The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (97 page)

“You two will come with me.”

They walked in front of him, directed at each turn by blunt monosyllabic commands, until they stood at an aggressively carved wooden door. Their captor looked about him quickly and unlocked it, ushering them through. He followed them in, showing a surprising swiftness for a man of his size, and once more locked the door, tucking the key—one of many on a silver chain, Miss Temple saw—back into a waistcoat pocket.

“It will be better to speak in isolation,” he announced, looking at them with a cold gaze that in its flat and bland nature belied a capacity for pragmatic cruelty. He shifted the carbine in his hand with dangerous ease.

“You will put that bottle on the table next to you.”

“Would you like that?” asked Miss Temple, her face all blank politeness.

“You will do it at once,” he answered.

Miss Temple looked about the room. Its ceilings were high and painted with scenes of nature—jungles and waterfalls and expansively dramatic skies—that she assumed must represent someone’s idea of Africa or India or America. On each wall were display cases of weapons and artifacts and animal trophies—stuffed heads, skins, teeth, and claws. The floors were thickly carpeted and the furniture heavily upholstered in comfortable leather. The room smelled of cigars and dust, and Miss Temple saw behind Mr. Blenheim an enormous sideboard bearing more bottles than she thought were made in the civilized world, and reasoned that, given the exploratory nature of the decor, there must among them be many liquors and potions from the dark depths of primitive cultures. Mr. Blenheim cleared his throat pointedly, and with a deferent nod she placed her bottle where he had indicated. She glanced to Elöise and met the woman’s questioning expression. Miss Temple merely reached out and took hold of Elöise’s hand—the hand that held the blue glass card—effectively covering it with her own.

“So, you’re Mr. Blenheim?” she asked, not having the slightest idea what this sentence might imply.

“I am,” the man answered gravely, an unpleasant tang of self-importance clinging to his tone.

“I had wondered”—nodded Miss Temple—“having heard your name so many times.”

He did not reply, looking at her closely.

“
So
many times,” added Elöise, striving to push her voice above a whisper.

“I am the manager of this household. You are causing trouble in it. You were in the master’s passage just now, spying on what you shouldn’t have been like the sneaks you are—do not bother to deny it. And now I’ll wager you’ve disrupted things in the tower—as well as having made a mess of my floor!”

Unfortunately for Mr. Blenheim, his litanies—for he was clearly a man whose authority depended on the ability to catalog transgression—were only damning to those who felt any of this was a source of guilt. Miss Temple nodded to at least acknowledge the man’s concerns.

“In terms of management, I should expect a house this size is rather an involving job. Do you have a large staff? I myself have at various times given much thought to the proper size of a staff in relation to the size of a house—or the ambition of the house, as often a person’s social aim outstrips their physical resources—”

“You were
spying
. You broke into the master’s inner passage!”

“And a wicked inner passage it is,” she replied. “If you ask me, it is your
master
you should call a sneak—”

“What were you doing there? What did you hear? What have you stolen? Who has paid you to do this?”

Each of Mr. Blenheim’s questions was more vehement than the one before, and by the last his face was red, quite accentuating the amount of white hair in his grizzled whiskers, making him appear to Miss Temple even more worth mocking.

“My goodness, Sir—your complexion! Perhaps if you drank less gin?”

“We were merely lost,” Elöise intervened smoothly. “There was a fire—”

“I am aware of it!”

“You can see our faces—my dress—” and here Elöise helpfully drew his eyes to the blackened silk that fell about her shapely calves.

Blenheim licked his lips. “That means nothing,” he muttered.

But to Miss Temple it meant a great deal, for the fact that the man had not by this time delivered them to his master told her that Mr. Blenheim had ideas of his own. She indicated the animal heads and the display cases of weapons with a vague wave and a conspiratorial smile.

“What a curious room this is,” she said.

“It is not curious at all. It is the trophy room.”

“I’m sure it must be, but that is to say it is a room of men.”

“And what of that?”

“We are women.”

“Is that of consequence?”

“
That,
Mr. Blenheim”—here she batted her eyes without shame—“is surely our question to you.”

“What are your names?” he asked, his mouth a tightly drawn line, his eyes flicking quickly as he stared. “What do you know?”

“That depends on who you serve.”

“You will answer me directly!”

Miss Temple nodded sympathetically at his outburst, as if his anger were at the uncooperative weather rather than herself. “We do not want to be difficult,” she explained. “But neither do we want to offend. If you are, for example, deeply attached to Miss Lydia Vandaariff—”

Blenheim waved her past the topic with a violently brusque stab of his hand. Miss Temple nodded.

“Or you had particular allegiances with Lord Vandaariff, or the Contessa, or the Comte d’Orkancz, or Mr. Francis Xonck, or Deputy Minister Crabbé, or—”

“You will tell me what you know no matter what my allegiance.”

“Of course. But first, you must be aware that the house has been penetrated by
agents.
”

“The man in red—” Blenheim nodded with impatience.

“And the other,” added Elöise, “from the quarry, with the airship—”

Again Blenheim waved them to another topic. “These are in hand,” he hissed. “But why are two adherents in white gowns running through the house and defying their masters?”

“Once more, Sir, which masters do you mean?” asked Miss Temple.

“But…” he stopped, and nodded vigorously, as if his own thoughts were confirmed. “Already, then…they plot against each other…”

“We knew you were not a fool.” Elöise sighed, hopelessly.

Mr. Blenheim did not at once reply, and Miss Temple, though she did not risk a glance at Elöise, took the moment to squeeze her hand.

“While the Comte is down in the prison chamber,” she said, speaking with bland speculation, “and the Contessa is in a private room with the Prince…where is Mr. Xonck? Or Deputy Minister Crabbé?”

“Or where are they
thought
to be?” asked Elöise.

“Where is your own Lord Vandaariff?”

“He is—” Blenheim stopped himself.

“Do you know where to find your own master?” asked Elöise.

Blenheim shook his head. “You still have not—”

“What do you
think
we were doing?” Miss Temple allowed her exasperation to show. “We escaped from the theatre—escaped from Miss Poole—”

“Who came with Minister Crabbé in the airship,” added Elöise.

“And then made our way to overhear the actions of the Contessa in your secret room,” resumed Miss Temple, “and from there have done our best to intrude upon the Comte in his laboratory.”

Blenheim frowned at her.

“Who have we
not
troubled?” Miss Temple asked him patiently.

“Francis Xonck,” whispered Mr. Blenheim.

“You have said it, Sir, not I.”

He chewed his lip. Miss Temple went on. “Do you see…
we
have not divulged a thing…you have seen these things for yourself and merely deduced the facts. Though…if we were to help you…Sir…might it go easier with us?”

“Perhaps it would. It is impossible to say, unless I know what sort of
help
you mean.”

Miss Temple glanced to Elöise, and then leaned toward Blenheim, as if to share a secret.

“Do you know where Mr. Xonck is…at this very moment?”

“Everyone is to gather in the ballroom…,” Blenheim muttered, “…but I have not seen him.”

“Is that
so
?” replied Miss Temple, as if this were extremely significant. “And if I can show you what he is doing?”

“Where?”

“Not where, Mr. Blenheim—indeed, not
where
…but
how
?”

Miss Temple smiled and, slipping it from Elöise’s grasp, held up the blue glass card.

Mr. Blenheim snatched at it hungrily, but Miss Temple pulled it from his reach.

“Do you know what this—” she began, but before another word could be uttered Blenheim surged forward and took hard hold of her arm with one hand and wrenched the card free from her grip with the other. He stepped back, and licked his lips again, glancing back and forth between the card and the women.

“You must be careful,” said Miss Temple. “The blue glass is very dangerous. It is disorienting—if you have not looked into it before—”

“I know what it is!” snarled Blenheim, and he took two steps away from them, toward the door, blocking it with his body. He looked up at the women a last time, then down into the glass.

Blenheim’s eyes dulled as he entered the world of the glass card. Miss Temple knew this card showed the Prince and Mrs. Marchmoor, no doubt more entrancing to Mr. Blenheim than Roger ogling her own limbs on the sofa, and she reached out slowly, not making a sound, to the nearest display case to take up a sharp short dagger with a blade that curved narrowly back and forth like a silver snake. Mr. Blenheim’s breath caught in his throat and his body seemed to waver—the cycle of the card had finished—but a moment later he had not moved, giving himself over to its seductive repetition. Taking care to position her feet as firmly as she could and recalling Chang’s advice for practical action, Miss Temple stepped to the side of Mr. Blenheim and drove the dagger into the side of his body to the hilt.

He gasped, eyes popping wide and up from the card. Miss Temple pulled the dagger free with both hands, the force of which caused him to stagger in her direction. He looked down at the bloody blade, and then up to her face. She stabbed again, this time into the center of his body, shoving the blade up under his ribs. Mr. Blenheim dropped the card onto the carpet and wrestled the dagger from Miss Temple’s grasp, tottering backwards. With a grunt he dropped to his knees, blood pouring from his abdomen. He could not draw breath nor—happily for the women—make noise. He toppled onto his side and lay still. Miss Temple, gratified to see that the carpet bore a reddish pattern, knelt quickly to wipe her hands.

She looked up to Elöise, who had not moved, fixed on the fading breaths of the fallen overseer.

“Elöise?” she whispered.

Elöise turned to her quickly, the spell broken, eyes wide.

“Are you all right, Elöise?”

“O yes. I am sorry—I—I don’t know—I suppose I thought we would creep past—”

“He would have followed.”

“Of course. Of course! No—yes, my goodness—”

“He was our deadly enemy!” Miss Temple’s poise was suddenly quite fragile.

“Of course—it is merely—perhaps the quantity of blood—”

Despite herself, the prick of criticism had punctured Miss Temple’s grim resolve, for after all it was not as if murder came to her naturally or blithely, and though she knew she
had
been clever, she also knew what she had done—that it
was
murder—not even strictly a
fight
—and once more she felt it all had moved so quickly, too fast for her to keep her hold on what she believed and what her actions made of her. Tears burned the corners of each eye. Elöise suddenly leaned close to her and squeezed her shoulders.

“Do not listen to me, Celeste—I am a fool—truly! Well done!”

Miss Temple sniffed. “It would be best if we dragged him from the door.”

“Absolutely.”

They had each taken an arm, but the effort of transporting the substantial corpse—for he had finally expired—behind a short bookcase left them both gasping for breath, Elöise propped against a leather armchair, Miss Temple holding the dagger, wiping its blood on Mr. Blenheim’s sleeve. With another sigh at the burdens one accepted along with a pragmatic mind, she set the dagger down and began to search his pockets, piling all of what she found in a heap: banknotes, coins, handkerchiefs, matches, two whole cigars and the stub of another, pencils, scraps of blank paper, bullets for the carbine, and a ring of so many keys she was sure they would answer for every door in the whole of Harschmort. In his breast pocket however was another key…fashioned entirely of blue glass. Miss Temple’s eyes went wide and she looked up to her companion.

Elöise was not looking at her. She sat slumped in the chair, one leg drawn up, her face open, eyes dull, both hands holding the blue card in front of her face. Miss Temple stood with the glass key in her hand, wondering how long her work had taken…and how many times her companion had traveled through the sensations of Mrs. Marchmoor on the sofa. A little gasp escaped Elöise’s parted lips, and Miss Temple began to feel awkward. The more she considered what she had experienced by way of the blue glass—the hunger, the knowledge, the delicious submersion, and of course her rudely skewed sense of self—the less she knew how she ought to feel. The attacks upon her person (that seemed to occur whenever she set foot in a coach) she
had
sorted out—they filled her with rage. But these
mental
incursions had transfigured her notions of propriety, of desire, and of experience itself, and left her usual certainty of mind utterly tumbled.

Elöise was a widow, who with her marriage must have found a balance with these physical matters, yet instead of reason and perspective Miss Temple was troubled to see a faint pearling of perspiration on the woman’s upper lip, and felt a certain restless shifting at her thighs at being in the presence of someone else’s unmediated desire (a thing she had never before faced, unless one could count her kisses with Roger and Roger’s own attempts to grope her body, which now—by force of absolute will—she refused to do). Miss Temple could not, for she was both curious and proud, but wonder if this was how she had looked as well.