The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

follow Roger.”
    “Do you suppose we should separate?” asked Svenson. “Some to visit the greenhouse—which may involve the throat-cutting you describe, if it is full of the Comte’s men—and one to visit Tarr Manor?”
    “What of your Prince?” asked Miss Temple.
    Svenson rubbed his eyes. “I do not know. Even
they
did not know.”
    “Who did not?” asked Chang. “Specifically.”
    “Xonck, Bascombe, Major Blach, the Comte…”
    “Did they rule out the Contessa?”
    “No. Nor Lord Vandaariff. So…perhaps the Prince is in a room at the St. Royale, or at Harschmort—perhaps, if we
were
able to find him, it would accentuate the divisions between them, and who can say—thus provoke some rash action or at least reveal more of their true aims.”
    Chang nodded. He turned to Miss Temple and spoke quite seriously. “What is your opinion about dividing our efforts? About pursuing one of these choices alone?”

    Before she could answer—as she knew she must answer—Miss Temple felt the whole of her mind relocated to the jolting coach with Spragg, the hot smell of his sweating, bristled neck, the suffocating weight of his body, the imperious force of his hands, the crush of fear that had taken such implacable hold over her body. She blinked the thought away and found herself again facing the woman in red, her piercing violet eyes sharper than any knife, her dismissive, lordly insolence of expression, her dark chuckling laugh that seemed to flay the nerves from Miss Temple’s spine. She blinked again. She looked around her at the paintings, and at the two men who had become her allies—because she had chosen them, as she had chosen to place her very self at hazard. She knew they would do whatever she said.
    “I do not mind at all.” Miss Temple smiled. “If I should have the chance to shoot one of these fellows by myself, then all the better, I say.”
    “Just a moment…,” said Doctor Svenson. He was looking past her at the far wall and walked over to it, wiping his monocle on the lapel of his greatcoat. He stood in front of a small canvas—perhaps the smallest on display—and peered at the identifying card, then back at the painting with close attention. “Both of you need to come here.”
    Miss Temple crossed to the painting and abruptly gasped with surprise. How could she have not remembered this from before? The canvas—clearly cut from a larger work—showed an ethereal woman reclining on what one first assumed to be a sofa or divan, but which on further study was clearly an angled table—there even seemed to be straps (or was this merely the artist’s conception of a Biblical garment?) securing her arms. Above the woman’s head floated a golden halo, but on her face, around her eyes, were the same purpled looping scars they had all witnessed in the flesh.
    Svenson consulted his brochure. “
Annunciation Fragment
…it is…a moment—” He flipped the page. “The painting is five years old. And it is the newest piece in the collection. Excuse me.”
    He left them and approached the agent, who sat making notes in a ledger at his desk. Miss Temple returned to the painting. She could not deny that it was unsettlingly lovely, and she noticed with horror that the woman’s pale robe was bordered at the neck with a line of green circles. “The robes in Harschmort,” she whispered to Chang, “the women under the Comte’s power—they wore the same!”
    The Doctor returned, shaking his head. “It’s most bizarre,” he hissed. “The artist—Mr. Oskar Veilandt—was apparently a mystic, deranged, a dabbler in alchemy and dark science.”
    “Excellent,” said Chang. “Perhaps he’s the one to tie these threads together—”
    “He can lead us to the others!” Miss Temple whispered excitedly.
    “My exact thought.” The Doctor nodded. “But I am told that Mr. Veilandt has been dead for these five years.”
    All three were silent. Five years? How could that be possible? What did it mean?
    “The lines on her face,” said Chang. “They are definitely the same…”
    “Yes,” agreed Svenson, “which only tells us that the plot itself—the Process—is at least that old as well. We will need to know more—where the artist lived, where he died, who holds custody of his work—indeed, who has sponsored this very exhibition—”
    Miss Temple extended her finger to point at the small card with the work’s title, for next to it was a small blot of red ink. “Even more,