Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

“What a disappointment. Is she so beautiful?” She laughed, as if she could not keep the pretense of it being a serious question. “Seriously, Cardinal—what is it that prevents you?”

“Now? I do not know where she is.”

“Ah…but if you did?”

He had not remembered the color of her eyes correctly, like petals of the palest purple iris flower. She wore a silk jacket of the precise same color. Dangling from her ears were beads of Venetian amber, fitted with silver. Her exquisite throat was bare.

“I still could not.”

“Is she so remarkable? Bascombe did not think so—but then, I would not ask a man like Bascombe for the truth about a woman. He is too…well, ‘practical’ is a kind word.”

“I agree.”

“So will you not describe her?”

“I believe you have met her yourself, Rosamonde. I believe you consigned her to rape and murder.”

“Did I?” Her eyes widened somewhat coyly.

“So she says.”

“Then I’m sure I must have.”

“So perhaps you should describe her.”

“But you see, Cardinal, that is exactly the trouble. For—and perhaps this is obvious—in my own interaction with the lady I judged her to be an insignificant insolent chit of no value whatsoever. Is there any more tea?”

“The pot is on the floor,” Chang said. He glanced to the table. Gray was still bent over Flauss.

“Dommage,” Rosamonde smiled. “You have not answered me.”

“Perhaps I’m unsure of the question.”

“I would think it evident. Why have you insisted on choosing her over me?”

If it was possible her smile became even more engaging, adding a tinge of sensuality to her lips, teasingly revealed as the first hint of explicit temptations to follow.

“I did not know it was my choice.”

“Really, Cardinal,…you will disappoint me.”

It was an odd conversation to have in the midst of toppled bodies, crouching princelings, and the trappings of scientific brutality—all in a secret room in the maze of the Foreign Ministry. He wondered what time it was. He wondered if Celeste was in another room nearby. This woman was the most dangerous of anyone in the Cabal. Why was he behaving like her suitor?

“Perhaps it had to do with your associates trying to kill me,” he replied.

She dismissed this with a wave. “But did they kill you?”

“Did you kill Miss Temple?”

“Touche.” She studied him. “Is it merely that? That she survived?”

“Perhaps it is. What else am I, but survival?”

“A provocative question—I shall inscribe it in my diary, I assure you.”

“Xonck knows, by the way,” he said, desperate to shift the conversation.

“Knows what?”

“That there are diverging interests.”

“It’s very charming of you to get ahead of yourself like this, but—and please do not take this as in any way a criticism—you were best to concentrate on mayhem and rooftops. What Mr. Xonck knows is my affair. Ah, Herr Flauss, I see you are with us.”

Chang turned to see the man on his feet next to the table, Gray at his side, his face livid with looping burns, the skin around them drawn and slick, his collar moist with sweat and drool. His eyes were disturbingly, utterly, vacant.

“I do admire you, Cardinal,” said Rosamonde.

He turned to her. “I’m flattered.”

“Are you?” She smiled. “I admire very few people, you know…and tell even fewer.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“I do not know.” Her voice dropped to a provocatively intimate whisper. “Perhaps what has happened to your eyes. I can glimpse the scars, and I can only imagine how terrible they are without your glasses. I expect they would repulse me, and yet at the same time I have imagined myself running my tongue across them with pleasure.” She gazed at him closely, then seemed to restore her composure. “But there it is, you see, now I am ahead of my own self. I do apologize. Mr. Gray?”

She turned to Gray, who had walked Flauss quite near to them. Chang was sickened by the man’s dead eyes, as if he were an example of ambulatory taxidermy. He turned away with discomfort, wishing he had been able to intervene more quickly—what had happened to Flauss was somehow worse than if he had been killed. A rattling choking snapped Chang’s gaze back—Gray’s hands were around Flauss’s neck from behind, throttling him. Chang half-rose from his chair, turning to Rosamonde. Hadn’t they done enough?

“What is he—”

The words died on his lips. Both of Flauss’s hands had shot forward and wrapped around Chang’s windpipe, squeezing horribly. He pulled at Flauss’s arms, tried to pry apart his grip. It was like steel, the man’s face still expressionless, the fingers digging into his neck. Chang could not breathe. He drove his knee into Flauss’s stomach, but there was still no reaction. The vise of his hands tightened. Black spots swam before Chang’s eyes. He wrenched apart his stick. Gray’s face was staring at him, over Flauss’s shoulder, Gray’s hands were still squeezing Flauss…Flauss was reacting to Gray! Chang drove the dagger into Gray’s forearm. The old man screamed and flung himself away, blood pouring from his wound. Released, Flauss immediately relaxed, his hands still in place around Chang’s neck but loosened. Chang thrashed free of his grip, sucking in air. He did not understand what had happened. He turned to Rosamonde. There was something in her gloved hand. She blew on it. A puff of blue smoke burst into Chang’s face.

The sensation was instantaneous. His throat clenched and then felt bitterly cold, as if he was swallowing ice. The bitter feeling flowed into his lungs and up through his head, wherever he had breathed in the powder. His stick and dagger fell from his hands. He could not speak. He could not move.

“Do not be alarmed,” said Rosamonde. “You are not dead.” She looked past Chang to the Prince, still on the floor. “Highness, if you would assist Mr. Gray with his bleeding?” She turned her violet gaze back to Chang. “What you are, Cardinal Chang,…is my own.” She reached out to take hold of Karl-Horst’s arm, stopping him on his way to Gray. “Actually, why doesn’t the Cardinal help Mr. Gray? I’m sure he has more experience staunching wounds than the Crown Prince of Macklenburg.”

He helped them with everything, his body answering her commands without question, his mind watching from within, as if from a terrible distance, through a frost-covered window. First he effectively bound Gray’s wound, then lifted Blach onto the table so Gray could examine his head. How long had this taken? Bascombe returned with several red-coated Dragoons and spoke to the Contessa. Bascombe nodded and whispered earnestly in the Prince’s ear. He then called to the others—the Dragoons lifted Blach, Gray took Flauss by the arm—and led them all from the circular room. Chang was alone with Rosamonde. She crossed to the door and locked it. She returned to him and pulled up a chair. He could not move. Her face bore an expression he had never seen, as if deliberately purged of the barest trace of kindness.

“You will find that you can hear me, and that you can respond in a rudimentary way—the powder in your lungs makes it impossible to speak. The effects will fade—unless I desire them to be permanent. For now I will be satisfied with a yes or no answer—a simple nod will suffice. I had hoped to sway you with conversation, or barring that give you over to the Process, but now there is no time and no one to properly assist—and I should be very annoyed to lose all of your information in a mishap.”

It was as if she was asking someone else. He felt himself nod in agreement, that he understood. Resistance was impossible—he could barely follow her words, and by the time he made sense of them his body had already answered.

“You have been with the Temple girl, and the Prince’s Doctor.”

Chang nodded.

“Do you know where they are now?”

He shook his head.