The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

Temple debated her course, edging farther from the door, half-step by half-step, as the two men hesitated and bickered—but she could see that they were about to be ridiculous and manly, and so she must act. In her hand was the orange bottle, which evidently held some appallingly violent chemical. If she broke it over one of their heads, it was probable that both men would be incapacitated and they could run. At the same time, the way everyone flinched from it, like schoolgirls from a spider, she could not depend that once shattered it might not—by fumes, perhaps—afflict herself and Elöise. Further, the bottle was an excellent weapon to keep for a future crisis or negotiation, and anything of value Miss Temple much preferred to possess rather than spend. But whatever she did must be decisive enough to forestall these fellows’ pursuit, for she was deeply annoyed at all this seemingly endless
running
.
    With a dramatic gesture Miss Temple drew back the bottle and with a cry brought her arm forward, as if to break it over the head of the man who held the tray and who—because of the tray—could not raise his own hands to ward off the blow. But such was the threat of the bottle that he could not stop his hands from trying and as Miss Temple’s arm swept down he lost his grip on the tray, which dropped to the marble floor with a crash, its contents of bottles and flasks smashing and bursting against each other with an especially satisfying clamor.
    The men looked up at her, both hunched at the shoulders against the impact of her blow, their faces gaping at the fact that Miss Temple had never released—had never intended to release—the orange bottle. At once the gazes of all four dropped to the tray, whose surface erupted with hissing and steaming and a telltale odor that made Miss Temple gag. This odor was not, as she would have anticipated, the noxious indigo clay, but one that brought her back to the coach at night as she struggled free of Spragg’s heavy spurting body—the concentrated smell of human blood. Three of the broken flasks had pooled together and in their mixture transformed—there was no other way to say it—into a shining bright arterial pool that spilled from the tray onto the floor in a quantity larger than the original fluids—as if the combination of chemicals not only made blood, but made
more
of it, gushing like an invisible wound across the marble tile.

    “What is this
nonsense
?”
    All four looked up at the flatly disapproving voice that came from the doorway behind the two men, where a tall fellow with grizzled whiskers and wire spectacles stood holding in his arms an army carbine. He wore a long dark coat, whose elegance served to make his balding head appear more round and his thin-lipped mouth more cruel. The servants immediately bowed their heads and babbled explanations.
    “Mr. Blenheim, Sir—these women—”
    “We were—the dumbwaiter—”
    “They attacked us—”
    “Fugitives—”
    Mr. Blenheim cut them off with the finality of a butcher’s cleaver.
    “Return this tray, replace its contents, and deliver them at once. Send a maid to clean this floor. Report to my quarters when you are finished. You were told of the importance of your task. I cannot answer for your continued employment.”
    Without another word the men snatched up the dripping tray and trotted past their master, hanging their heads obsequiously. Blenheim sniffed once at the smell, his eyes flitting over the bloody pool and then back to the women. His gaze paused once at the orange bottle in Miss Temple’s hand, but betrayed no feeling about it either way. He gestured with the carbine.
    “You two will come with me.”

    They walked in front of him, directed at each turn by blunt monosyllabic commands, until they stood at an aggressively carved wooden door. Their captor looked about him quickly and unlocked it, ushering them through. He followed them in, showing a surprising swiftness for a man of his size, and once more locked the door, tucking the key—one of many on a silver chain, Miss Temple saw—back into a waistcoat pocket.
    “It will be better to speak in isolation,” he announced, looking at them with a cold gaze that in its flat and bland nature belied a capacity for pragmatic cruelty. He shifted the carbine in his hand with dangerous ease.
    “You will put that bottle on the table next to you.”
    “Would you like that?” asked Miss Temple, her face all blank