Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

“Mrs. Wells?”

Still Mrs. Wells did not answer. Very quickly, and before she could slam the book, Chang darted forward and snatched the banknote away from her. She looked up at him in surprise.

“I am happy to pay for whatever you know, but not for abject silence.”

She smiled as slowly and deliberately as a blade being unsheathed. “I am sorry, Cardinal, I was merely thinking. I do not know the girl you speak of. I do not know the name, and none of mine came home so bloodied. I would certainly have heard, and as certainly demanded reparations.”

She stopped, smiling. There was more, he saw it in her eyes. He returned the banknote. She took it, placed it in the heavy ledger as a bookmark, and closed the book. Chang waited. Mrs. Wells chuckled, a particularly unpleasant noise.

“Mrs. Wells?”

“It is nothing,” she replied. “Merely that you are the third to come asking for this same creature.”

“Ah.”

“Indeed.”

“Might I ask who those others were?”

“You might.” She smiled, but did not move, a silent request for more money. Chang was torn. On one hand, he had already paid her far more than he should. On the other, if he attacked her with his razor, he’d have to deal with the two men at the door.

“I believe I have been fair with you, Mrs. Wells…have I not?”

She chuckled again, setting his teeth on edge. “You have, Cardinal, and will be so in the future, I trust. These others were less…respectful. So I will tell you that the first was this morning, a young lady claiming to be this person’s sister, and the second, just an hour ago, a man in uniform, a soldier.”

“A red uniform?”

“No no, it was black. All black.”

“And the woman”—he tried to think of Rosamonde—“she was tall? Black hair? Violet eyes? Beautiful?” Mrs. Wells shook her head.

“Not black hair. Light brown. And she was pretty enough—or would have been without the burns on her face.” Mrs. Wells smiled. “Around the eyes, you know. Such a dreadful thing to have happen. Windows to the soul, don’t you know.”

Chang stalked back to the Raton Marine in a fury. It would have been one thing to learn that he was but one of several out to find this woman, but when he himself was so close to dire exposure in the same affair—whether he’d actually killed Trapping or not, he could just as easily hang for it—it was doubly maddening. His mind was spinning with suspicion. When he reached the Raton Marine it was nearly dark. No word had come from John Carver. Not quite ready to question his client directly, he began walking to the next likely house, near the law courts. This was known as the Second Bench, and was not too far and in a marginally safer location. He could thrash through his thoughts on the way.

As he forced himself to break the parts into discrete elements, he admitted that it was not strange that Mrs. Wells did not know his Persephone. When he had seen her on the train, there was the distinct sense that the image she then made was spectacular—that it was unusual to her, however telling or revelatory, or however large a story lay behind it. Her curls, though bloody and ruined, bespoke a certain care—perhaps the assistance of a servant. This would mean the Second Bench, or even the third house he had in mind, the Old Palace. These respectively offered an escalating class of whore, and served an escalating class of clientele. Each house was a window into a particular stratum of the city’s traffic in flesh. Chang himself could patronize the Palace only when he possessed significant cash, and even then solely because of services rendered its manager. The unsavory nature of the South Quays only raised the question of how the other two searchers had found it, or thought to go there. The soldier he could understand, but the woman—her sister? There were, frankly, only so many ways a woman would know of such a place’s existence, for the South Quays was nearly invisible to the greater population. That Rosamonde would know of it, for example, he would find more surprising than a personal letter from the Pope. But the others searching did know. Who were they, and whom did they serve? And who was this woman they all sought?

This did nothing to support his client’s story of her poor murdered friend, who could be no disconnected innocent, but someone about whom other issues—inheritance? title? incrimination?—must be spinning, all of which she had withheld in their interview. Chang cast his mind back to the train, looking into those unreadable grey eyes. Was he looking at a killer, or a witness? And if she had killed…as an assassin, or in defense? Each possibility altered the motives of those searching for her. That none of them had gone to the police —even if it was at the specific, powerful request of Robert Vandaariff—did not reflect well on anyone’s good intentions.

Not that good intentions were any normal part of Chang’s life. The Second Bench was his usual choice in brothels, though this had more to do with a desire to balance his financial resources against the likelihood of disease than with any particular merits of the house. Still, he was acquainted with the staff and with the current manager, a fat greasy fellow with a shaved head named Jurgins who wore a number of large rings on his fingers— the very image of a modern court eunuch, it always seemed to Chang. Jurgins affected a jolly manner, though this was pushed aside like a curtain every time money came into the conversation, to be shot back into place once his insistent greed was no longer at the fore. As so many of the place’s customers were drawn from business and the law, this mercenary manner was barely noticed, and certainly no cause for offense.

After a few quiet words with the men at the door, Chang was guided into Jurgins’s private room, hung with tapestries and lit with crystal lamps whose shades dangled all kinds of delicate fringe, the air so thick with incense that even Chang found it oppressive. Jurgins sat at his desk, knowing Chang well enough to both see him alone and to also keep the door open with a bodyguard at close call. Chang sat in the chair opposite, and removed a banknote from his coat. He held it up for Jurgins to see. Jurgins could not help but tap his fingertips on the desk with anticipation.

“What may we do for you today, Cardinal?” He nodded at the banknote. “A formal request for something elaborate? Something…exotical?”

Chang forced a neutral smile. “My business is simple. I am looking for a young woman whose name may be Isobel Hastings, who would have arrived back here—or at another such establishment—early this morning, in a black cloak, and quite covered in blood.”

Jurgins frowned thoughtfully, nodding.

“So, I am looking for her.”

Jurgins nodded again. Chang met his gaze, and deliberately smiled. Out of a natural sycophantic impulse, Jurgins smiled as well.

“I am also”—Chang paused for companionable emphasis—“interested in the two people who have already wasted your time asking for her.”

Jurgins smiled broadly. “I see. I see indeed. You’re a clever man—I have always said it.”

Chang smiled thinly at the compliment. “I would expect them to be a man in a black uniform and a woman, brown hair, well-dressed, with a…burn of strange design around her eyes. Would that be accurate?”

“It would!” Jurgins grinned. “He came first thing this morning—he woke me up—and she some time after luncheon.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“What I will be forced to tell you, I’m afraid. The name means nothing. And I have heard no news about such a bloody girl, neither from here or any other house. I am sorry.”

Chang leaned forward and dropped the banknote onto the desk. “No matter. I did not expect that you had. Tell me about the other two.”

“It was just as you said. The man was an officer of some kind—I do not follow the military, you know—and perhaps your own age, quite the insistent brute, not understanding that I was not of his command, if you get me. The woman said the girl was her sister, quite lovely—as you say, except for the burn. Even then, we get people who fancy that kind of thing directly.”

“And what were their names—or the names they gave you?”

“The officer called himself Major Black.” Jurgins smirked at its obvious falseness.