The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

actually been exploding joists from an unsound ceiling? The heat was sharper on her feet. Would they abandon her to burn alive? If they did not, if she pretended to be injured they would not hold her tightly—a stout push and she could run the other way … but what if her captors had already fled and left her behind to burn?
    A hand groped at her arm and she twisted to take hold of whoever it was—she could not turn her head, she could not see through the thickening smoke—and squeeze—they must free her, they must! She curled her toes away from the rising flames, biting back a cry. The hand pulled away and her heart fell—but a moment later hands fumbled at the belt. She was a fool—how could the fellow free her if she held his arm? After another desperately distended moment the strap gave way and her hands were free. Her rescuer’s attention dropped to her feet and without a thought Miss Temple’s hands flew to her face, ripping at the mask. She found the release screw—for she had felt the point from which the thing was tightened—and scraped her finger tearing it loose. The goggles fell away and Miss Temple caught a handful of copper wire and sat up, dangling the contraption behind her like a medieval morning star, ready to bring it down on the head of whatever conscience-stricken functionary had thought to save her.
    He’d managed the other straps and she felt the man’s arms snake under her legs and behind her back to scoop her from the table and set her feet down on the floor. Miss Temple snorted at the presumption—the silk robes might as well have been her shift, a shocking intimacy no matter the circumstance—and raised her hand to swing the heavy goggles (which bore all sorts of jagged metal bolts that might find vicious purchase), while with her other hand she pried the sopping gag from her mouth. The smoke was thick—across the table the flames flickered into view, an orange line dividing gallery from stage and blocking off the far rampway, where she could hear shouts and see figures looming in the murk.She took a lungful of foul air and coughed. Her rescuer had his hand around her waist, his shoulder leaning close. She took aim at the back of his head.
    “This way! Can you walk?”
    Miss Temple stopped her swing—the voice—she hesitated—and then he pulled her down below the line of smoke. Her eyes snapped open, both in unlooked-for delight at the man she found before her, and at the desperately stricken image that man presented, as if he had indeed crawled up through hell to find her.
    “Can you walk?” Doctor Svenson shouted again.
    Miss Temple nodded, her fingers releasing the goggles. She wanted to throw her arms around his shoulders and would have done that very thing had he not then pulled her arm and pointed to the other woman—Dujong?—who had come from Tarr Manor and was now hunched against the curved wall of the theatre with the Doctor’s coat thrown across her legs.
    “She cannot!” he shouted above the roaring flames. “We must help her!”
    The woman looked up to them as the Doctor took her arm and duty-bound Miss Temple took her other side. They lifted her with an awkward stumble—in the back of her mind Miss Temple was entirely unsure—in fact, annoyed—about the choice to adopt this new companion, though at least now the woman was able to move and mutter whatever she was muttering to Doctor Svenson. Hadn’t Miss Poole described her as “seduced by Francis Xonck”? Wasn’t she some sort of adherent possessing privileged information? The last thing Miss Temple desired was the company of such a person, any more than she appreciated the Doctor’s earnest frown of concern as he brushed the hair from the woman’s sweat-smeared face. Behind them she heard steps and a piercing wave of sharp hissing—buckets emptied into the fire—and then coughed at the roiling smoky steam that billowed into their faces. The Doctor leaned across the Dujong woman to call to her.
    “—Chang! There is a—machine—the Dragoon—do not—glass books!”
    Miss Temple nodded but even apart from the noise the information was too thick to make sensible in her mind—too many other sensations crowded for her attention—hot metal and broken wood beneath her bare feet, with one hand under the woman’s arm and the other out before her, feeling in the gloom. What had happened to the lights? From the once-blazing array she saw but one distracted orange glow, like a weak winter sun