The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

she saw that their wholeness—an idea beyond facts, however vain and foolish and doomed—lived only in her memory. She truly did not know who he was anymore, and never would again. And had she ever? It was a question she could not answer. The sadness she felt was no longerfor him—for he was a fool, nor for herself—for she was rid of one. But somehow, listening to Roger speak in the freezing air, in Miss Temple’s closely bound heart she mourned for the world, or as much of it as her sturdy chest could hold. She saw for the first time that it was truly made of dust … of invisible palaces that without her care—care that could never last—would disappear.
    “The night before I underwent the Process,” Roger began, “I met a woman at the St. Royale Hotel whose passion met my own in an exquisite union. In truth I had not decided to undergo the Process at all, and even then contemplated exposing everything to the highest authorities. But then I met this woman … we were both masked, I did not know her name, but she hovered hesitant on the same cusp of destiny, just as I did. As I strove to choose between the certain advancement brought by betraying the Deputy Minister and the utter risk of following him, I saw how she had given over the whole of her life to this new chance—that all before had been released, all attachment and all hope. And even though I knew that in giving myself to the Process I would give up my former aspirations to romance and marriage, this woman somehow in one night stirred me to my soul—a sadness matched with such tender care for our one lost instant together. But the next day I was changed and any thoughts I ever had of love were changed as well, directed and more reasoned, in service to … larger goals that could not contain her … and yet three days after that I met her again, once more masked, in the robes of an initiate to the Process … I knew her by her scent … by her hair—I had even been sent to collect her for the theatre, where she would undergo her own irrevocable change. I found her with another woman, and with a man I knew to be a traitor. Instead of collecting them I sent her friend ahead and the man away, and revealed myself … for I believed our temperaments were such that an understanding might survive, undetected by all … that we might ally … to share information about you, Contessa, about Minister Crabbé, Mr. Xonck, the Comte,Lord Robert—to serve both the goals we had sworn to and our own mutual ambition. And make an alliance we did, rooted no longer in anything called love … but in sensible expedience. And together we have served you all, our masters, and watched patiently as one after another those above us have been enslaved or slain, rising ourselves to the very edge of power until we are positioned to inherit everything, as each one of you turns on the other—as you are doing even in this instant. For we are without your greed, your lusts, your appetites, but have stood silently to the side of every plan, every secret, for the Process has made us stronger than you can know. All this we saw together, a dream when we both thought we would never dream again. It was later I found the man had not gone away as I’d thought. He’d seen us together … overheard everything … and wanted payment—of many kinds. That was impossible.”
    “
You
killed him?” whispered Xonck. “
You
?”
    “Not me,” said Roger. “Her. Caroline.”
    Every eye in the room turned to Caroline Stearne.
    “Hold her!” shouted Xonck, and Doctor Lorenz reached past Miss Temple to seize Caroline around the waist. Caroline lashed out with her elbow, driving it into the Doctor’s throat. In an instant she turned on the choking man and pushed him with both hands. Doctor Lorenz vanished through the open hatch, his fading howl swallowed by the wind.
    No one moved, and then Caroline herself broke the spell, kicking the Prince’s leg and swinging a fist at Lydia’s face, clearing a path to the iron staircase that rose to the wheelhouse. A moment later the cabin echoed with an ear-splitting scream and down the stairs bounced the body of one of Doctor Lorenz’s sailors, blood pouring from a pulsing puncture on his back.
    Miss Temple kicked herself away both from the bloody man and the open hatch, as chaos erupted around her. The Contessa was on her feet and after Caroline, lifting her dress with one handto step over the sailor, the other hand holding her spike. The