The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (29 page)

Svenson thrust himself to his feet—his hands felt raw, his knee bruised, ankle complaining. As he bent to recover the pistol another shot rang out from the window. He turned to see Blach, one hand holding a bloody handkerchief to his face, the other with his smoking pistol, fixing Svenson in his sights. Svenson could not move fast enough. Blach squeezed the trigger, his eyes ablaze with hatred. The hammer landed on an empty chamber. Blach swore viciously and broke open the gun, knocking the empty shells out the window, digging for fresh cartridges. Svenson scooped up his weapon and ran.

He did not know where he was. He kept on until he was winded, doing his best to lose pursuit—dodging from street to street and cutting through what open lots and parks he could find. He finally collapsed in a small churchyard, sitting with his head in his hands on the ancient, cracked cover of a tomb, his chest heaving, his body spent. The light had grown—it was full morning—and the open space between objects struck him as almost shockingly clear. But instead of this making the events of his night seem unreal, Svenson found it was the day he could not trust. The weathered white stone, the worn letters spelling “Thackaray” under his fingers, the leafless branches above—none of these answered the relentless strange world he had entered. For a moment he wondered if he had eaten opium and was in that instant lying stupefied in a Chinaman’s den, and all of this a twisting dream. He rubbed his eyes and spat.

Svenson knew that he was no real spy, nor any kind of soldier. He was lost. His ankle throbbed, his hands were scraped, he had not eaten, his throat was raw, and his head felt like a block of rotten cheese from the Comte’s drug. He forced himself to remove his boot and palpate his tender ankle—it was not broken, nor probably even seriously sprained, he would simply have to treat it carefully. He scoffed at that unlikely prospect and pulled the revolver from his pocket, breaking it open. There were two cartridges left—he had no others with him. He stuffed it back in his pocket, and realized that the bulk of his money was still at the compound with his box of shells. He’d lost his medical kit, and was for the moment stuck in his uniform and greatcoat that, while a relatively restrained Prussian blue, nevertheless set him apart in a crowd.

His face stung. He brought up a hand to feel dried blood and a small splinter of wood still lodged below his right cheekbone. He delicately pulled it free and pressed a handkerchief to his face. Doctor Svenson realized that he desperately wanted a cigarette. He fished in his coat for his case, extracted one and then snapped a match alight off of his thumb. The smoke hit his lungs with an exquisite tug and he exhaled slowly. Taking his time, he worked his way to the butt, concentrating only on his breathing and on each successive plume of smoke sent over the gravestones. He tossed the butt into a puddle and lit another. He didn’t want to be light-headed, but the tobacco was restoring some of his resolve. As he replaced the case his hand bumped the glass cards in his pocket. He had forgotten the second card, from Trapping. He looked around him—the churchyard was still quite abandoned and the buildings around it void of any visible activity. Svenson pulled out the card—it looked identical to the one he had taken from the Prince’s chamber. Would he be looking into the mind of Arthur Trapping and see some clue about how he had died? He set his burning cigarette down on the tomb next to him and looked into the card.

It took a moment for the blue veil to part, but once it had Svenson found himself amidst a confusing swirl of images, moving rapidly from one to another without any logic he could discern. It was less as if he occupied another’s actual experience—as with Mrs. Marchmoor’s encounter with the Prince—so much as their free-floating mind, or even perhaps their dreams. He pulled his gaze up from the card and exhaled. He was shaking, it was just as involving, he had been as much outside of himself as before. He tapped the growing cylinder of ash from his cigarette and took a long drag. He set it down again and gathered himself for a second, more focused visit.

The first images were in a fussy, well-appointed interior—a carpeted room of dark wood and glass lamps, delicate Chinoiserie and thickly upholstered furniture—and a woman sitting on a sofa, a young woman only a part of whose body Svenson could see—her bare forearms and her small hands as they clutched the upholstery, and then her shapely calves just emerging from under her dress as she stretched her legs, and then to her charming green ankle boots…each glimpse imbued with a particular proprietary hunger from the gaze he was inhabiting.

From here the card jumped abruptly to a rocky scene, a high view into a pit of grey stone—a quarry?—below an only slightly less grey sky. Suddenly Svenson was
in
the pit, the feel of gravel against his knee—kneeling, bending over a seam of colored stone within the rock—a dark stubbled indigo. An arm—his arm, which was young, strong, in a black coat—and a hand in a black leather glove reached forward to touch the seam of blue, digging a finger into it and crumbling out a loose chunk, as if it were a chalky sort of clay.

The next movement began as one of standing up in the quarry, but as his point of vision rose, the scene around him changed, so that when he was fully upright he was in a winter orchard—apple trees, he thought—the base of each trunk packed with straw. His gaze moved to his left and he saw a high stone wall and a weathered hedgerow, and behind them both the peaked rooftop of a country manor.

He turned farther to his left and found himself facing Harald Crabbé, who was smirking, leaning back and looking out the window of a coach—the window beyond it showing a country wood racing past. Crabbé turned to him—to whomever this was—and quite clearly mouthed the words “your decision”…and turned back to the window.

The window now opened onto another room, a curving stone hallway, ending in a metal-banded door. The door swung open and revealed a cavernous chamber, ringed with machinery, a massive man leaning over a table, his broad back obscuring the identity of the woman strapped to it, a woman…Svenson suddenly recognized the room—at the Institute, where he had rescued the Prince.

He looked up from the card. There was more—in the gaps, almost like a window streaming with rain—that he could not clearly see. His cigarette had gone out. He debated lighting another, but knew that he must really decide what to do. He had no idea if they were still searching. If so, they would reach the churchyard eventually. He had to find somewhere he could stay in safety. Or, he countered, he had to seize the bull by the horns. At what point was the Prince beyond aid? Svenson could not in conscience abandon him. He could not go back to the compound—he did not trust Flaüss—and he still had no idea where to find the man in red or Isobel Hastings. If he was not going to simply find a place to hide, the only avenue he had left, however foolish it seemed, was to try once more to confront Madame Lacquer-Sforza. Surely during the busy scramble of morning it would be safe to approach the St. Royale. There were two bullets left in his pistol—more than enough to convince her, if he could just gain entry.

He looked down and saw that he had not replaced his boot, and did so, gingerly pulling it up around his still-throbbing ankle. He stood and took a few steps. Now that the rush of adrenalized fear had faded, he felt the pain more keenly, but he knew he could walk on it—indeed, that he had no choice. All it needed was rest. He would exhaust this last possibility for information and then find some place to sleep—whether he could return safely to Macklenburg he did not know. Svenson sighed heavily and limped from the churchyard, retracing his steps to a narrow alley that ran next to the church. The sun was behind clouds—he had no real idea which direction was which. At the alley’s end he looked around him, and then back at the church with its open doors. He entered the dark interior and made his way down the aisle, nodding to the few figures at worship, walking steadily to the base of the bell tower, which must have a staircase. He strode past the puzzled priest with his best scowl of medical authority and snapped a brusque “Good day to you, Father—your bell tower?” He nodded gravely as the man pointed in the direction of a small door. Svenson walked to it and stepped through, inwardly groaning at the number of steps he was going to climb with his injured ankle. He did his best to trot briskly until he was out of the priest’s view, and then favored the foot by hopping on the other and holding the rail. He was perhaps seventy galling steps into the climb when he came to a narrow window covered with a wooden shutter. He pushed it open, dislodging an accretion of pigeon droppings and feathers, and smiled. From this height he could see the curving silver loop of the river, the green of Circus Garden, the white stone mass of the Ministries, and the open plaza of St. Isobel’s Square. Between them all, its high red-tiled roof spires tipped with black and gold pennants, he found the St. Royale.

He descended as quickly as possible and dropped a coin into the collection box. Once on the street, he traveled through narrow alleys and residential lanes, keeping close to the walls. He passed a block of warehouses, swarming with men loading crates of all shapes onto carts. In the middle of it all was a small canteen, tucked between a storehouse of grain and another of raw fabric, rolling past in colorful bales. Svenson purchased a cup of boiled coffee and three fresh rolls. He tore them apart as he walked, the pith steaming, and drank the coffee as slowly as he could make himself, so as not to burn his mouth. He began to feel a bit more human as he neared the merchants’ district near St. Isobel’s—so much that he became self-conscious of his gashed face and disheveled greatcoat. He smoothed his hair back and swatted the dust from his coat—it would have to do—and strode ahead with what bluster he could manage. He imagined himself as Major Blach, which was at least entertaining.

Svenson skirted the hotel by a curving path of service alleys behind a row of fashionable restaurants, at this time of day thronged with deliveries of produce and slaughtered fowl. He had been careful, and perhaps lucky, to progress so far unobserved. Any attempt to take him would be swift and unforgiving. At the same time, his enemies were powerful enough to sway any mechanism of law. The slightest infraction—let alone shooting one of the Comte’s men in the street—could send him to prison, or straight to the gallows. He stood at the alley’s end, facing onto Grossmaere, the broad avenue that, two blocks away, ran past the St. Royale. He first looked in the opposite direction (it was possible that their line of sentries was farther away) but saw no one, or at least saw none of the Comte’s men or Blach’s troopers. With the involvement of Crabbé—or, heaven forbid, Vandaariff—there could be any number of other minions enlisted to find and kill him.

He looked toward the hotel. Could they be watching from above? The traffic was thick—it was by now well after nine o’clock—and the morning’s business in full throng. Svenson took a breath and stepped out, keeping across the street from the hotel, walking close to the walls and behind other pedestrians, his right hand on the revolver in his pocket. He kept his gaze on the hotel, glancing quickly into each shop front or lobby that he passed. At the corner he trotted across and leaned casually against the wall, peering around. The St. Royale was across the avenue. He still saw no one he could place as a sentry. It made no sense. He had already been found here once, trying to see her. Why would they not, even as a contingency, consider he would do the same again? He wondered if the real trap lay inside—perhaps in another private room—where he could be dealt with outside the public view. The possibility made his errand more dangerous, for he would not know until the last moment whether he was safe or not. Still, he’d made his choice. Grimly resolved, Svenson continued down the sidewalk.

He was nearly opposite the hotel when his view became blocked by two delivery carts whose horses had run afoul of each other. The drivers cursed loudly as men jumped from each cart to disentangle the harnesses and carefully back up each team. This caused the coaches behind to stop in turn—with another eruption of curses from each newly inconvenienced driver. Svenson could not help being distracted—his attention on the two carts as they finally worked themselves free and passed by, their drivers each offering one last particularly foul epithet—and so he found himself directly across from the hotel’s front entrance when the avenue had cleared. Before him, splendidly arrayed in a violet dress brilliantly shot with silver thread, black gloves, and a delicate black hat, stood Madame Lacquer-Sforza. Next to her, once more in a striped dress—now of blue and white—stood Miss Poole. Svenson immediately shrank away, pressing against the windows of a restaurant. They did not see him. He waited—scanning the street in either direction—ecstatic that he might be able to speak to her without entering the hotel, without being trapped. He swallowed, glanced for an opening in the coach traffic, and stepped forward.

His foot had just left the paved sidewalk for the cobbled street when he froze and then instantly scrambled backwards. From behind the two women had emerged Francis Xonck—now wearing an elegant yellow morning coat and top hat—tugging on a pair of yellow kidskin gloves. With a handsome smile he bent and whispered something that spurred Miss Poole to blush and giggle and Madame Lacquer-Sforza to wryly smile. Xonck extended an arm for each woman and stepped between them as they hooked their arms in his. He nodded toward the street and for a horrified moment Svenson thought he had been seen—he was more or less in plain sight—but saw that Xonck referred to an open coach that was even then drawing to them, blocking Svenson’s view. In the coach sat the Comte d’Orkancz, in his fur, his expression dark. The Comte made no effort to speak or acknowledge the others as they entered the coach, Xonck assisting each woman and climbing in last. Madame Lacquer-Sforza sat next to the Comte. She leaned to whisper in his ear. He—grudgingly, but as if he too were unable to resist—smiled. At this Xonck grinned, showing his white teeth, and Miss Poole burst into another fit of giggles. The coach pulled away. Svenson turned and reeled down the street.