The Dark Volume

things would not be stolen, where she might put a printed postcard or a picture cut from a colored newspaper on the wall without it disappearing the next day—and her happiness, to begin to place her clothing in the cabinet, rejoicing in the extent of her possessions, shifting each piece with delight from shelf to shelf just to stretch out the task, beaming with pleasure at her escape from the degradations of the brothels that had so far been her life, chuckling with anticipation at the advantages she was sure to find, at the mere prospect of—

CHANG WRENCHED the shard from his palm and threw it into the wreckage, tearing the glove from his stricken hand, his concentration desperately held in the face of the continuing—a pulsing echo even after the glass was gone—repetition of Angelique's captured happiness pressing inescapably at his brain. The glove came off at last and he saw his palm starred with blue glass—newly made from contact with his own blood, a fat, flattened, still-biting spider—his fingers clutching at its impossibly cold burn. Thankful it had gone into his left hand, Chang pulled the razor from his pocket and flicked it open. With an excruciating burst of pain he sliced under the glass and then, blood pooling brightly beneath the blade, did his best to pry it up. For a moment it would not come, pulling cruelly. Chang bit his lip, digging deeper with the razor. The spiked lozenge of glass flipped free, leaving his palm a raw, seething mess. Chang swore aloud. He wrapped a handkerchief tight around the wound, pulling the knot with his teeth. He snatched up his stick and stumbled after Xonck—how much time had he lost? Chang reeled like a drunkard but kept going, the smell of her hair in his mind like a poison.

He burst back onto the main floor, past the unmoving elderly servant, striding too recklessly toward the center of the house. Ahead of him were jostling footsteps, voices, a crowd of people—Aspiche and his Dragoons? No, it was a gang of servants from Harschmort, all in Vandaariff's black livery, rushing ahead of him into the ballroom. Chang felt a spur of curiosity—it was easier than thinking—and followed. Someone shouted over the tumble of voices—a man just come in from the French doors. Chang could not see him, but his voice was loud and very angry.

“Let me have it!” the man cried. “There is no time!”

“But it is mine!” protested the servant.

“There is no time!” the man cried again, and lunged—Chang could tell from the sudden swirl of bodies—wrestling desperately for whatever it was he sought.

Without warning, the memory of Angelique in her room rose to swallow him once more. Again he was in her body, but this time more deeply, feeling so intimately the strength of her limbs, the weight of them, the particular distribution of female flesh, the pins in her hair, and all of it infused with her happiness.

He shook his head like a dog, keeping his glasses in place with his bandaged hand, wondering what had set off the spell—a perfume, the sight of an open cabinet? He had pried the glass out of his hand—the memory ought to be gone! And yet he could sense it still, gliding beneath the surface of his thoughts like a pike-fish in a pond, waiting to sink its sweet teeth into his scarcely coherent will. He snapped his eyes to the open French door and the suddenly motionless crowd of servants.

From the garden came a pistol shot, and then a hideous scream.

HE SHOULDERED his way into the garden. A second, more terrible fire had caused the ornamental garden to collapse in on the cathedral chamber below, leaving a massive ruined pit from which fumes and foul vapors continued to rise. Near to the edge, grappling like unnatural statues amidst the scorched greenery, were Francis Xonck and Mrs. Marchmoor. Xonck writhed against the glass woman's hand, two fingers of which were buried in his chest like a dagger. On the grass lay two men: one by his iron-grey hair and blue sash Chang knew as the Duke of Staelmaere; the other, his head bloodied, looked like a Ministry peon. Directly in front of Chang but facing the garden stood a second Ministry official, a smoking pistol extended in his hand. But the man hesitated to shoot again, for Mrs. Marchmoor and Francis Xonck were still entwined.

Chang had no such scruples. He stabbed the tip of his stick hard into the Ministry man's right kidney, deftly snatched the pistol as the man arched his back in pain, and then kicked the back of the fellow's knee, dropping him to the grass. Chang strode toward the conjoined pair of his enemies and fired, the pistol kicking at his grip. The bullet flew between them—it was not his weapon, or perhaps he could not choose which of the two he more wanted to kill—and cut across Margaret Hooke's wrist, chipping the glass and sending a single pale fissure forward into her hand. Xonck grunted with pain and twisted, exerting pressure on the damaged hand. As Chang aimed again, her wrist began to give, puffs of blue smoke rising out from the cracks. Xonck hurled himself away, screaming with agony, and the hand sheared off, its jagged stump sparking glass chips like the spout of a spitting kettle.

Chang staggered, as if he had borne the great blast of a silent explosion. He looked behind him. The servants of Harschmort had as one collapsed to their hands and knees, holding their heads in pain. He could not hear. He looked back to Mrs. Marchmoor, waving her broken limb like a smoking branch, staggering. Xonck was on his back, pulling at the shattered fingers still penetrating his chest. How had the silent explosion of Margaret Hooke's anguish left him standing while flattening everyone else?

Chang raised the pistol for another shot. Angelique… He felt the rising sensation of her flesh once more, in every limb—he shook his head, it was no time—it was never time, was not right, could not be borne, how could she be in him when he knew she had not cared? He blinked his eyes—he could not free his mind—he could not see—he fired blindly at the woman, then just as recklessly at Xonck. Angelique would not leave him. Chang thrashed like a bull beset with stinging bees, except the bees were all beneath his skin. He moaned at the complete idiocy of his predicament, even as he sank helpless to his knees, and his mind surrendered to the feel of silk pyjamas.

Six. Canal

DOCTOR SVENSON stared at the purple stone in the trainsman's open palm for three seconds, just long enough for the men encircling him to take in his silence and the stricken pallor of his face, before reaching to take it with his left hand, his right occupied with Mr. Potts' revolver. The man who had spoken still indicated with an extended arm the first compartment car of the train. Without a word Svenson walked toward it, his pace quickening. He was up the five iron stairs in two steps, and then, far too soon it seemed, standing at the compartment's open door.

Eloise lay in her black dress, with one arm pinned beneath her and the other awkwardly splayed above her head. Svenson set the revolver on the nearest seat and sank to his knees, whispering her name. Be hind in the corridor came shuffling bootsteps. Svenson turned, aware that his face was flushed and that his voice held firm by the scarcest margin.

“Send men to search! The killers! They could still be anywhere!” Svenson shifted forward, stuffing the purple stone into the pocket of his trousers, again whispering her name as if it were a spell. He placed two fingers against the pulse in her throat. Her flesh was still warm… but cooling… he felt nothing… but then—some birdlike tremor, was it possible? No, his own hands were shaking—he was unable to perform a simple examination, nerves of an untempered student. If he had only been here sooner, even a few minutes! His boots ground unpleasantly against the floor. He looked down and saw glittering dust—a scattering of shattered blue glass across the polished wood.

Francis Xonck. If Svenson had not been such a helpless wretch at the mining camp—if it had been Chang instead of him—Eloise might still be living.

He delicately rolled her onto her back, wincing at the lifeless loll of her head—at the base of her sternum, a dark circle, smaller than his monocle, soaking the black fabric and catching the lantern light… blood. The relatively small amount spoke to a deep, suddenly mortal wound. He touched the stain with a finger to judge how long ago it had occurred.

The stain was solid and clicked against his nail, like a shining black coin set into the cloth. It was glass.

“A knife—sharp as you have—at once!”

He snapped his fingers as the men hurriedly patted their pockets, aware he was again burying heartbreak under a shovelful of useless effort. He looked down at Eloise's impossibly pale face…

Doctor Svenson's breath stopped. Was it only the light? At once he feverishly dug into his coat. A man stepped forward with a knife.

“Not now—not now!” he cried, and pulled free his silver cigarette case.

He rubbed the shining surface violently across his trouser-leg and leaned forward, cradling her head and holding the polished metal directly before her parted lips. He waited… waited… bit his lip hard enough to draw blood… and then felt a surge of desperate joy as the surface fogged ever so delicately, an infinitesimal