a crisis, to ogle a woman he was hoping to kill—was but another spur to her courage, for she had already seen what she must do.

She feinted to the stairs and then dashed the other way, leaping the hatch straight at Lydia, forcing the girl to drop the ropes. But Miss Temple dodged again, over Eloise’s legs, just avoided the Prince’s flailing arms, and then hurled herself at the Comte, digging at his fur with both hands, finding the pocket even as he turned and swatted her into the far settee with his mighty arm. Miss Temple landed in a sprawl, mid-way between the Comte and Chang, but in her hands, plucked from the pocket where the Comte himself had stowed it so many hours ago at the St. Royale, was her green clutch bag. She thrust her hand inside and did not bother to pull her revolver out, but fired through the fabric, the bullet shattering the cabinet near the Comte’s head. He turned with a roar of alarm, and Miss Temple fired again, the bullet swallowed by his coat. She fired a third time. The Comte coughed sharply once, as if a bit of dinner had stuck in his throat, lost his balance and cracked his forehead hard against the corner of the cabinet. He straightened himself and stared at her, blood beading down above his eye. He turned to leave, almost casually, and caught his feet together. His knees locked, and the great man fell face down like a tree.

Xonck grunted, trying to crawl away. Chang sank to his knees and drove a brutal punch with the saber hilt across Xonck’s jaw, stilling him like a pole-axed steer. Through the open doorway Miss Temple saw the Prince and Lydia watching in terror, but it was a terror mixed with defiance, for between them they had untied Eloise and held her precariously over the hatch, where with the gentlest push she would plummet to her death.

Miss Temple extracted the revolver from her bag and stood, taking a moment to yank what was left of her petticoats into position over her revealing silk pants, relieved that no one was looking at whatever parts she had exposed sprawling on the settee. Chang and Svenson advanced past her to the far doorway, Chang with Xonck’s saber and Svenson availing himself of a cutlass from the cabinet. She stepped up between them, giving her petticoats just one more tug. The Prince and Lydia had not moved, rendered mute and still by the sudden fates of the Comte and Xonck, and by the truly vicious screaming that now reached them all from the wheelhouse.

The heated words passing back and forth between Caroline and the Contessa could not be made out over the roar of the open hatchway, but they were punctuated by the Contessa’s snarls of rage and Caroline’s shouts— tenacious, but terrified—the mix further complicated by the cries of the remaining crewman, who seemed by his pleading oaths to be German.

“Do not worry, Eloise,” Miss Temple called out. “We shall collect you directly.”

Still gagged, Eloise did not answer, for her gaze was fixed—indeed, it was held—on the freezing abyss beneath her, suspended by Lydia’s tight handful of her hair, while, a step behind, the Prince had wrapped his arms around Eloise’s legs. Wrists and ankles tied, Eloise could do nothing to prevent them dropping her through.

“Let her go!” cried Chang. “Your masters are down! You are alone!”

“Drop your weapons or the woman dies!” replied the Prince, shrilly.

“If you kill that woman,” said Chang, “I will kill you. I will kill you both. If you release her, I will not. That is the extent of our negotiation.”

The Prince and Lydia exchanged a nervous glance.

“Lydia,” called Doctor Svenson. “It is not too late—we can reverse what has been done! Karl—listen to me!”

“If we do release her—” began the Prince, but Lydia had begun speaking at the same time and overrode his words.

“Do not treat us like children! You have no idea what we know or what we are worth! You do not know— do you?—that all the land in Macklenburg purchased by my father was settled in my name!”

“Lydia—” attempted the Prince, but she swatted at him angrily and kept on.

“I am the next Princess of Macklenburg whether I marry or no—whether my father is alive or no—no matter if I am the only person alive on this craft! I insist you drop your weapons! I have done nothing to any of you—to anyone!”

She stared at them wildly, panting.

“Lydia—” The Prince had finally noticed the smear of blue across her lips, and glanced to Svenson, suddenly confused.

“Be quiet! Do not talk to them! Hold her legs!” Lydia’s stomach heaved again and she groaned painfully, spitting onto the front of her dress.

“You should be fighting them yourself!” she complained. “You should have killed all three of them! Why is everyone so useless!”

The crewman above them screamed, and at once the entire airship careened to the left. Chang went into the wall, Miss Temple into Chang, and Doctor Svenson to his knees, the cutlass sliding from his hand. The Prince fell toward the open hatch, keeping his hold on Eloise so he drove her like a ram into Lydia, knocking both women into the opening. Lydia screamed and hit the lip of the hatch with her thighs and began to slide through. Eloise disappeared up to her waist—only the Prince’s grip on her legs preventing her fall, a grip that was visibly slipping as he tried to decide whether to drop Eloise in order to save his bride.

“Hold her!” shouted Svenson, throwing himself forward to catch Lydia’s feverishly clawing hands.

The airship careened again in the other direction, just as suddenly. Miss Temple lost her balance as she tried to reach Svenson. Chang leapt past them both toward the Prince. The Prince retreated in terror, releasing his hold on Eloise, but Chang caught her legs, digging his fingers in her ropes, and braced his foot on the hatch plate. He shouted to Miss Temple and gestured to the wheelhouse.

“Stop them—they’ll kill us all!”

Miss Temple opened her mouth to protest, but as she watched—the Prince hunched in the corner beyond them—she saw Chang pull Eloise out to her hips, and Svenson do the same to Lydia.

She tightened her grip on the revolver and rushed to the stairs.

The second crewman lay draped over the topmost steps, blood bubbling on his lips. Lining either side of the wheelhouse were metal panels of levers and knobs, and at the far end, in front of the windows—where Miss Temple had first seen Doctor Lorenz from the roof—stood the wheel itself, made of brass and polished steel. Several levers had been broken off, with others jammed into positions that set the metal gears to grinding horribly. From the tilting floor it seemed certain the craft had swooned into a curve, spinning gently downwards.

In front of her lay Caroline Stearne, on her back, arms outstretched, an empty hand some inches from a bloody stiletto. Crouched on top of Caroline, her hair disheveled and her spike-hand smeared with blood like a glove, perched the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza. A crimson pool drained to the side with the angle of the floor. The Contessa looked up at Miss Temple and sneered.

“Why, look who it is, Caroline—your little charge.”

Her fist flashed forward, driving the spike into Caroline’s throat with a meaty smack, causing Miss Temple to flinch and Mrs. Stearne’s still body to react not at all.

“Where is everyone else?” she asked with a smirk. “Do not tell me you alone are left? Or if you’re here, I suppose it is more accurate to say I am the only one left. How typical.”

She rose to her feet, her dress dripping blood, and gestured with her free hand to the whining machinery.