The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

at Harschmort House, it will arise that, although we have been in the last days
sundered,
after your ordeal we shall be reconciled to the same side—as allies.”
    This was not what she had expected. He watched her, defensively expectant, as if her silence was the prelude to another childish eruption of spite.
    “Celeste,” he said, “I do urge you to be rational. I am speaking of facts. If it is necessary—if it will clarify your situation—I will again assure you that I am well beyond all feelings of attachment…or equally of resentment.”
    Miss Temple could not credit what she had heard. Resentment? When it was
she
who had been so blithely overthrown, she who had borne for how many evenings and afternoons in their courtship the near mummifying company of the condescending, starch-minded, middling-fortuned Bascombe family!
    “I beg your pardon?” she managed.
    He cleared his throat. “What I mean to say—what I have come to say—is that our new alliance—for your loyalties will be changed, and if I know the Contessa, she will insist that the two of us continue to work in concert—”
    Miss Temple narrowed her eyes at the idea of what
that
might mean.
    “—and it would be best if, as a rational being, you could join me in setting aside your vain affection and pointless bitterness. I assure you—there will be less
pain
.”
    “And I assure
you,
Roger, I have done just that. Unfortunately, recent days having been so very busy, I’ve yet had a moment to set aside my virulent
scorn
.”
    “Celeste, I speak for your good, not mine—truly, it is a generosity—”
    “A
generosity
?”
    “I do not expect you to see it,” he muttered.
    “Of course not! I haven’t had my mind re-made by a
machine
!”

    Roger stared at her in silence and then slowly stood, straightening his coat and, by habit, smoothing back his hair with two fingers, and even then in her heart she found him to be quite lovely. Yet his gaze, quite fixed upon her, conveyed a quality she had never seen in him before—undisguised contempt. He was not angry—indeed, what hurt her most was the exact lack of emotion behind his eyes. It truly made no sense to her—in Miss Temple’s body, in her memory, all such moments were rooted in some sort of
feeling,
and Roger Bascombe stood revealed to her as no kind of man she had ever met.
    “You will see,” he said, his voice cool and low. “The Process will remake you to the ground, and you will see—for the very first time in your life, I am sure—the true nature of your shuttered mind. The Contessa suggests you possess reserves of character I have not seen—to which I can only agree that I have
not
seen them. You were always a pretty enough girl—but there are many such. I look forward to finding—once you’ve been burned to your bones and then
re-made
by the very ‘machine’ you cannot comprehend—if any actually remarkable parts exist.”
    He left the compartment. Miss Temple did not move, her mind ringing with his biting words and a thousand unspoken retorts, her face hot and both of her hands balled tight into fists. She looked out the window and saw her reflection on the glass, thrown up between her and the darkened landscape of salty grassland racing past outside the train. It occurred to her that this dim, transparent, second-hand image was the perfect illustration for her own condition—in the power of others, with her own wishes only peripherally related to her fate, insubstantial and half-present. She let out a trembling sigh. How—after
everything
—could Roger Bascombe still exert any sway over her feelings? How could he make her feel so
desperately
unhappy? Her agitation was not coherent—there was no point from which she could begin to untangle answers—and her heart beat faster and faster until she was forced to sit with a hand over each eye, breathing deeply. Miss Temple looked up. The train was slowing. She pressed her face to the window, blocking the light from the passageway with her hand, and saw through the reflection the station, platform, and white painted sign for Orange Locks. She turned to find Major Blach opening the door for her, his hand inviting her to exit.

    Beyond the platform were two waiting coaches, each drawn by a team of four horses. To the first, his fiancée on his arm, went the Prince, followed as before by his Envoy and the older man with the bandaged arm. The Major escorted Miss Temple to the second coach, opened the door, and