The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

morning coat, his red hair meticulously curled, an unlit cheroot in his hand. Chang took a careful step toward him, risking a quick glance back to Bascombe, who was still laboring to breathe.
    “Good afternoon,” said Chang.
    “Good afternoon. I hope you haven’t hurt him.”
    “Why? Does he belong to you?”
    Xonck smiled. “That’s very clever. But you know, I’m clever too, and I must congratulate you—the mystery about the ‘she’ you so desperately seek is positively diverting. Is it Rosamonde? Is it little Miss Temple—or should I say Hastings? Or even better, the Comte’s unfortunate, slant-eyed trollop? Either way, the idea that you’re actually looking for any of them is richly amusing. Because you’re so
manly,
don’t you know, and at the same time such a
buffoon
. Excuse me.”
    He pulled a small box of matches from his waistcoat and lit the cheroot, looking over the glowing tip at Chang as he puffed. His eyes shifted to Bascombe. “Will you survive, Roger?” He smiled at Bascombe’s reply—a hacking cough—and tossed the spent match onto the desk top.
    Chang took another step closer to Xonck, who seemed as uncaring in his manner as Bascombe had been moments before, but oddly gay where Bascombe had been watchful. “Shall I ask you?” he hissed.
    “You would do better to listen,” Xonck replied dryly. “Or, in lieu of that, to think. The way behind you is locked, as is the door behind me. If you were able to make your way through the door behind Bascombe—which you won’t—I promise you will be quickly lost within a dense maze of corridors with absolutely no chance of evading or surviving the very large number of soldiers even now assembling to kill you. You would die, Mr. Chang, in such a way as to serve no one—a dog run down by a coach in the dark.” He frowned and picked a scrap of tobacco off his lower lip and flicked it away, then returned his eyes to Chang.
    “And you would suggest I serve
you
?” asked Chang.
    “Serve yourself,” croaked Bascombe, from the table.
    “He rallies!” laughed Xonck. “But you know, he is right. Serve yourself. Be reasonable.”
    “We’re wasting time—” muttered Chang, moving for Xonck. Xonck did not move, but spoke very quickly and sharply.
    “That is foolish. It will kill you. Stop and think.”
    Against his better judgment, Chang did. He was nearly within reach of the man, if he lunged with the long part of the stick. But he didn’t lunge, partly because he saw that Xonck wasn’t frightened…not in the slightest.
    “Whatever reason brought you here,” Xonck said, “your
search
—you must postpone. You were allowed up for the sole reason, as Mr. Bascombe has said, to make you a proposition. There is plenty of time to fight, or to die—there is always time for that—but there is no more time to find whichever woman you hoped would be here.”

    Chang wanted very much to leap over the desk and stab him, but his instincts—which he knew to trust—told him that Xonck was not like Bascombe, and that any attack on him needed to be as carefully considered as one on a cobra. Xonck did not seem to be armed, but he could easily have a small pistol—or for that matter a vial of acid. At the same time, Chang did not know what to make of the man’s warning about escaping into the Ministry. While it might be true, it was in Xonck’s every interest to lie. But why
had
they let him ascend without any soldiers to take him in hand? He had too many questions, but Chang knew that nothing revealed more about a man than his estimation of what your price might be. He stepped away from Xonck and sneered.
    “What proposition?”
    Xonck smiled, but it was Bascombe who spoke, clearly and coolly despite the hoarseness of his voice, as if he were describing the necessary steps in the working of a machine.
    “I cannot give you details. I do not seek to convince, but to offer opportunity. Those who have accepted our invitation have and will continue to benefit accordingly. Those who have not are no longer our concern. You are acquainted with Miss Temple. She may have spoken of our former engagement. I cannot—for it is impossible to say how I was then, for that would be to say how I was a child. So much has changed—so much has become clear—that I can only speak of what I have become. It’s true I thought myself to be in love. In love because I could not see past the ways in which I was subject, for I believed, in my servitude, that