The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

manage this.”
    He stepped to the basin and plunged his head directly in it, gasping despite himself at the cold water. He brought up his dripping head, groped for a towel which the girl thrust into his hand, and then stood, vigorously rubbing his hair and face, pressing repeatedly at his re-opened cuts, dappling the towel with tiny red spots. He threw the towel aside, exhaled with some pleasure and smeared his hair back as best he could with his fingers. He caught the maid with his coat watching his face in the mirror.
    “Your Miss Lydia,” he called to her. “Where is she now—she and the Prince?”
    “She went with Mrs. Stearne, Sir.”
    “Captain,” the other corrected her. “He’s a Captain, aren’t you, Sir?”
    “Very observant,” answered Svenson, forcing an avuncular smile. He looked again at the basin and licked his lips. “Excuse me …”
    Svenson leaned over to the copper pitcher and held it up to his mouth, awkwardly drinking, splashing water on his collar and jacket. He didn’t care, any more than he cared what the maids might think—he was suddenly parched. When had he last had a drink—at the little inn at Tarr Village? It seemed half a lifetime past. He set down the pitcher and picked up another towel to wipe his face. He dropped the towel and dug his monocle from his pocket, screwing it into place.
    “How is the coat?” he asked.
    “Begging your pardon, Captain, but your coat is very unkempt,” replied the maid meekly. He snatched it from her hands.
    “Unkempt?” he said. “It is
filthy
. You have at least made it recognizable
as
a coat, if not a presentable one—and that is quite an achievement. And you”—he turned to the other—“have turned me into a recognizable
officer
, if not an entirely respectable one—but that fault lies entirely with me. I thank you both.” Svenson dug into his trouser pocket and came up with two silver coins, giving one to each girl. Their eyes were wide … even suspiciously so. It was too much money—did they think he required some additional unsavory service? Doctor Svenson cleared his throat, his face reddening, for now they were smiling at him coyly. He adjusted his monocle and thrashed his way awkwardly into the greatcoat, his haughty tone giving way to an uncomfortable stammer.
    “If you would be kind enough to point me in the direction taken by this M-Mrs. Stearne?”
    Doctor Svenson was happily directed by the maids’ pointing fingers to a side staircase he never would have seen, reached through a bland-looking door next to a mirror. Still Svenson was unsure as to his responsibility, his best intention. He followed the path of Karl-Horst and his fiancée—yet might it not just as well lead to that of Miss Temple or Elöise? The Cabal would strive to keep the likes of Miss Temple from the sight of its guests—or “adherents” as Miss Poole might arrogantly term them—for as long as possible, as she was sure to give the impression of a prisoner under guard. As they were not on this floor or the one above, this was at least a way for him to descend unseen. But what if he found the Prince before either woman—would that end his search entirely? For an instant he imagined a successful return to Macklenburg, to that life of arid duty, idiot successfully in tow, his heart as ever in its fog of despair. Yet what of the compact he had made on the rooftop of the Boniface, with Chang and Miss Temple? How could he choose betweenthese paths? Svenson left the maids looking after him in the hallway, their heads a-tilt like a pair of curious cats. He fought the urge to wave good-bye and strode on to the staircase.
    It was smaller than the main stairs, but only as if to say the Sphinx is smaller than the Pyramids, for it was still magnificent. Every step was intricately inlaid wood of many colors, and the walls were painted with an extremely credible copy, in miniature, of the Byzantine mosaics of Justinian and Theodora at Ravenna. Svenson suppressed an appreciative whistle at the amount Robert Vandaariff must have spent to refinish this one side staircase, and then attempted without success to extrapolate from that imagined sum the cost of fitting out Harschmort Prison into Harschmort House. It was a fortune whose vastness stretched beyond the Doctor’s ability with numbers.
    At the foot of the steps he had expected to see a door to the first-floor hallway, but there was none. Instead, he found an unlocked door, like a kitchen door on