The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

Svenson stopped again, reaching behind him to still its movement. He stood at one end of a wider, open drawing room—a sort of servants’ corridor with a low overhanging ceiling, designed to allow passage without it being intrusive to the room at large. Above him was a musicians’ balcony from which Svenson could hear the delicate plucking of a harp. Directly across the corridor was another swinging door, perhaps ten yards away, but the way across was fully open to the larger room. He threw himself against the small abutment of wall that hid the swinging door and listened to the raised voices of those people directly beyond it.
    “They must
choose,
Mr. Bascombe! I cannot suspend the natural order indefinitely! As you know, beyond this immediate matter looms the Comte’s transformations, the initiations in the theatre, the many, many important guests identified for collection—to all of which my personal attention is crucial—”
    “And as I have told
you,
Doctor Lorenz, I do not know their wishes!”
    “One way or the other—it is very simple! He is made use of at once or he is given over to putrefaction and waste!”
    “Yes, you have made those choices clear—”
    “Not clear enough that they will act!” Lorenz began to sputter with the condescending pedantry of a seasoned academic. “You will see—at the temples, at the nails, at the lips, the discoloration—the seepage—you will no doubt, even
you,
discern the
smell
—”
    “Berate me as you please, Doctor, we will wait for the Minister’s word.”
    “I
will
berate you—”
    “And I remind you that the fate of the Queen’s own brother is not for
you
to decide!”
    “I say…what was that noise?”
    This was another voice. One that Svenson felt he knew but could not place.
    More importantly, it referred to the sound of his own entry through the swinging door. The others stopped their argument.
    “What noise?” snapped Lorenz.
    “I don’t know. But I thought I heard something.”
    “Aside from the harp?” asked Bascombe.
    “Yes, that lovely harp,” muttered Lorenz waspishly. “Exactly what every slaughtered Royal needs when lying in state in a leaking tub of ice—”
    “No, no…from over
there
…” said the voice, quite clearly turning to the side of the room where Svenson stood, quite minimally concealed.
    The voice of Flaüss.

    The Envoy was with them. He would name Svenson and that would be the end of it. Could he run back through the servants? But where after that—up the stairs?
    His thoughts were broken by the sound of a large party entering from the far doors, near the others—many footsteps…or more accurately bootsteps. Lorenz called out a greeting in his flat, mocking voice.
    “Excellent, how kind of you to finally arrive. You see our burden—I will require two of your fellows to collect a supply of ice, I am told there is an ice
house
somewhere on the premises—”
    “Captain,” this was Bascombe cutting smoothly through the Doctor’s words, “could you make sure we are not troubled by any unwanted visitors from the servants’ passage?”
    “As soon as you send two men for more ice,” insisted Lorenz.
    “Indeed,” said Bascombe, “two men for ice, four men for the tub, one man to respectfully ask the Minister if there is further word, and one to check the passage. Does that satisfy us all?”
    Svenson slipped back to the door and pushed gently against it, straining for silence. It held fast. The door had been bolted from the inner side—the servants making sure he’d not again trespass upon their meal. He shoved again, harder, to no avail. He quickly fished out the pistol—for within the noises of scraping metal and scuffling feet from his enemies across the room came the rapping of deliberate bootsteps advancing directly toward him.
    Before he was prepared the man was looking right at him, not two yards away: a tall fellow with hanging lank brown hair, Captain of Dragoons, red coat immaculate, brass helmet under one arm, drawn saber in the other. Svenson met his sharp gaze and tightened his grip on the revolver, but did not fire. The idea of killing a soldier went against the grain—who knew what these fellows had been told, or what they’d been ordered to do, especially by a government figure like Crabbé or even Bascombe? Svenson imagined Chang’s lack of hesitation and raised the revolver to fire.
    The man’s eyes flicked up and down, taking in Svenson’s uniform, his rank, his unkempt