The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

looked back to see her shredded robes hanging from Xonck’s hand. He met her gaze, still furious, and Miss Temple whimpered aloud, convinced he was about to march over and step on her throat just like he’d done to the Dragoon … but then in the panting silence, Roger Bascombe answered her question.
    “Yes,” he said simply. “I know.”
    Xonck stopped where he stood, staring at Roger. “Was it the Contessa?”
    “No.”
    “Wait—before that,” broke in the Comte, “
why
was he killed?”
    “He was serving Vandaariff instead of us?” asked Xonck.
    “He was,” said Roger. “But that is not why he was killed. The Contessa already knew Colonel Trapping’s true allegiance.”
    Xonck and the Comte turned to her. The Contessa scoffed at their naïve credulity.
    “Of course I knew,” she sneered, looking up at Xonck. “You are arrogant, Francis, so you assume that everyone wants what youdo—your brother’s power—and Trapping especially. You hide your cunning behind the mask of a libertine, but Trapping had no such depth—he was happy to deliver every secret of your brother’s—and yours—to whoever best indulged his appetite!”
    “Then why?” asked Xonck. “To preserve the Comte’s
Annunciation
project?”
    “No,” said Roger. “Trapping hadn’t yet agreed on a price to save Lydia—he’d only given Vandaariff hints.”
    “Then it
was
Crabbé—Trapping must have learned his plans for distilling Vandaariff—”
    “No,” repeated Roger. “The Deputy Minister would have killed him, to be sure … just as the Comte would have … given time and opportunity.”
    Xonck turned to the Contessa. “So you
did
kill him!”
    The Contessa huffed again with impatience.
    “Have you paid any attention at all, Francis? Do you not remember what Elspeth Poole—stupid, insolent, and barely regretted—displayed for us all in the ballroom? Her
vision
?”
    “It was Elspeth and Mrs. Stearne,” said Xonck, looking through the doorway to Caroline.
    “With Trapping,” said the Comte. “The night of the engagement.”
    “We were sent to him,” protested Caroline. “The Contessa ordered us—to—to—”
    “Exactly,” said the Contessa. “I was doing my best to
indulge
him where the other guests would not intrude!”
    “Because you knew he could not be trusted,” said the Comte.
    “Though he could be
distracted
—until we had time to deal with Vandaariff ourselves,” observed the Contessa, “which we then did!”
    “If Colonel Trapping alerted Vandaariff then our entire enterprise could have been compromised!” cried Caroline.
    “We are all aware of it!” snapped the Contessa.
    “Then I don’t understand,” said Xonck. “Who killed Trapping? Vandaariff?”
    “Vandaariff would not kill his own agent,” said a hoarse voice behind Xonck, which Miss Temple recognized as Doctor Svenson’s, pushing himself up to his knees.
    “But Blenheim had Trapping’s key!”
    “Blenheim moved the body,” said Svenson, “on Vandaariff’s orders. At the time he still controlled his own house.”
    “Then who?” growled the Comte. “And why? And if it was not for Lydia’s fate, or Vandaariff’s legacy, or even control of the Xonck fortunes, how has the murder of this insignificant fool torn our entire alliance asunder?”
    The Contessa shifted herself on the settee, and looked fiercely at Roger, whose lip betrayed the slightest quiver at his fruitless attempts to remain silent.
    “Tell us, Roger,” said the Contessa. “Tell us now.”
    As Miss Temple watched the face of her former love, it seemed she looked at a puppet—remarkably life-like to be sure, but the falseness was readily, achingly, apparent. It was not his passive state, nor the even tone of his voice, nor the dullness of his eye, for these were explained by their strange circumstances—just as if he had screamed or gnashed his teeth. Instead, it was simply the content of his words, all the more strange, for Miss Temple had always attended instead to the way he said them—the way he took her arm or leaned across a table as he spoke, or even the stirring those words (whatever they might be) might spark in her own body. But now,
what
he said made clear the extent to which Roger’s life had become separate from hers. She had assumed through their engagement—no matter where their own discrete days took them—they remained symbolically twinned, but now, spreading through her heart like the rising dawn outside the hatch,