The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

ahead of them, a harsh voice he knew at once.
    “Mrs. Stearne! Mrs. Stearne!” shouted Colonel Aspiche. “Where is Mr. Blenheim—he is wanted this instant!”
    The woman turned to the voice as the line of Dragoons broke apart to make way for their officer, approaching with another squad of his men behind him. Chang saw that Aspiche was limping. When Aspiche saw him, the Colonel’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened—and he then pointedly fixed his gaze on the woman.
    “My dear Colonel—” she began, but he bluntly overrode her.
    “Where is Mr. Blenheim? He is wanted some time ago—the delay cannot be borne!”
    “I do not know. I was sent to collect—”
    “I am well aware of it,” snarled Aspiche, cutting her off, as if to expunge his previous employment of Chang he would not even allow the speaking of his name. “But you have taken so long I am asked to collect
you
as well.” He turned to the men who had come with him, pointing to side rooms, barking orders. “Three to each wing—quickly as you can—send back at once with any word. He must be found—go!”
    The men dashed off. Aspiche avoided looking at Chang and stepped to the woman’s other side, offering her his arm—though Chang half-thought this was to help his limp, rather than the lady. He wondered what had happened to the Colonel’s leg and felt a little better for doing so.
    “Is there a reason he is not in chains, or dead?” asked theColonel, as politely as he could through his anger at having to ask at all.
    “I was not so instructed,” answered Mrs. Stearne—who, Chang realized as he studied her, could not be older than thirty.
    “He is uniquely dangerous and unscrupulous.”
    “So I have been assured. And yet”—and here she turned to Chang with a curiously blank face—“he truly has no choice. The only help for Cardinal Chang—whether it merely be to soothe his soul—is information. We are taking him to it. Besides, I have no wish to lose a book in an unnecessary struggle—and the Cardinal holds one.”
    “Information, eh?” sneered Aspiche, looking around the woman at Chang. “About what? His whore? About that idiot Svenson? About—”
    “Do be
quiet
, Colonel,” she hissed, fully out of patience.
    Chang was gratified, and not a little surprised, to see Aspiche pull his head back and snort with peevishness. And stop talking.
    The ballroom was near. It only made sense to use it for another such gathering—perhaps already the crowds from the great chamber were convening too, along with those from the theatre at the end of the spiral staircase. Chang suddenly wondered with a sinking heart, not having found her in the great chamber, if this theatre was where Miss Temple had been taken. Had he walked right past her, just close enough and in time to hear the applause at her destruction?
    With Aspiche in tow, their pace had slowed. The stamping bootsteps of the Dragoons made it difficult to hear any other movement in the house, and he wondered if his own execution or forced conversion was to be the main source of entertainment. He would smash the book over his own head before he allowed that to happen. To all appearances it seemed a quick enough end, and one equally horrible to watch as to experience. It would be something to at least, in his last moments, unsettle his executioners’ stomachs.
    He realized that Mrs. Stearne was looking at him. He cocked his head in a mocking invitation for her to speak … but she was, for the first time, hesitant to do so.
    “I would … if I may, I would be grateful—for as I say, I was elsewhere occupied—if, with the Comte … if you could tell me what you saw … down below.”
    It was all Chang could do not to slap the woman’s face.
    “What I
saw
?”
    “I ask because I do not know. Mrs. Marchmoor and Miss Poole—I knew them—I know that they have undergone—that the Comte’s great work—”
    “Did they go to him
willingly
?” demanded Chang.
    “Oh yes,” Mrs. Stearne replied.
    “Why not you?”
    She hesitated just a moment, looking into his veiled eyes.
    “I … I must … my own responsibilities for the evening—”
    She was interrupted by a peremptory snort from Aspiche, a clear admonishment at this topic of conversation—or indeed, conversation with Chang at all.
    “Instead of you, it was Angelique.”
    “Yes.”
    “Because
she
was willing?”
    Mrs. Stearne turned to Aspiche before he could snort again and snapped, “Colonel, do be quiet!”