The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

onto Prince Karl-Horst’s lap. The Prince hopped up with a cry and the Deputy Minister bounced forward and onto the cabin floor with a thud.
    “And no blood to mop.” The Contessa smiled. “Doctor Lorenz, if you would open the forward hatchway? Your Highness? If you might assist Caroline with the Minister’s remains?”
    She stood, beaming down as they bent over the fallen diplomat, his eyes wide with the shock of his dispatch, doing their awkward best to drag him to where Lorenz knelt in the cabin beyond. On the sofa, Lydia watched the corpse’s progress with a groan, her stomach once more heaving. She erupted wetly into her hands and with a disgusted sigh the Contessa shoved a small silk handkerchief at the girl. Lydia snatched it gratefully, a smeared pearl of blue at each corner of her mouth.
    “Contessa—” she began, her voice a fearful quaver.
    But the Contessa’s attention turned at the clicking of a bolt, as Lorenz raised an iron hatchway from the floor. A burst of freezing air shot through the cabin, the grasping paw of winter. Miss Temple looked through at the open hatch and realized that something seemed wrong…the clouds outside…their pallid veneer of light. The round windows in the cabin were covered by green curtains…she had not noticed the dawn.
    “It seems we divide the future in ever expanding portions,” observed the Contessa. “Equal thirds, gentlemen?”
    “Equal thirds,” whispered the Comte.
    “I am agreeable,” said Xonck, a bit tightly.
    “Then it’s settled,” she announced. The Contessa reached out to Xonck’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
    “Finish them.”

    The dagger was in Chang’s hand and he slashed toward Xonck, catching the saber on the dagger hilt and pushing Xonck’s weapon aside as he rushed forward. But Xonck spun on his heels and chopped his bandaged arm across Chang’s throat, knocking him backwards to the ground, both men crying with pain at the impact. Doctor Svenson darted for Xonck, a half-step too late, and Xonck whipped the saber hilt up and into Svenson’s stomach, dropping the Doctor choking to his knees. Xonck retreated a step and wheeled to Miss Temple, his blade once more extended toward her face. Miss Temple could not move. She looked at Xonck, his chest heaving, wincing at the pain in his arm…hesitating.
    “Francis?” said the Contessa, her voice glazed with amusement.
    “What?”
he hissed.
    “Are you
waiting
for something?”
    Xonck swallowed. “I was wondering if you’d prefer to do
this
one yourself.”
    “That’s very sweet of you…but I am quite content to watch.”
    “I was merely asking.”
    “And I assure you, I appreciate the thought, as I appreciate that you might also wish to retain Miss Temple for intimate scrutiny…but I would appreciate it even more if you would get
on
with it and
stick
her like the vicious little pig she is.”
    Xonck’s fingers flexed around the saber hilt, shifting his grip. Miss Temple saw its merciless tip not two feet from her chest, light rippling along the silver blade as it rose and fell with Xonck’s breathing. Then Xonck leered at her. She was going to die.
    “First it was the Minister wanting people to get on with it…now it’s the Contessa,” she said. “Of course,
he
had his reasons—”
    “Must I do this myself?” asked the Contessa.
    “Do not
hound
me, Rosamonde,” snapped Xonck.
    “But the Comte never finished his questions!” cried Miss Temple.
    Xonck did not lunge. She shouted again, her voice rising up to a shriek.
    “He asked if the Minister killed Colonel Trapping! He did not ask who
else
might have killed him! If
Roger
killed him! Or if he was killed by the
Contessa
!”
    “What?”
asked Xonck.
    “Francis!”
cried the Contessa. She snorted with rage and strode past Xonck to silence Miss Temple herself, the spike raised high. Miss Temple flinched, trembling at whether her throat would be cut or her skull perforated, unable to otherwise move.
    Before any of these could occur, Xonck wheeled and hooked the Contessa about the waist with his bandaged arm and swept the woman off her feet and with a shriek of protest onto the nearest settee—exactly the spot where Harald Crabbé had just died.
    The Contessa glared with an outrage Miss Temple had never seen in life—a ferocity to peel paint or buckle steel.
    “Rosamonde—” began Xonck, and—too late again—Miss Temple darted for Chang’s fallen dagger. Xonck slapped the flat of the saber