The Chemickal Marriage

lose my way.’
    ‘And our pursuers will hear the echo,’ added Phelps.
    ‘Go how you please,’ Chang snarled. ‘We will follow like blind lambs.’
    Chang’s poor eyes could discern but shadows in the chiselled ceiling, and he was forced to keep a hand on Mr Phelps’s coat-tails, last in line, wincing when his bare feet caught the edges of broken stones.
    It was not the reunion he had expected, with Celeste Temple in particular. What in the world was
Phelps
doing here? And why had they stared so at hiswound? Svenson was not one to talk – unshaven and more gaunt than ever, the man looked like he’d crawled from a crypt.
    Where was Elöise Dujong? Probably somewhere minding the Trapping child …
    Knowing the others could not see, Chang reached beneath the jacket and under the silk shirt … his finger ran across the ridges of a new scar, but from the scar itself he felt no contact. He gently probed … below a thin layer of flesh lay something hard.
    At the tunnels’ end the ground was damp, the gravel sunk with river mud.
    ‘These tunnels would have been used to transport the Comte’s machines,’ explained Miss Temple. She coughed and then, to Chang’s surprise, she actually spat. ‘Do excuse me – beyond is the canal, and beyond that our boat, unless someone has sunk it. We can return to the city, or press on to Harschmort.’
    ‘Are we prepared for Harschmort?’ asked Svenson. ‘Two of your men have disappeared there – Cunsher himself would not risk it.’ He turned to Chang. ‘And you, Cardinal … in all gravity, had I the space and the light to examine –’
    ‘Who is Cunsher?’ Chang broke in curtly. ‘And what
men
?’
    Svenson fell behind and whispered a brief and thoroughly frustrating account of their doings since they had seen him last. However gratifying it was to hear of Tackham’s death (and Chang could not help but be impressed by the Doctor’s courage), the rest of Svenson’s narrative strained any impression of sense – an alliance with Phelps, dependence on this Cunsher, and then acceptance of Miss Temple’s own ridiculous scheming.
Jack Pfaff?
And how many others – apparently dead? Arrant foolishness aimed at taking her money and abandoning her to peril when that was gone.
    ‘You had no idea she was pursuing such nonsense?’ he asked the Doctor.
    ‘She found
me
. Once I realized – well, the girl is determined.’
    ‘Damned little terrier.’
    Svenson smiled. ‘A terrier with her teeth around a wolf’s leg, I agree. Nevertheless –’
    ‘We’re here again.’
    ‘We are. It is a comfort to have you.’
    Chang shrugged, knowing he ought to return the sentiment – that it
was
good to have Svenson by his side – but the moment passed. He had scarcely spoken to the Doctor since their sojourn in the fishing village on the Iron Coast and almost laughed to remember how Svenson had been expected to tend any and all ailing goats and pigs.
    ‘And the Contessa?’
    For a moment Svenson said nothing. ‘Only the two red envelopes. The woman has otherwise vanished, with the book and the child.’
    ‘Rosamonde is the most dangerous of all.’
    ‘So experience would indicate.’
    Abruptly Chang realized that the Doctor had said nothing of the person he ought to have mentioned most of all. ‘Where is Elöise?’
    The question had come without consideration of her absence, and an instant later Chang regretted it.
    ‘Your Rosamonde cut her throat.’ Svenson’s voice betrayed no emotion. ‘Phelps and I went back and made her grave.’
    Chang shut his eyes. No words came. ‘That was good of you.’
    ‘We looked for you as well.’
    He turned to the Doctor, but could not read his expression at all. ‘I am happy not to have obliged.’
    The Doctor nodded with a wan smile, but took the moment to turn his attention to whatever Phelps was asking Miss Temple. Chang fell back a step and let the conversation end.
    They crouched in the shadow of an empty barge. Ahead was the sunken gate to the river. Chang scanned the catwalks and iron towers for any watchman with a carbine.
    Miss Temple pointed to a platform just visible beyond the docks. ‘That was where we entered,’ she said. It was the first time she had addressed him since the tunnels. ‘Set with a snare of glass bullets.’
    ‘No guards in sight,’ said Phelps. ‘Perhaps they have placed their trust in another trap.’
    ‘Or do they wait for another reason?’ asked Svenson. ‘The Comte’s