The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

spitting blood, his every inch the image of a man who had passed through the pits of hell. He looked up at her, and with his gaze, his face pale and bloodied, his movements slow, his eyes blessedly veiled behind smoked glass, came the gazes of those other figures before her—Caroline, Colonel Aspiche, and the Comte d’Orkancz, who stood in his great fur holding a leash that went to the neck of a small figure—a lady of perhaps Miss Temple’s own height and shape—distinguished first by her nakedness and second, and more singularly, by the fact that she seemed to be completely fabricated of blue glass. It was when this statue turned
its
head to look at Miss Temple, its expression unreadable and its eyes as depthless as a Roman statue’s, slick, gleaming, and swirled indigo marbles, that Miss Temple understood the woman—or creature—was
alive
. She was fully rooted to the ground with amazement, and could not have cried out to Chang if she had wanted.
    Caroline Stearne pulled Miss Temple’s white mask down around her neck. She waited through agonizing seconds of silence, sure that someone would denounce her … but no one spoke.
    Chang’s mouth opened haltingly, as if he could not form words or gather breath to speak.
    Then, as if everything was happening too quickly to see, Colonel Aspiche was swinging his arm and whatever he held in itsmashed down onto Cardinal Chang’s head, knocking him flat in a stroke. With a brusque nod from their Colonel, two Dragoons detached themselves from the ring of men keeping back the crowd and took hold of Chang’s arms. They dragged him past her, his body utterly lifeless. She did not turn to follow his passage, but made herself look up, despite her racing heart and the pressing nearness of her tears, into the intelligent, searching face of Caroline Stearne.
    Behind, the voice of the Contessa snapped through the air like the crack of a particularly exultant whip.
    “My dear Celeste,” she called, “how fine it is that you have …
joined
us. Mrs. Stearne, I am obliged for your timely entrance.”
    Caroline, who was already facing the Contessa, sank into a respectful curtsey.
    “Mrs. Stearne!” called the rasping voice of the Comte d’Orkancz. “Do you not wish to see your transformed companions?”
    Caroline turned along with everyone else in the ballroom, for the Comte’s gesture was one of grand showmanship, to see two more glass women stalking into the open circle with their deliberate, clicking gait, arms strangely floating, their uncovered bodies an arrogant assertion of ripe, ghastly, unsettling allure. It took Miss Temple a moment—what had the Comte said to Caroline, “companions”?—to recognize with shock Mrs. Marchmoor and, some new disfiguring scorch across her head, Miss Poole. What did it mean that her enemies had—
willingly
?—been transformed,
transfigured
, into such … such
things
?
    The Comte gathered up Miss Poole’s leash and flicked her toward Mrs. Stearne. Miss Poole’s lips parted ever so slightly with a chilling smile and then Caroline staggered where she stood, her head lolling to the side. An instant later, as the effect spread to the first rank of the crowd like a rippling pool, Miss Temple felt herself swallowed up and thrust into a scene so enticingly real that she could scarcely remember the ballroom at all.
    * * *
    She was on a plush settee in a dark, candlelit parlor and her hand was occupied with stroking Caroline Stearne’s lovely, soft unbound hair. Mrs. Stearne wore—as Miss Temple saw that she (that is, Miss Poole) wore as well—the white robes of initiation. On the other side of Mrs. Stearne sat a man in a black cloak and a tight mask of red leather, leaning over to kiss her mouth, a kiss to which Mrs. Stearne responded with a passionate moan. It was like Mrs. Marchmoor’s story of the two men in the coach, only here it was a man and two women. Mrs. Stearne’s hunger caused Miss Poole to condescendingly chuckle as she turned to reach for a glass of wine … and with this action her shifting gaze took in an open door and a lurking figure half-visible in the light beyond … a figure whose shape Miss Temple knew at once as that of Roger Bascombe.
    The vision was withdrawn from Miss Temple’s mind, like a blindfold whipped from her eyes, and she was back in the ballroom, where every person she could see was blinking with confusion, save for the Comte d’Orkancz, who smiled with a smug superior pleasure. He called