The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

at the fire through this room she had no idea. Could the prohibition against entering such a secret room—one that so obviously loomed in the Cabal’s deepest designs—carry over in the staff to even this time of crisis? She turned back to Elöise, who was still on her knees, holding in her arms a savaged garment—no doubt the dress she had arrived in.
    “They have destroyed it,” Miss Temple told her, crossing past to the open cabinets. “It is their way. I suggest you turn your head …”
    “Are you changing clothes?” asked Elöise, doing her best to stand.
    Miss Temple pushed aside the open cabinet doors and saw the wicked mirror behind. She looked about her and found a wooden stool.
    “O no,” she replied, “I am breaking glass.”
    Miss Temple shut her eyes at the impact and flinched away, but all the same the destruction was enormously satisfying. With eachblow she thought of another enemy—Spragg, Farquhar, the Contessa, Miss Poole—and at every jolting of her arms her face glowed the more with healthy pleasure. Once the hole was made, but not yet wide enough to pass through, she looked back at Miss Dujong with a conspiratorial grin.
    “There is a secret room,” she whispered, and at Miss Dujong’s hesitant nod wheeled round to swing again. It was the sort of activity that could easily have occupied another thirty minutes of her time, chipping away at this part and at that, knocking free each hanging shard. As it was, Miss Temple called herself to business, dropped the stool, and carefully stepped back to Elöise’s tattered dress. Between them they spread it across their path to absorb at least what fallen glass it could, and made their way through the mirror. Once in, Miss Temple gathered the dress and, balling it in her hands, threw it back across the room. She looked a last time at the inner door, her worry grown at the Doctor’s non-arrival, and reached for the cabinet doors on either side, pulling them to conceal the open mirror. She turned to Elöise, who clutched the poor man’s coat close to her body.
    “He will find us,” Miss Temple told her. “Why don’t you take my arm?”
    They did not speak as they padded along the dim carpeted passageway, their pale, smoke-smeared faces and their silken robes made red in the lurid gaslight. Miss Temple wanted to put as much distance as she could between themselves and the fire, and only then address escape and disguise … and yet at each turn she looked back and listened, hoping for some sign of the Doctor. Could he have effected their rescue only to sacrifice himself—and what was more, maroon her with a companion she neither knew nor had reason to trust? She felt the weight of Elöise on her arm and heard again his urgent words to go, go at once … and hurried forward.
    Their narrow path came to a crossroads. To the left it went on, the dead-end wall ahead of them was fitted with a ladder risinginto a darkened shaft, while to the right was a heavy red curtain. Miss Temple cautiously reached out with one finger and edged the curtain aside. It was another observation chamber, looking into a rather large, empty parlor. If she truly wanted to evade pursuit, the last thing she needed to do was leave a second broken mirror in her trail. She stepped back from the curtain. Elöise could not climb the ladder. They kept walking to the left.
    “How do you feel?” Miss Temple asked, putting as much hearty confidence as she could into a stealthy whisper.
    “Palpably better,” answered Elöise. “Thank you for helping me.”
    “Not at all,” said Miss Temple. “You know the Doctor. We are old comrades.”
    “Comrades?” Miss Dujong looked at her, and Miss Temple saw disbelief in the woman’s eyes—her size, her strength, the foolish robes—and felt a fresh spike of annoyance.
    “Indeed.” She nodded. “It would perhaps be better if you understood that the Doctor, myself, and a man named Cardinal Chang have joined forces against a Cabal of sinister figures with sinister intent. I do not know which of these you know—the Comte d’Orkancz, the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, Francis
Xonck
”—this name offered rather pointedly with a rise of Miss Temple’s eyebrows—“Harald Crabbé, the Deputy Foreign Minister, and Lord Robert Vandaariff. There are many lesser villains in their party—Mrs. Marchmoor, Miss Poole—whom I believe you know—Caroline Stearne, Roger Bascombe, far too many Germans—it’s all quite difficult to