The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

men—no doubt waiting to wrangle the mooring ropes. They drifted closer … a hundred feet, seventy feet … Svenson was suddenly concerned about being seen, and against all his better wishes dropped down to hang on to the hatch handle, flattening his body over the roof of the gondola. The steel plate was freezing. He had one hand on the handle and the other spread out across the roof for balance, with each boot splayed toward a different corner. They sank lower. He could hear shouts from below, and then the pop of a window being opened and an answering shout from the gondola.
    They were landing at Harschmort House.
    Doctor Svenson shut his eyes again, now more out of dread at being discovered than at his still-precarious altitude, as all around him he heard the calls and whistles of the craft coming in to land. No one came up through the hatch—apparently the mooring cables were lowered from the front of the gondola. Perhaps once the rotors stopped the cables were re-attached to the bolt where he’dclimbed. He had no idea—but it was only a matter of time before he was discovered. He forced his mind to think about his situation, and his immediate odds.
    He was unarmed. He was physically spent—as well as his ankle twisted, head battered, and hands raw from the climb. There was on the rooftop a gang of assuredly burly men more than willing to take him in hand, if not fling him to the plaza below. Within the gondola lurked another handful of enemies—Crabbé, Aspiche, Lorenz, Miss Poole … and in their power, in who knew what state—or, if he was perfectly honest, with what loyalties—Elöise Dujong. Below him he heard another popping sound and then a loud metallic rattle that ended in a heavy ring of steel striking stone. He suppressed the urge to raise his head and peek. The gondola began to rock slightly as he heard voices—Crabbé calling out and then after him Miss Poole. Someone answered them from below and then the conversation grew to too many voices for him to follow—they were descending from the gondola via some lowered ladder or staircase.
    “At long last,” this was Crabbé, calling to someone across the rooftop, “is everything ready?”
    “A most delightful time,” Miss Poole was saying to someone else, “though not without
adventure—
”
    “Damnable thing,” Crabbé continued. “I’ve no idea—Lorenz says he can, but that is news to me—yes, twice—the second straight through the heart—”
    “Gently! Gently now!” This was Lorenz calling out. “And ice—we’re going to need a washtub full at once—yes, all of you—take hold! Quickly now, there is no time!”
    Crabbé was listening as someone speaking too low for Svenson to hear briefed him on events elsewhere—could this be Bascombe?
    “Yes … yes … I see …” He could picture the Deputy Minister nodding along as he muttered. “And Carfax? Baax-Saornes? Baroness Roote? Mrs. Kraft? Henry Xonck? Excellent—and what of our illustrious host?”
    “The Colonel has injured his ankle, yes,” Miss Poole chuckled—wasthere ever a thing that woman did not find amusing?—“in
battle
against the dread Doctor Svenson. I am afraid the poor Doctor’s death was hard—my complexion is quite
ashen
at the prospect!”
    Miss Poole—and joining her with a bellowing “haw haw haw” was Colonel Aspiche—erupted in laughter at her pun. In Svenson’s spent emotional state, it was something of an abstraction to realize that the object of their sport was his being burnt in an oven.
    “This way—this way—yes! I do declare, Miss Poole, the ride does not seem to have suited her!”
    “And yet she seemed so recently
tractable
, Colonel—perhaps the lady merely requires more of your kind
attention
.”
    They were taking Elöise away—she was alive. What had they done to her? Worse, what did Miss Poole mean by “tractable”? He tormented himself with the image of Elöise on the wooden staircase, the confusion in her eyes … she had come to Tarr Manor for a reason, no matter that it was gone from her memory. Who was Svenson to say who she truly was? Then he remembered the warm press of her lips against his and had no idea what to think at all. Still Svenson’s fear at being discovered would not let him look up. The seconds crawled by and he muttered to himself, fervently wishing the pack of them off the rooftop as quickly as possible.
    Finally the voices were gone. But what of the men mooring the craft, or guarding it?