The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

clinging to the very answer to the mystery of the Prince’s escape—they’d come for him with the dirigible! The rotors would be silent at a lower speed—they could have easily drifted into position and lowered men to liberate the Prince with no one being the wiser. Even the crimped cigarette butt made sense—discarded by the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza as she watched from a gondola window. What still made no sense however, was
why
the Prince had been stolen without the other Cabal members—Xonck and Crabbé at the least—being aware of it. Like the death of Arthur Trapping, it lay between his enemies without explanation…if he could just unravel either mystery…he might understand it all.
    The dirigible straightened out of the turn. The fog thickened around Svenson, and he moved forward on the strut, careful not to step too heavily—the last thing he wanted was for anyone below to know he was there. He shut his eyes once more and tried to ease his heaving breath to mere gasps and chattering teeth. He would not move until his arms fell off or until the dirigible found its destination, whichever happened first.
    When he opened his eyes the dirigible was making another turn, less precipitous than before and—he hadn’t realized, but now saw through ragged gaps in the fog—at a lower altitude, some two hundred feet above what looked like a low fennish grassland, with scarcely a single tree in sight. Were they possibly crossing the sea? He saw lights through the gloom, first dim and winking, but as they went on emerging with a growing clarity that allowed him to sketch out the entirety of their destination—for indeed, as he studied it the dirigible continued to descend.
    It was an enormous structure, but relatively low to the ground—Svenson’s guess was two or three stories—giving out an impression of massive strength. The place as a whole was shaped something like a disconnected jawbone, with the center space taken up by some sort of ornamental garden. As they soared closer he could hear a variation in the sound of the rotors—they were slowing down—as he saw more detail: the large open plaza in front, thronged with coaches and dotted with the ant-like (or as they neared, mouse-like) figures of drivers and grooms. Svenson looked to the other side and saw a pair of waving lanterns on the rooftop and behind the lanterns a group of men—no doubt waiting to wrangle the mooring ropes. They drifted closer…a hundred feet, seventy feet…Svenson was suddenly concerned about being seen, and against all his better wishes dropped down to hang on to the hatch handle, flattening his body over the roof of the gondola. The steel plate was freezing. He had one hand on the handle and the other spread out across the roof for balance, with each boot splayed toward a different corner. They sank lower. He could hear shouts from below, and then the pop of a window being opened and an answering shout from the gondola.
    They were landing at Harschmort House.

    Doctor Svenson shut his eyes again, now more out of dread at being discovered than at his still-precarious altitude, as all around him he heard the calls and whistles of the craft coming in to land. No one came up through the hatch—apparently the mooring cables were lowered from the front of the gondola. Perhaps once the rotors stopped the cables were re-attached to the bolt where he’d climbed. He had no idea—but it was only a matter of time before he was discovered. He forced his mind to think about his situation, and his immediate odds.
    He was unarmed. He was physically spent—as well as his ankle twisted, head battered, and hands raw from the climb. There was on the rooftop a gang of assuredly burly men more than willing to take him in hand, if not fling him to the plaza below. Within the gondola lurked another handful of enemies—Crabbé, Aspiche, Lorenz, Miss Poole…and in their power, in who knew what state—or, if he was perfectly honest, with what loyalties—Elöise Dujong. Below him he heard another popping sound and then a loud metallic rattle that ended in a heavy ring of steel striking stone. He suppressed the urge to raise his head and peek. The gondola began to rock slightly as he heard voices—Crabbé calling out and then after him Miss Poole. Someone answered them from below and then the conversation grew to too many voices for him to follow—they were descending from the gondola via some lowered ladder or staircase.
    “At long