The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

of the woman’s arched back, like a twig bent to its limit before snapping, and he ran from their approval as if he ran from hell itself.
    He still had no idea where to find Svenson or Miss Temple, but if he was going to help them, he needed to remain free. The screaming of the pipes abruptly ceased, answered after a hanging moment of rapt attention by another eruption from the crowd. Once again the Comte crowed about power and transformation and the truth—each fatuous claim echoed by another bout of applause. Chang’s lips curled back with rage. The whining rise in the pipes resumed—d’Orkancz had moved on to Margaret Hooke. There was nothing Chang could do. He ascended two more turns of the stairs and saw the door to the gangway and Lord Vandaariff’s office.
    Chang stood, breathing hard, and spat. The iron door was closed and did not move—barred from the other side. Chang was to be driven like a breathless stag to the top of the tower. For a final time the roar of the pipes dropped suddenly away and the crowd erupted with delight. All three of the women had undergone the Comte’s ferocious alchemy. They would be waiting for him at the top. He had not found Celeste. He had lost Angelique.He had failed. Chang tucked the razor back into his coat and resumed his climb.
    The upper entrance was fashioned from the same steel plates, held together with the heavy rivets of a train car. The massive door swung silently to reveal an elegant bright hallway, the walls white and the floor gleaming pale marble. Some twenty feet away stood a shapely woman in a dark dress, her hair tied back with ribbon and her face obscured by a half-mask of black feathers. She nodded to him, formally. The line of ten red-coated Dragoons behind her, sabers drawn and clearly under command, did not move.
    Chang stepped from the turret onto the marble floor, glancing down. The tiles were marked by a wide stain of blood—quite obviously pooled from some violent wound and then smeared by something (the victim, he assumed) dragged through it. The path led straight beneath the woman’s feet. He met her eyes. Her expression was open and clear, though she did not smile. Chang was relieved—he had not realized how sick he’d become of his enemies’ sneering confidence—but perhaps her demeanor had less to do with him than with the bloody floor.
    “Cardinal Chang,” she said. “If you will come with me.”
    Chang pulled the glass book from the pillowcase. He could feel its energy push at him through the tip of each gloved finger, an antagonistic magnetism. He clutched it more firmly and held it out for her to see.
    “You know what this is,” he said, his voice still hoarse and ragged. “I am not afraid to smash it.”
    “I’m sure you are not,” she said. “I understand you are afraid of very little. But nothing will be settled here. I do not criticize to say you truly do not know all that has happened, or hangs in the balance. I’m sure there are many of whom you want to hear, as I knowthere are many who would like to see you. Is it not better to avoid what violence we can?”
    The bright blood-smeared marble beneath the woman’s feet seemed the perfect image for this hateful place, and it was all Chang could do not to snarl at her gracious tone.
    “What is your name?” Chang asked.
    “I am of no importance, I assure you,” she said. “Merely a messenger—”
    A harsh catch in Chang’s throat stopped her words. His brief sharp vision of Angelique—the unnatural color of her skin, its glassy, gleaming indigo depths and brighter transparent cerulean surface—was seared into Chang’s memory but its suddenly overwhelming impact was beyond his ability to translate to sense, to mere words. He swallowed, grimacing with discomfort, and spat again, diving into anger to override his tears. He gestured with his right hand, the fingers clutching with fury at the thought of such an abomination undertaken for the entertainment of so many—so many
respectable
—spectators.
    “I have seen this
great work
,” he hissed. “Nothing you can say will sway my purpose.”
    In answer, the woman stepped aside and indicated with her hand that he might follow along. At her movement the line of Dragoons split and snapped crisply into place to either side, forming a gauntlet for him to pass through. Some ten yards beyond them Chang saw a second line dividing itself with the same clean stamping of boots to frame an open archway leading deeper