The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

there is no great deal of time.”
    He nodded. “My understanding is that my client desires revenge.”
    “And you?” she asked.
    “First, to know who else is searching for her. I know the agents—the officer, the ‘sister’—but not who they represent.”
    “And after that?”
    “That will depend. Obviously they have already been here asking questions—unless you are involved in this business yourself.”
    She cocked her head slightly and, after a moment of thought, sat down behind the desk. She reached over for another sip of tea, took it, and kept the cup, holding it between her breasts with both hands, watching him evenly across the desk top.

    “Very well,” she began. “To begin with, I do not know the name, and I do not know the woman. No person of my household—or of my household’s acquaintance—appeared in the early hours of this morning displaying any quantity of blood. I have made it a point to
ask,
and I have received no such answer. Next, Major
Blach
was here this afternoon. I told him what I have just told you.”
    She pronounced the name unlike Jurgins or Wells, as if it was foreign…had he spoken with an accent? The others had not mentioned it.
    “And the sister?”
    She smiled conspiratorially. “
I
have seen no sister.”
    “A woman, scars on her face, a burn, claiming to be Isobel Hastings’s sister, a ‘Mrs. Marchmoor’—”
    “I have not seen her. Perhaps she’s still to come. Perhaps she does not know this house.”
    “That’s impossible. She has been to two other houses before me, and she would know this one before all the rest of them.”
    “I am sure that’s true.”
    Chang’s mind raced, sorting quickly—Mrs. Marchmoor had known the other houses, she had bypassed this one—to a swift conclusion: she did not come because she would be
known
.
    “May I ask if any women of your household have recently…graduated to other situations, perhaps without your consent? With light brown hair?”
    “It is indeed the case.”
    “The type to be searching for a blood-soaked relative?”
    “Hardly,” she scoffed. “But you said burns across the face?”
    “They could be recent.”
    “They would need to be. Margaret Hooke has been gone four days. The daughter of a ruined mill owner. She would not be known at any lower house.”
    “Does she have a sister?”
    “She doesn’t have a soul. Though it appears she’s found something. If you can tell me what that is—or who—I’ll be kindly disposed.”
    “You have a suspicion. That’s why we’re talking.”
    “We’re talking because one of several regular customers of Margaret Hooke is presently in my house.”
    “I see.”
    “She saw many people. But anyone wanting to learn what might be learned…as I said, there’s little time to talk.”
    Chang nodded and stood. As he turned to the door she called to him, her voice both quiet and more urgent at the same time. “Cardinal?” He looked back. “Your own part in this?”
    “Madam, I am merely the agent of others.”
    She studied him. “Major Blach did ask for Miss Hastings. But he also sought any information about a man in red, a mercenary for hire, perhaps even this bloody girl’s accomplice.”
    He felt a chill of warning. The man had obviously asked Mrs. Wells and Jurgins too, and they had said nothing, laughing at Chang’s back. “How strange. Of course, I cannot explain his interest, unless he had been following my client, and perhaps observed us speaking.”
    “Ah.”
    He nodded to her. “I will let you know what I find.” He stepped to the door, opened it, and then turned back. “Which lady of your house is entertaining Margaret Hooke’s customer?”
    Madelaine Kraft smiled, her thin amusement tinged with pity.
    “Angelique.”

    He returned to the front of the house and collected his stick, then so armed—and untroubled by the staff who seemed to understand that it had been arranged—approached the man in white. Chang saw that he held another small piece of blue paper, and before he could speak the man leaned forward with a whisper. “Down the rear staircase. Wait under the stairs, and then you may follow.” He smiled—Kraft’s acceptance smoothing the way for his own. “It will provide the additional benefit of allowing you to leave unseen.”
    The man went back to his notebook. Chang walked quickly past him into the main part of the house, along wide welcoming archways that opened onto variously entrancing vistas of comfort and