The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

holder poised perfectly, a thin thread of smoke curling up to the ceiling. The lady wore a tight violet silk jacket with a fringe of small black feathers to frame her pale bosom and throat, and dangling amber earrings. Below the jacket her dress was black and it seemed, as if she were some elemental magic being, to flow down her body and directly into the dark floor…where the previous litter of garments had been joined by the wholly savaged contents of Miss Temple’s slashed and ruined carpet bag.
    With the exception of Miss Vandaariff’s, every set of eyes stared at Miss Temple in complete silence.

    “Good evening, Celeste,” said the Contessa. “You have returned from the book. Quite impressive. Not everyone does, you know.”
    Miss Temple did not reply.
    “I am happy you are here. I am happy you have had the opportunity to exchange views with the Comte, and with my companion Mrs. Marchmoor, and also to acquaint yourself with dear Lydia, with whom you must of course have much in common—two young ladies of property, whose lives must appear to be the very epitome of an endless horizon.”
    The Comte exhaled a plume of blue smoke. Mrs. Marchmoor smiled into Miss Temple’s eyes and slowly turned the ruddy tip of her breast between her thumb and forefinger. The row of men did not move.
    “You must understand,” the Contessa went on, “that your companion Cardinal Chang is no more. The Macklenburg Doctor has fled the city in fear and abandoned you. You have seen the work of our Process. You have looked into one of our glass books. You know our names and our faces, and the relation of our efforts to Lord Vandaariff and the von Maasmärck family in Macklenburg. You even”—and here she smiled—“must know the facts behind the impending elevation of a certain Lord Tarr. You know all of these things and can, because I’m sure you are as clever as you are persistent, guess at many more.”
    She raised the lacquered holder to her lips and inhaled, then her hand floated lazily away to again rest on the divan. With a barely audible sigh her lips parted in a wry, wary smile and she blew a stream of smoke from the side of her mouth.
    “For all of this, Celeste Temple, it is certain you must die.”
    Miss Temple did not reply.
    “I confess,” the Contessa continued, “that I may have misjudged you. The Comte tells me I have, and as I’m sure you know the Comte is rarely wrong. You are a strong, proud, determined girl, and though you have caused me great inconvenience…even—I will admit it—
fury
…it has been suggested that I tender to you an offer…an offer I would normally not make to one I have determined to destroy. Yet it has been suggested…that I allow you to become a willing, valuable part of our great work.”
    Miss Temple did not reply. Her legs were weak, her heart cold. Chang was dead? The Doctor gone? She could not believe it. She refused to.
    As if sensing defiance in her quivering lip, the Comte took the cheroot from his mouth and spoke in his low, rasping, baleful manner.
    “It could not be simpler. If you do not agree, your throat will be cut straightaway, in this room. If you do, you will come with us. Be assured that no duplicitous cunning will avail you. Abandon hope, Miss Temple, for it will be expunged…and replaced by
certainty
.”
    Miss Temple looked at his stern expression and then to the forbidding beauty of the Contessa Lacquer-Sforza, her perfect smile both warmly tempting and cold as stone. The four men gazed at her blankly, the Prince scratching his nose with a fingernail. Had they all been transformed by the Process, their bestial logic released from moral restraints? She saw the scars on the Prince and on the stout man. It seemed that the older fellow shared their glassy-eyed hunger—perhaps his marks had already faded—only the other soldier bore a normal expression, where certainty and doubt were both at play. On the face of the others was only an inhuman, uncomplicated confidence. She wondered which of them would be the one to kill her. She looked finally to Mrs. Marchmoor, whose blank expression masked what Miss Temple thought was a genuine curiosity…as if she did not know what Miss Temple would do, nor what, once she did submit, might possibly come of it.
    “It seems I have no choice,” Miss Temple whispered.
    “You do not,” agreed the Contessa, and she turned to the large man seated next to her and raised her eyebrows, as if to signal her part in the