The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

themselves and the fire, and only then address escape and disguise…and yet at each turn she looked back and listened, hoping for some sign of the Doctor. Could he have effected their rescue only to sacrifice himself—and what was more, maroon her with a companion she neither knew nor had reason to trust? She felt the weight of Elöise on her arm and heard again his urgent words to go, go at once…and hurried forward.
    Their narrow path came to a crossroads. To the left it went on, the dead-end wall ahead of them was fitted with a ladder rising into a darkened shaft, while to the right was a heavy red curtain. Miss Temple cautiously reached out with one finger and edged the curtain aside. It was another observation chamber, looking into a rather large, empty parlor. If she truly wanted to evade pursuit, the last thing she needed to do was leave a second broken mirror in her trail. She stepped back from the curtain. Elöise could not climb the ladder. They kept walking to the left.
    “How do you feel?” Miss Temple asked, putting as much hearty confidence as she could into a stealthy whisper.
    “Palpably better,” answered Elöise. “Thank you for helping me.”
    “Not at all,” said Miss Temple. “You know the Doctor. We are old comrades.”
    “Comrades?” Miss Dujong looked at her, and Miss Temple saw disbelief in the woman’s eyes—her size, her strength, the foolish robes—and felt a fresh spike of annoyance.
    “Indeed.” She nodded. “It would perhaps be better if you understood that the Doctor, myself, and a man named Cardinal Chang have joined forces against a Cabal of sinister figures with sinister intent. I do not know which of these you know—the Comte d’Orkancz, the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, Francis
Xonck
”—this name offered rather pointedly with a rise of Miss Temple’s eyebrows—“Harald Crabbé, the Deputy Foreign Minister, and Lord Robert Vandaariff. There are many lesser villains in their party—Mrs. Marchmoor, Miss Poole—whom I believe you know—Caroline Stearne, Roger Bascombe, far too many Germans—it’s all quite difficult to summarize, of course, but there is apparently something about the Prince of Macklenburg and there is a
great
deal to do with a queer blue glass that can be made into books, books that hold—or consume—actual memories, actual experiences—it’s really quite extraordinary—”
    “Yes, I have seen them,” whispered Elöise.
    “You have?” Miss Temple’s voice was tinged with disappointment, for she found herself suddenly eager to describe her own astonishing experience to someone else.
    “They exposed each of us to such a book—”
    “Who ‘they’?” asked Miss Temple.
    “Miss Poole, and Doctor…Doctor Lorenz.” Elöise swallowed. “Some of the women could not bear it…they were killed.”
    “Because they would not look?”
    “No, no—because they did look. Killed by the book itself.”
    “
Killed?
By looking in the books?”
    “I do believe it.”
    “I was not killed.”
    “Perhaps you are very strong,” answered Elöise.
    Miss Temple sniffed. She rarely discredited flattery, even when she knew the point of the moment lay elsewhere (as when Roger had praised her delicacy and humor at the same time that his hand around her waist sought to wander exploratively southward), but Miss Temple
had
pulled herself from the book, by her own power—an achievement even the forever condescending Contessa had remarked upon. The idea that the opposite was possible—that she could have been swallowed utterly, that she could have
perished
—sent a brittle shiver down her back. It would have been absolutely effortless, true—the contents of the book had been so seductive. But she had not perished—and what was more, Miss Temple felt fully confident that should she look into another of these books its hold would be even weaker, for as she had pulled free once, she would know she could do so again. She turned back to Elöise, still unconvinced of the woman’s true character.
    “But you must be strong as well, of course, as a person our enemies sought to add to their ranks—just as you were brought to Tarr Manor to begin with. For this is why we wear these robes, you know—to initiate our minds into their insidious mysteries, a Process to bend our wills to their own.”
    She stopped and looked down at herself, plucking at the robes with both hands.
    “At the same time, though I would not call it
practical,
the feel of silk