The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

Aspiche.
    Svenson ignored him, answering the Minister. “Why do you think? Looking for Bascombe. Looking for you. Looking for my Prince so I can shoot him in the head and save my country the shame of his ascending its throne.”
    Crabbé twitched the corners of his mouth in a sketch of a smile.
    “You seem to have broken this man’s arm. Can you set the bones? You
are
a doctor, yes?”
    Svenson looked at Phelps and met his pleading eyes. How long had it been? Hours at least, with the raw fractures cruelly jarred with each step the poor fellow took. Svenson raised his shackled wrist. “I will need out of this, but yes, certainly I can do something. Do you have wood for a splint?”
    “We have plaster, actually—or something like it, Lorenz tells me—they use it for mining, or for shoring up crumbling walls. Colonel, will you escort the Doctor and Phelps? If Doctor Svenson diverges from his task in the slightest, I’ll be obliged if you would hack off his head directly.”

    They walked across the quarry, past the impromptu schoolroom, toward Lorenz. As they passed, Svenson could not help but glance at Miss Poole, who met his eyes with a dazzling smile. She said something to her listeners to excuse herself and a moment later was walking quickly to catch him.
    “Doctor!” she called. “I did not think to meet you again, or not so soon—and certainly not here. I am
told
”—she glanced wickedly at Aspiche—“that you have made yourself a most deadly nuisance, and have nearly slain our guest of honor!” She shook her head as if he were a charmingly disobedient boy. “They say that enemies are often closest in character—what separates them is but an attitude of mind, and as I think we all must see, those are eminently flexible. Why not join us, Doctor Svenson? Forgive me for being blunt, but when I first saw you in the St. Royale, I had no idea of your status as an adventurer—your legend grows by the day, even to the heights of your unfortunate friend Cardinal Chang, who I am led to understand is, well, no longer your competition in heroic endeavors.”
    Svenson could not help it, but at her words he flinched. To the obvious anger of Colonel Aspiche, Miss Poole draped her arm in Svenson’s and clucked her tongue, leaning in to his face. Her perfume was sandalwood, like Mrs. Marchmoor’s. Her soft hands, the overwhelmingly delicate scent, the sweat around his neck, the hammering in his skull, the woman’s galling
blitheness
: Doctor Svenson felt as if his brain would boil. She chuckled at his discomfort.
    “
Next
of course you will tell me you are a rescuer and defender of women—I have heard as much this very evening. But look”—she turned and waved to the Bascombe woman, sitting on the bench, who immediately waved back with the hopeful vigor of a whipped dog’s wagging tail—“there is Pamela Hawsthorne, the present Lady of Tarr Manor, and happy as can be, despite the unpleasant
misunderstanding
.”
    “She has undergone your Process?”
    “Not yet, but I’m sure she will. No, she has merely been exposed to our powerful science. Because it
is
science, Doctor, which I hope as a scientific man you will credit. Science advances, you know, just as must the moral fiber of our society. Sometimes it is dragged forward by the actions of those more knowledgeable, like a recalcitrant child. You
do
understand.”
    He wanted to offend her, call her a whore, to crassly violate this pretense of companionable flirtation, but he lacked the presence of mind to form the appropriate insult. Perhaps he could vomit from dizziness. Instead, he tried to smile.
    “You are very persuasive, Miss Poole. May I ask you a question—as I am a foreigner?”
    “Of course.”
    “Who
is
that man?”
    Svenson turned and nodded to the tall figure next to Crabbé on the stair landing, looking over the quarry as if he were a Borgia Pope sneering down from a Vatican balcony. Miss Poole chuckled again and patted his arm indulgently. It occurred to him that she had not possessed this sort of power before the Process, and still searched for its proper expression—was he a child to her, a pupil, an ignorant tool, or a trainable dog?
    “Why, that is the Duke of Stäelmaere. He is the old Queen’s natural brother, you know.”
    “I did not know.”
    “Oh yes. If the Queen and her children were to perish—heaven forbid—the Duke would inherit the throne.”
    “That’s a lot of perishing.”
    “Please don’t