The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

misunderstand me. The Duke is Her Majesty’s most trusted sibling. As such he works most
intimately
with the present government.”
    “He seems intimate with Mr. Crabbé.”
    She laughed and was about to make a witticism when she was brusquely interrupted by Aspiche.
    “That’s enough. He’s here to fix this man’s arm. And then he’s going to die.”
    She bore the intrusion gracefully and turned to Svenson.
    “Not much of a prospect, Doctor. I would consider a switch in alliances, if I were you. You truly do not know what you are missing. And if you never do, well…won’t that be too sad?”
    Miss Poole gave him a smiling, teasing nod of her head and returned to her benches. Svenson glanced at Aspiche, who watched her with evident relish. Had she been groping Aspiche or Lorenz in the private dining room at the St. Royale? Lorenz, he was fairly sure—though it looked as if Lorenz was quite occupied with his smelting and could not be bothered. Svenson saw the man empty one of the bandolier flasks into a metal cup that his assistants were preparing to stuff into the raging kiln. He wondered what the chemical process really was—there seemed to be several distinct steps of refinement…were these for different purposes, to convert the indigo clay to distinct uses? He looked back at Miss Poole, and wondered where her glass book was now. If he could manage to capture that…
    He was interrupted again by Aspiche, tugging his tingling arm toward Mr. Phelps, who was painfully attempting to take off his black coat. Svenson looked up at Aspiche, to ask for splints and for some brandy at least for the man’s pain, when he saw, looming in the orange kiln-light like the tattoos of an island savage, the looping scars of the Process scored across his face. How had he not noticed them before? Svenson could not help it. He laughed aloud.
    “What?” snarled the Colonel.
    “You,” answered Svenson boldly. “Your face looks like a clown’s. Do you know that last time I saw Arthur Trapping—which was in his coffin, mind you—his face was the same? Do you think, just because they have expanded your
mind,
that you are any less their contingent tool?”
    “Be quiet before I kill you!” Aspiche shoved him toward Phelps, who began to move out of the way and then flinched with pain.
    “You’ll kill me anyway. Listen—Trapping was a man with powerful friends, he was someone they needed. You can’t pretend to that—you’re just the man with the soldiers, and your own elevation should demonstrate how easily you too could be replaced. You mind the hounds when they need to hunt—it’s servitude, Colonel, and your expanded mind ought to be
broad
enough to see it.”
    Aspiche backhanded Doctor Svenson viciously across the jaw. Svenson sprawled in a heap, his face stinging. He blinked and shook his head. He saw that Lorenz had heard the sound and turned to them, his expression hidden behind the black goggles.
    “Fix his arm,” said Aspiche.

    In fact the “plaster” was some kind of seal for the kiln, but Svenson thought it would work well enough. The breaks were clean, and to his credit Phelps did not pass out—though to Svenson this always seemed a dubious credit indeed. For, if he
had
passed out it certainly would have gone easier for them all. As it was, the man was left trembling and spent, sitting on the ground with his arm swathed in his cast. Svenson had curtly apologized for the inconvenience of breaking his arm—assuring him that it was the Duke he had wanted to strike—and Phelps had answered that, of course, given the circumstances, it was entirely understandable.
    “Your companion…,” Svenson began, wiping his hands on a rag.
    “I’m afraid you have done for him,” replied Phelps, his voice somehow distant for all the pain, with the delicate, whispered quality of dried rice paper. He nodded to the tarp. Now that they were closer, Svenson saw that in addition to the woman’s foot, there was also a man’s black shoe. What had been his name—Starck? The weight of the killing settled heavily on the Doctor’s shoulders. He looked to Phelps, as if he should say something, and saw the man’s eyes had already drifted elsewhere, biting his lip against the grinding of his broken bones.
    “It’s what happens in war,” Aspiche sneered with contempt. “When you made the choice to fight, you made the choice to die.”
    Svenson’s gaze returned to the hidden stack of bodies, trying desperately to