The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

explanation for Colonel Trapping’s death? All three of our
provocateurs
were in this house that night, yet it is impossible that they would know to kill him without some betrayal from within our ranks!”
    They fell silent. Svenson watched them, and with patient slowness reached up to scratch his nose.
    “Francis Xonck
was
burned by Cardinal Chang.” Bascombe began to speak quickly, sorting out their options. “It is unlikely he would undergo such an injury on purpose.”
    “Perhaps … yet he is extremely cunning, and personally reckless.”
    “Agreed. The Comte—”
    “The Comte d’Orkancz cares for his glass and his transformations—his
vision
. I swear that in his heart he considers all of this but one more canvas—a masterwork, perhaps—but still, his thought is to my taste a bit too …” Crabbé swallowed with some discomfort and brushed his moustache with a finger. “Perhaps it is simply his horrid plans for the girl—not that I even trust those plans have been fully
revealed
…”
    Crabbé looked up at the young man, as if he had said too much, but Bascombe’s expression had not changed.
    “And the Contessa?” Bascombe asked.
    “The Contessa,” echoed Crabbé. “The Contessa
indeed
…”
    They looked up, for one of their men was returning at a jog. They let him arrive without any further conversation. Once he reported the way ahead was clear, Bascombe nodded that the man should rejoin his companion ahead of them. The man crisply turned and the Ministry men again waited for him to disappear before they followed in silence—evidently not finished with their brooding. Svenson crept after them. The possibility of mistrust and dissension within the Cabal was an answer to a prayer he had not dared to utter.
    Without the trailing men to block his view, he could see the Minister more clearly—a short determined figure who carried a leather satchel, the sort one might use for official papers. Svenson was sure it was not present when they had collected the books, which meant Crabbé had acquired it since—along with his acquisition of Lord Vandaariff? Did that mean the satchel carried papers
from
Lord Vandaariff? He could still make no sense of the Lord’s apparent participation—his unforced accompaniment—at the same time they utterly ignored him. Svenson had assumed Vandaariff to be the plot’s prime mover—for not two days before the man had quite deliberately manipulated him away from Trapping’s body. However long the Cabal might have planned to spring their trap, whatever control they had established, whatever somnambulism … it had been recently done—for surely they haddrawn on the full resources of the Lord’s house and name to achieve their ends, which only could have been begun with his full participation and approval. And now he followed along—in his own house—as if he were an affable pet goat. Yet Svenson’s first glimpse of the man, as he crouched behind the fountain, had shown his face free of the scars of the Process. How else was he compelled? By way of a glass book? If it were only possible to get Vandaariff to himself for five minutes! Even that much time would afford a quick examination, would give the Doctor some insight into the corporeal effects of this
mind control
, and who could say … some insight into its reversal.
    For now however, unarmed and outnumbered, he could only follow them deeper into the house. He could hear from the rooms around them a growing buzz of human activity—footsteps, voices, cutlery, wheeled carts. So far their path had skirted any open place or crossroads—undoubtedly to keep Vandaariff from public view. Svenson wondered if the servants of the house knew of their master’s mental servitude, and how they might react to the knowledge. He did not imagine Robert Vandaariff to be a kindly employer—perhaps the household
did
know, and happily celebrated his downfall—perhaps the Cabal had dipped into Vandaariff’s own riches to purchase his people’s loyalty. Either possibility kept Svenson from trusting the servants … but he knew his opportunity was quickly slipping away. With each step they traveled closer to the other members of the Cabal.
    Svenson took a deep breath. The three men were perhaps ten yards ahead of him, just turning the corner from one long corridor into—he presumed—another. As soon as they disappeared he dashed ahead to make up ground, reached the corner and peeked—five yards away, and onto a thin