The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (34 page)

“I
mean,
” Chang said, “that they believe that we are agents of a larger power—a cabal opposing their interests that has hitherto existed without their knowledge. They are so arrogant as to think that such a body—a mighty union of insidious talents like themselves!—is all that could possibly threaten them. The idea that they have been attacked by the haphazard actions of three isolated individuals—for whom they have contempt? It is the last thing they could believe.”

“Only because it does not flatter them,” Miss Temple sniffed.

Doctor Svenson was in the other room, asleep. His coat and boots were being cleaned. For a time Miss Temple and Chang had spoken about his experience of the hotel, and the coincidence that had brought all three of them together, but the conversation had fallen into silence. Miss Temple studied the man across from her, trying to make palpable sense of the knowledge that he was a criminal, a killer. What she saw was a certain kind of animal elegance—or, if not elegance, efficiency—and a manner that seemed both brazen and restrained. She knew this was the embodiment of experience, and she found it an attractive quality—wanting it for herself—even as she found the man daunting and disquieting. His features were sharp and his voice was flat and raw, and direct to a point just before insolence. She was intensely curious to know what he thought of her—what he had thought when he saw her on the train, and what he thought now, seeing her normal self—but could not ask him any of these things. She felt he must somehow despise her—despise the hotel room, the tea, the entirety of her life—for if she herself were not born to privilege, she was sure she would carry with her a general hatred for it every day of her life.

Cardinal Chang watched her from his chair. She smiled at him, and reached into her green bag.

“Perhaps you will help me, for I am only now tackling the matter…” She pulled out the revolver and placed it on the table between them. “I have sent out for more ammunition, but have little sense of the weapon itself. If you are knowledgeable about it, I would appreciate any advice you can give me.”

Chang leaned forward and took the revolver in his hand, cocking it, and then slowly easing the hammer down. “I am not one for firearms,” he said, “but I know enough to load and fire and keep a weapon clean.” She nodded with anticipation. He shrugged. “We will need a cloth…”

Over the next half an hour he showed her how to reload, to aim, to break the gun apart, to clean it, to put it back together. When she had done this for herself, to her own satisfaction, she put the pistol back on the table and looked up at him, finally broaching the question she had withheld all that time.

“And what about killing?” she asked.

Chang did not immediately respond.

“I would appreciate your advice,” she prompted.

“I thought you were already a killer,” observed Chang. He was not smiling at her, which she appreciated.

“Not with this,” she said, indicating the revolver.

She realized that he was still trying to decide if she was serious. She waited, a firm expression in her eyes. When Chang spoke, he was watching her very closely.

“Get as close as you can—grind the barrel into the body—there’s no reason to shoot unless you mean to kill.”

Miss Temple nodded.

“And stay calm. Breathe. You will kill better—and you’ll die better too, if it comes to that.” She saw that he was smiling. She looked into his black lenses.

“You live with that possibility, don’t you?”

“Don’t we all?”

She took a deep breath, for all of this was going a bit too quickly. She put the revolver back into her bag. Chang watched her stow it away.

“If you didn’t kill them with that, how did you kill them? The two men.”

She found she could not easily answer him.

“I—well, one of them—I—it was very dark—I…”

“You do not need to tell me,” he said quietly.

She took another heavy breath and let it out slowly.

It was after another minute that Miss Temple was able to ask Chang what his plans for the day had been, before seeing them in the corridor. She indicated the papers and maps and explained her own intentions, and then noted that she ought to return to her rooms, if only to allay the worries of her aunt. She also remembered the two glass cards that Doctor Svenson had placed on the table.

“You really should look at them, particularly as you have seen some of their strange glasswork for yourself. The experience is unlike anything else I have known—it is both powerful and diabolical. You’ll think I am foolish, but I promise you I know enough to see that in these cards is another kind of opium, and in the books you describe—an
entire
book—well, I cannot imagine it is anything but a splendid—or indeed, horrid—prison.”

Chang leaned forward to pick up one of the cards, turning it over in his hand.

“One of them shows the experience—I cannot explain it—of Roger Bascombe. I myself make an appearance. Believe me, it is most disquieting. The other shows the experience of Mrs. Marchmoor—your Margaret Hooke—and is even
more
disquieting. I will say no more, only that it were better to view it in discreet solitude. Of course, to view either, you will really have to remove your spectacles.”

Chang looked up at her. He pulled the glasses from his face and folded them into his pocket. She did not react. She had seen similar faces on her plantation, though never sitting across the tea table. She smiled at him politely, then nodded to the card in his hand.

“They really are the most lovely color blue.”

Miss Temple left Cardinal Chang with the instruction that he should call for whatever meal the Doctor required upon waking, for which she would sign upon her return. She had her arms full of newspapers and books as she reached her own rooms, and kicked on the door three times instead of shifting her burdens to find her key. After a moment of rustling footsteps, the door was opened by Marthe. Miss Temple entered and dropped the pile of papers on the main table. Her aunt sat where she had left her, sipping a cup of tea. Before she could voice a reproof, Miss Temple spoke to her.

“I must ask you several questions, Aunt Agathe, and I will require your honest replies. You may be able to help me, and I will be very grateful for the assistance.” She fixed her aunt with a firm look at the word “grateful” and then turned back to Marthe, to ask for Marie. Marthe pointed to Miss Temple’s dressing room. Miss Temple entered to see Marie quickly folding and arranging a row of silk underthings on top of the ironing table. She stepped back as Miss Temple swept in and was silent as her mistress examined her purchases.

Miss Temple was extremely pleased, going even so far as to give Marie a congratulatory smile. Marie then pointed out the box of cartridges that sat by the mirror, and gave Miss Temple the receipts and leftover money. Miss Temple quickly scrutinized the figures and, satisfied, gave Marie an extra two coins for her efforts. Marie bobbed in surprise at the coins and again as Miss Temple motioned her out of the room. The door shut behind her, Miss Temple smiled again and turned to her purchases. The silk felt delicious between her fingers. She was happy to see that Marie had been smart enough to select a green that matched the dress she was wearing, and her boots. In the mirror, Miss Temple saw her own beaming face and blushed, looking away. She composed herself, cleared her throat, and called for her maids.

After the two young women had taken apart her dress and corset, helped her into the green silk undergarments, and then restored her outer layers, Miss Temple—her entire body tickling with enjoyment—carried the box of cartridges to the main table. With all the casual efficiency she could muster, recalling each step of Chang’s instruction, she struck up a conversation with her aunt, and as she spoke, spun the cylinder, snapped it open, and smoothly loaded each empty chamber with a shell.

“I have been reading the newspapers, Aunt,” she began.

“It seems you have enough of them.”

“And do you know what I have learned? I saw the most astonishing announcement about Roger Bascombe’s uncle, Lord Tarr.”

Aunt Agathe pursed her lips. “You should not be bothering with—”

“Did you see the announcement?”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?”

“There is so much that I do not remember, my dear—”

“That he has been
murdered,
Aunt.”

Her aunt did not reply at once. When she did, it was merely to say, “Ah.”

“Ah,” echoed Miss Temple.

“He was quite gouty,” observed her aunt, “something dire was bound to happen. I understand it was wolves.”

“Apparently not. Apparently the wound was altered to
implicate
wolves.”

“People will do anything,” muttered Agathe.

She reached to pour more tea. Miss Temple slapped the cylinder back into position and spun it. At the noise, her aunt froze in position, eyes wide in alarm. Miss Temple leaned forward and spoke as deliberately and patiently as she could.

“My dear Aunt, you must accept that the money you need is in my possession, and thus, despite our difference in age, that I am your mistress. These are facts. Your position will not be helped by frustrating me. On the contrary, the more we work in concert, the more I promise your situation will improve. I have no wish to be your enemy, but you must see that your previous sense of what was best—my marriage to Roger Bascombe—is no longer appropriate.”

“If you were not so
difficult
—” her aunt burst out, stopping herself just as quickly.

Miss Temple glared at her with unmitigated rage. Aunt Agathe recoiled as if from a snake.

“I am sorry, my dear,” whispered the frightened woman, “I merely—”

“I do not care.
I do not care!
I am not asking about Lord Tarr because I
care
! I am asking because—though you do not know it—others have been murdered as well, and Roger Bascombe is in the thick of it—and now he will be the next Lord Tarr! I do not know how Roger Bascombe has become his uncle’s heir. But you do, I am sure—and you are going to tell me this minute.”

Miss Temple stalked down the corridor toward the stairwell, the clutch bag around her wrist, heavy with the revolver and an extra handful of cartridges. She snorted with annoyance and tossed her head—
difficult
—and cursed her aunt for a small-minded old fool. All the woman thought of was her pension and her propriety, and the number of parties she might be invited to as the relation of a rising Ministry official like Roger. Miss Temple wondered why she should even be surprised—her aunt had only known her for three months, but had been acquainted with the Bascombes for years. How long she must have planned, and how sharp had been her disappointment, Miss Temple sneered. But that her aunt held
her
at fault stung to the quick.

Yet under pressure she had answered her niece’s questions, though her answers just added to the mystery. Roger’s cousins—the over-fed Pamela and the younger but no less porcine Berenice—both had infant sons of their own, each of whom should have assumed Lord Tarr’s title and lands before Roger. Yet both had signed a paper to waive their children’s claims, to abdicate, and clear the way for Roger’s inheritance and ennoblement. Miss Temple did not understand how Roger had managed this, for he was not especially wealthy, and she knew each woman well enough to be sure that no small sum would have satisfied either. The cash had been supplied by others, by Crabbé or his cohorts, that was obvious enough. But what was so important about Roger, and how did his advancement possibly relate to the various other plots and murders she had stumbled into? Further—though she told herself the question was merely academic—as Roger took up the rightful property of his cousins, what was he giving up of himself, and for what grand purpose?

In short order she had also learned—for her aunt followed the city’s gossip with an evangelical fervor—the owner of Harschmort, the occasion of the masked ball, the reputations of Prince Karl-Horst and his bride (wretched and unsullied, respectively), and what she could about the various other names she had heard: Xonck, Lacquer-Sforza, d’Orkancz, Crabbé, Trapping, and Aspiche. The latter two her aunt did not know—though she was acquainted with the tragedy of Trapping’s disappearance. Crabbé she knew by way of the Bascombes, but even that family concentrated their attention on the Chief Minister, and not his respected deputy—he was a figure in the government, but hardly public. As the Xonck family’s fame was by way of business, it was significantly less interesting to her aunt—though she had
heard
of them—who was generally attracted to titles (indeed, Robert Vandaariff’s elevation within Agathe’s mind to the rank of a Man who Mattered had only occurred upon his becoming a Lord, though Miss Temple understood that at a certain point such a man
must
be made a Lord, lest the government appear peripheral to
him
). Francis Xonck was of course a figure of scandal, though no one knew exactly why—there were whispers about deviant tastes from abroad newly appeared—but his elder siblings were merely substantial. The Comte d’Orkancz her aunt only knew as a patron of the opera—apparently he was born in some dire Balkan enclave, raised in Paris, and inherited family titles and wealth after a particularly devastating series of house fires cleared the way. Beyond this, Agathe could merely say he was a man of serious refinement, learned and severe, who could have been at a university if those university people were not so very dreadful. The final name, which Miss Temple had put to her aunt with a quaver in her otherwise sure interrogation, met with a hapless shrug. The Contessa Lacquer-Sforza was of course
known,
but nothing seemed to be known
about
her. She had arrived in the city the previous autumn—Agathe smiled, and observed that it must have been very near to when Miss Temple herself had arrived. Agathe had never seen the lady, but she was said to rival Princess Clarissa or Lydia Vandaariff for beauty. She smiled and sweetly asked her niece if
she
had seen the Contessa, and if that were indeed the case. Miss Temple merely snapped that of course not, she had seen none of these people—she saw no one in society unless during her excursions with Roger—and certainly none of these figures from the very cream of the continent. She snorted that the Roger Bascombe
she
had known was hardly the type to mix with such company. Her aunt, with a rueful shake of her head, admitted this was true.