The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

seat. Svenson swallowed—what was he doing here? Again he met the eyes of Madame Lacquer-Sforza, watching him take in the table with a smile.
    “And you, Madame?” he said. “We have not heard your opinion. I assume you raised the topic for a reason.”
    “Such a German, Doctor—so direct and ‘to zee business.’” She took a sip of wine and smiled. “For my part, it is very simple. I never gamble with anything I care for, but will gamble to fierce extremes with everything that I don’t. Of course, I am fortunate in that I care for very little, and thus the by far greater part of the world becomes for me infused with a sense of…for lack of a better word,
play
. But
serious
play, I do assure you.”

    Her gaze was fixed on Svenson, her expression placid, amused. He did not understand what was happening in the room. To his left, Colonel Aspiche and Mrs. Marchmoor were openly groping each other beneath the table. To his right, Miss Poole was licking Doctor Lorenz’s ear, the Doctor breathing heavily and sucking on his lower lip, both hands clutching his wineglass so hard it threatened to crack. Svenson looked back at Madame Lacquer-Sforza. She was ignoring the others. He realized that they had already been dealt with—they had been dealt with before they’d even arrived. Her attention was on him. He had been allowed to enter for a reason.
    “You know me, Madame,…as you know my Prince.”
    “Perhaps I do.”
    “Do you know where he is?”
    “I know where he might be.”
    “Will you tell me?”
    “Perhaps. Do you care for him?”
    “Such is my duty.”
    She smiled. “Doctor, I’m afraid I require you to be honest.”
    Svenson swallowed. Aspiche had his eyes shut, breathing heavily. Miss Poole had two of her fingers in Lorenz’s mouth.
    “He’s an embarrassment,” he said rapidly. “I would pay money to thrash him raw.”
    Madame Lacquer-Sforza beamed. “Much better.”
    “Madame, I do not know what your intent is—”
    “I merely propose an exchange. I am looking for someone—so are you.”
    “I must find my Prince at once.”
    “Yes, and if—afterwards—you are in a position to help me, I will take it very kindly.”
    Svenson’s mind rebelled against the entire situation—the others seemed nearly insensible—but could find no immediate reason to refuse. He searched her open violet eyes, found them perfectly impenetrable, and swallowed.
    “Who is it you wish to find?”

    The air in the Institute laboratory had been pungent with ozone, burning rubber, and a particular odor Svenson did not recognize—a cross between sulfur, sodium, and the iron smell of scorched blood. The Prince had been slumped in a large chair, Crabbé to one side of him, Francis Xonck to the other. Across the room stood the Comte d’Orkancz, wearing a leather apron and leather gauntlets that covered his arms to the elbow, a half-open metal door beyond him—had they just carried Karl-Horst from there? Svenson had brandished the pistol and removed the Prince, who was conscious enough to stand and stumble, but apparently unable to talk or—to Svenson’s good fortune—protest. At the base of the stairs he had seen the strange figure in red, who had motioned him on his way. This man had seemed to be intruding as much as Svenson—he had been armed—but there had been no time to spare. The guards had followed to the courtyard, even to the street where he’d been lucky enough to find a coach. It was only back at the compound, in the bright gaslight of the Prince’s room—away from the dim corridors and the dark coach—that he’d seen the circular burns. At the time he’d been too occupied with determining the Prince’s condition, then with Flaüss’s interruption, to work through the connections between the private room at the St. Royale and the Institute laboratory—much less to Trapping’s disappearance at the Vandaariff mansion. Now, sitting at the kitchen table, hearing around him the preparations for an expedition into the city, he knew it could no longer wait.
    He had said nothing more to Blach or Flaüss—he didn’t trust them, and was only happy they were leaving together, as they didn’t trust each other either. Obviously Madame Lacquer-Sforza was connected to Mrs. Marchmoor, who had undergone the same process of scarring as the Prince. Then why had Svenson been allowed to break up the procedure? And if Madame Lacquer-Sforza was not in league with the men at the Institute, then what of