The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

who snatched it up. Chang did not move.
    “
Cardinal
?”
    Chang wiped his mouth and spat, his blood-smeared jaw like the painted half-mask of a red Indian or a Borneo pirate, and his bone-weary voice from another world altogether.
    “We are finished anyway, Rosamonde. I’ll be dead by the end of the day no matter what, but we’re all doomed. Look out the windows … we’re going down. The sea will smother your dreams along with mine.”
    The Contessa weighed a book in her hand. “You’ve no care for your Miss Temple’s painful death?”
    “It would be quicker than drowning,” answered Chang.
    “I do not believe you. Drop your weapon, Cardinal!”
    “If you answer a question.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous—”
    Chang shifted his grip on the saber and pulled back his arm, as if to throw it like a spear.
    “Do you think your book will kill me before I put this through your heart? Do you want to take that chance?”
    The Contessa narrowed her eyes and weighed her options.
    “What question then? Quickly!”
    “To be honest, it is
two
questions.” Cardinal Chang smiled. “
First
, what was Mr. Gray doing when I killed him? And
second
, why did you take the Prince from his compound?”
    “Cardinal Chang—
why
?” asked the Contessa, with a sigh of unfeigned frustration. “Why
possibly
do you want to know this
now
?”
    Chang smiled, his sharp teeth pink with blood.
    “Because one way or another, I shan’t be able to ask you tomorrow.”
    * * *
    The Contessa laughed outright and took two steps down the stairs, nodding Svenson and Miss Temple toward Chang, her expression darkening at Miss Temple’s quite brazen snatch of her pistol before she went.
    “Join your comrade,” the Contessa hissed at them, then looked at Elöise with disdain. “
And
you, Mrs. Dujong—one wonders if you are professionally helpless for a living—
hurry
!” She turned to the Prince, her tone sweetening. “Highness … if you would climb to the wheelhouse and do what you can to slow our descent—I believe most of the panels have helpful
words
on them … Lydia, stay where you are.”
    Karl-Horst darted up the stairs as the Contessa continued down, stepping over the crewman, to face all four of them in the doorway. The Doctor had pulled Elöise to him and held her hand, while Miss Temple stood—feeling rather alone, actually—between the Doctor and Chang. She glanced once over her shoulder at Roger in the far doorway, his face pale and determined, another expression she had never seen.
    “What a gang of unlikely rebels,” said the Contessa. “As I am a rational woman I must recognize your success—however inadvertent—just as I can find myself truthfully wishing that our circumstances were other than they are. But the Cardinal is right. We will most likely perish—all of
you
will, certainly—just as I have lost my partners. Very well, Mr.
Gray
… it is no secret now—not even to the Comte, were he still alive. The mixture of indigo clay was altered to decrease the
pliability
of the new flesh of his
creations
. As a defense, you see, if they became too strong—they would be more brittle. As it happened, perhaps
too
brittle … ah, well … it seems I was rash.” She laughed again—even at this extremity a lovely sound—and sighed, going on in a whisper. “As for the
Prince—
well, I do not like him to overhear. In addition to taking the opportunity of implementing my own control phrase for His Highness, he has also been introduced with a poison for which I alone have the antidote. It is a simple precaution. I have secretlymade an adherent of his young cousin’s mother—the cousin who must inherit if the Prince dies without issue. With Karl-Horst so dead, Lydia’s child—and the Comte’s dire plan for their offspring—is swallowed in a battle for the succession that I shall control. Or perhaps the Prince shall live, continuing to consume the antidote in ignorance—it is all preparation.”
    “And all of it rendered academic,” muttered Svenson.
    Above them the Prince had found a helpful switch, for one chopping propeller switched off, followed a moment later by the other. Miss Temple looked to the windows, but they were still covered with curtains—were they still losing altitude? The cabin righted itself, and grew silent save for the whistling outside wind. They were adrift.
    “We shall see,” said the Contessa. “Roger?”
    Miss Temple turned at a noise behind her, but it did not come from