The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

shall walk together to the Prince—and I will establish myself as trustworthy in my new role. Especially so, I should say—for to get this far, I imagine you must have avoided a great number of ostensible foes.”
    The Envoy’s smug expression demonstrated for Dr. Svenson the extent and the limit of the Process’s transformation. Never before would the man have been so bold as to risk an open confrontation—much less so brazen an admission of his secret plans. Flaüss had always been one for honeyed agreement followed by backhanded plotting, for layered schemes and overlapping patronage. He had despised the blunt arguments of Major Blach and Svenson’s own diffident independence as quite equal levels of defiance—and, indeed, personal offense. There was no doubt that the man’s
loyalty
had—as he put it—been “clarified” by his alchemical ordeal and his hesitancies weakened, but Svenson saw that his conniving, narcissistic nature remained quite whole.
    “Your weapon, Doctor Svenson,” repeated Flaüss, his voice pointedly yet somehow comically stern. “I have you boxed with logic. I
do
insist.”
    Svenson flipped his grip on the revolver, holding on to its barrel and cylinder. Flaüss smiled, as this seemed the first step to politely handing him the butt of the gun. Instead, feeling another uncharacteristic surge of animal capacity, Svenson raised his arm and cracked the pistol butt across the Envoy’s head. Flaüss staggered back with a squawk. He looked up at Svenson with an outraged glare of betrayal—as if in flouting the man’s “logic” Svenson had broken all natural law—and opened his mouth to scream. Svenson stepped forward, arm raised for another swing. Flaüss darted away, quicker than his portly frame would seem to allow, and Svenson’s blow went wide. Flaüss opened his mouth again. Svenson abruptly switched his grip on the revolver and aimed it directly at the Envoy’s face.
    “If you scream, I
will
shoot you! I’ll have no more reason for silence!” he hissed.
    Flaüss did not scream. He glared at Svenson with hatred and rubbed the welt above his eye. “You are a
brute,
” he insisted. “An outright
savage
!”

    Svenson padded quietly down the hallway—now sporting the Envoy’s black silk mask, the better to blend in with the locals—following Smythe’s directions away from the center of the house, with no idea if this path brought him anywhere near his ostensible targets of rescue. Most likely he was squandering what time he had to save them—he scoffed aloud—like so much else in his life had been squandered. His mind bristled with questions about the Dragoon Captain—he “had seen” Chang (though hadn’t Chang been fleeing Dragoons in the garden?), but how had he known
him
? If only there had been time to actually
speak
—it was more than likely the man knew the location of Elöise or Miss Temple. For a moment he’d entertained the idea of interrogating Flaüss, but his skin crawled at the man’s physical presence. Leaving him gagged and trussed behind a divan was more than enough time spent with such a toad. Yet he knew Flaüss would be missed—it was frankly odd he’d not been looked for already—and that his period of anonymity inside Harschmort was severely limited. But at the same time, the house was massive, and blundering senselessly through its hallways would only waste his temporary advantage.
    The hallway ended at a T junction, with a path to either side. Svenson stood, undecided, like a figure in the forest of a fairy tale, knowing that the wrong choice would lead to the equivalent of a malevolent ogre. One way led to a succession of small parlors, following one to the next like links in a chain. The other opened onto a narrow corridor whose walls were plain, but whose floor was strikingly laid with black marble. Then as he stood, Doctor Svenson quite clearly recognized a woman’s scream…dimly, as if the cry passed through a substantial intervening wall.
    Where had it come from? He listened. It was not repeated. He strode into the black corridor—less comfortable, less wholesome, and altogether more dangerous—for if he chose wrong, the sooner he knew it the better.
    The corridor was pocked with small niches for statuary—mostly simple white marble busts on stone pillars with the occasional limb-free torso. The heads were copies (though, given Vandaariff’s wealth, who knew?) from antiquity, and the Doctor recognized the varyingly