The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

for his own life then Svenson’s or Celeste’s. He had to hope they were alive.
    He swallowed with a grimace and saw Mrs. Stearne’s eyes on him. Whether it had been intentional or not, their deliberate passage from the turret had taken long enough that the fire of his rage had faded, leaving his body to bear the full weight of exhaustion and sorrow. He felt something on his lip and wiped it with his glove—a smear of bright blood. He looked back at Mrs. Stearne, but her expression betrayed no feeling at all.
    “You see I have very little left to lose,” he said.
    “Everyone always thinks that,” commented Colonel Aspiche, “until that little bit is taken away—and feels like the whole of the world.”
    Chang said nothing, resenting bitterly the slightest glimmer of actual insight coming from the Colonel.
    The Dragoon reappeared in the doorway, clicking his heels and saluting Aspiche.
    “Begging your pardon, Sir, but they’re ready.”
    Aspiche dropped the cheroot to the floor and ground it with his heel. He limped forward to enter the ballroom at the head of his men. Mrs. Stearne watched Chang very closely as they followed, and had quite subtly drifted beyond the immediate reach of his arms.

    When they entered the ballroom, there were so many people gathered that Chang could not see through the throng as their path was opened by the wedge of Dragoons, spectators retreating like a whispering tide of elegance. They made their way to the center, when at a crisp bark from Aspiche, the Colonel and his Dragoons expanded the open area, marching some six paces in each direction, driving the crowd farther back, before wheeling to face Cardinal Chang and Mrs. Stearne, alone in the open circle.
    Mrs. Stearne took a deliberate step forward and curtseyed deeply, dropping her head as if she faced royalty. Before them all, standing like a row of monarchs on a raised dais, were the uncrowned heads of the Cabal: the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, Deputy Minister Harald Crabbé, and, his arm satisfyingly swathed with bandages, Francis Xonck. To their side was the Prince, with Herr Flaüss, masked and apparently having regained the power to stand, to his left and to his right, clinging smilingly to his arm, a slim blonde woman in white robes and a white feather mask.
    “Very well managed, Caroline,” said the Contessa, returning the curtsey with a nod. “You may go on with your duties.”
    Mrs. Stearne stood again and looked once more at Cardinal Chang before walking quickly away through the crowd. He stood alone before his judges.
    “Cardinal Chang—” began the Contessa.
    Cardinal Chang cleared his throat and spat, the scarlet mass flying perhaps half the distance to the dais. An outraged whisper ran throughout the crowd. Chang saw the Dragoons nervously glancing at one another as the guests behind them inched forward.
    “Contessa,” said Chang, returning her greeting, his voice now unpleasantly hoarse. His gaze fell across the rest of the dais. “Minister…Mr. Xonck…Highness…”
    “We require that book,” stated Crabbé. “Place it on the floor and walk away from it.”
    “And then what?” sneered Chang.
    “Then you will be killed,” answered Xonck. “But killed
kindly.
”
    “And if I do not?”
    “Then what you have already seen,” said the Contessa, “will be a trivial prologue to your pain.”
    Chang looked at the crowd around him, and the Dragoons—still no sign of Smythe, Svenson, or Celeste. He was acutely aware of the luxurious fittings of the ballroom—the crystal fixtures, the gleaming floor, the walls of mirror and glass—and the finery of the masked spectators, all in contrast to his own filthy appearance. He knew that for these people the state of his garments and his body were definitive indicators of his inferior caste. It was also what pained him about Angelique—in this place as much a piece of chattel as he, as much a specimen of livestock. Why else had she been first to undergo the hideous transformation—why had she been taken to the Institute to begin with? Because it did not matter if she died. And yet she could not see their contempt—just as she could not see him (but this was wrong, for of course she did—she merely rejected what she saw), nor beyond her own desperate ambition to the truth of how she had been used. But then Chang recalled the great figures of the city he’d found, one after another, slumped over the glass books in the string of private rooms, and