Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

FIVE Ministry

By the time Chang reached the end of the lane, the coach was out of sight and he could not tell in which direction it had vanished. He spat with frustration, his chest heaving with the wasted effort. He looked back to see Svenson catch up, the Doctor’s face a mask of concern.

“She is gone?” he asked.

Chang nodded and spat again. He had no idea what had transpired in the girl’s head, nor where the irresponsible impulses had carried her.

“We should follow—” began Svenson.

“How?” snapped Chang. “Where is she going? Is she abandoning her efforts? Is she attacking our enemies on her own? Which one? And when, between being taken and being killed, will she tell them all they need know to find us?”

Chang was furious, but in truth he was just as angry at himself. His display of bad temper with regard to Angelique had touched off the foolishness—and what was the point? Angelique had no feelings for him. If she were alive and he could find her, it would help his standing with Madelaine Kraft. That was the end of it, the only end. He turned to Svenson, speaking quickly.

“How much money do you have?”

“I—I don’t know—enough for a day or two—to eat, find a room—”

“Purchase a train ticket?”

“Depending on how far the journey—”

“Here, then.” Chang thrust his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out the leather wallet. It held only two small banknotes, change from his night at the Boniface, but he had a handful of gold coins in his trouser pocket to fall back on. He handed one of the notes to Doctor Svenson with a bitter smile. “I don’t know what will befall us—and the change purse of our partnership has just walked away. How are you for ammunition?”

As if to reinforce his reply, Svenson hefted the revolver from his pocket. “I was able to reload from Miss Temple’s supply—the weapons share a caliber—”

“That’s a service .44.”

“It is.”

“As was hers?”

“Yes, though her weapon was deceptively small—”

“Has she ever fired it, do you know?”

“I do not think so.”

The two men stood for a moment between thoughts. Chang attempted to shrug off his feelings of remorse and recrimination. How had he not realized the gun was so powerful—he’d helped her clean it, for God’s sake. He wondered what he’d been thinking—but in truth knew exactly what had distracted him: the surprise at seeing her again in such different apparel than on the train, the curves of her throat marked by bruises instead of bloodstains, her small nimble fingers working to disassemble the black oiled metal parts of the revolver. He shook his head. The kick from such a weapon would knock her arm up back over her head—unless she pressed the barrel into her target’s body, she would never hit a thing. She had no idea what she was doing, in any of this.

“It is senseless to consider what’s done,” the Doctor said. “Do we go after her?”

“If she is taken, she is dead.”

“Then we must part to cover more ground. It really is unfortunate—it seems but a moment ago we were each running for our lives in isolation. I will miss someone to help me scale what water pipes I must.” He smiled and extended his hand. Chang took it.

“You will scale them by yourself—I am sure.”

Svenson smiled with a pinched expression, as if he appreciated Chang’s encouragement but remained unpersuaded. “Where do we each go?” he asked. “And where shall we meet again?”

“Where would she go?” Chang asked. “Do you think she is running to her aunt? That would be easier for us all…”

“I do not think so,” said Svenson. “On the contrary, whatever distress she has felt, I believe it has spurred her to direct action.”

Chang frowned, thinking. What had she said to him in the garden, her face, the smile belied by her grey eyes.

“Then it has to be this Bascombe idiot.”

Svenson sighed. “The poor girl.”

Chang spat again. “Will she shoot him in the head or blubber at his feet—that’s the question.”

“I disagree,” said Svenson quietly. “She is brave and resourceful. What do we know about anyone—very little. But we know Miss Temple has surprised any number of powerful people into thinking she was a deadly assassin-courtesan. Without her we both could have been taken in the hotel. If we can find her, I will wager you that she will save each of us in our turn before this is finished.”

Chang did not answer, then smiled.

“What is your Macklenburg currency—gold shillings?”

Svenson nodded.

“Then I will happily wager you ten gold shillings that Miss Temple will not preserve our lives. Of course, it’s a fool’s bet—for if we are not so preserved, then neither shall we be in any position to profit.”

“Nevertheless,” said Svenson, “I accept the wager.” They shook hands again. Svenson cleared his throat. “Now…this Bascombe—”

“There’s the country house—Tarr Manor. He could well be there. Or he could be at the Ministry, or with Crabbé.” Chang looked quickly up and down the avenue—they really ought not to be standing so long in the street so near to the Boniface. “The trip to Tarr Manor—”

“Where is it?”

“To the north, perhaps half a day by rail—we can find out easily enough at Stropping—we may even catch her at the station. But the trip will take time. The other possibilities—his home, the Ministry, Crabbé—these are in the city, and one of us can easily move from one to another as necessary.”

Svenson nodded. “So, one to the country, one to stay here—do you have a preference? I am an outsider in either instance.”

Chang smiled. “So am I, Doctor.” He gestured to his red coat and his glasses. “I am not one for country gentry, nor for the drawing rooms of respectable townsfolk…”

“It is still your city—you are its animal, if you will forgive me. I will go to the country, where they may be more persuaded by a uniform and tales of the Macklenburg Palace.”

Chang turned to flag another coach. “You should hurry—as I say, you may find her at Stropping. The path to the Ministry takes me the other way. We will part here.”

They shook hands for a third time, smiling at it. Svenson climbed into the coach. Without another word Chang began to walk quickly in the opposite direction. Over his shoulder he heard Svenson’s voice and turned.

“Where do we meet?” called the Doctor.

Chang called back, shouting through his hands. “Tomorrow noon! The clock at Stropping!”

Svenson nodded and waved before sitting back down in the coach. Chang doubted that either of them would be there.

As soon as he could, Chang left the avenue for a winding trail of alleys and narrow lanes. He had not decided where he ought to go first. More than anything he wanted to orient himself to his task in his normal manner and not rush headlong into circumstances he didn’t understand—even though this was exactly what Celeste was doing. Celeste? He wondered how he used that name in his thoughts, but not to her face, nor when speaking to Doctor Svenson, when it was always “Miss Temple”. It hardly mattered—it was undoubtedly because she was behaving like a child. With this thought, Chang resolved that if he were to try and enter the offices of the Foreign Ministry, or the house of Harald Crabbé, he needed to be better prepared. He increased his pace to a loping trot. He could not brave the Raton Marine, for it would certainly be watched—he had to believe Aspiche was now one with this Cabal. He would have very much liked to reach the Library. There were so many questions to answer—about indigo clay, about the Comte and the Contessa, about Bascombe and Crabbé, about the foreign travels of Francis Xonck, about Oskar Veilandt, even, he admitted, about Miss Celestial Temple. But the Library was where Rosamonde had found him, and they would certainly be waiting. Instead, his thinking more practical and dark, he made his way to Fabrizi’s.

The man was an Italian ex-mercenary and weapons master who catered to a clientele drawn from all across the city and whose only shared characteristic was an elegant bloody purpose. Chang entered the shop, glancing to either side at the glass display cases with his usual surge of covetous pleasure. He was relieved to see Fabrizi himself behind the counter, a crisp suit covered by a green flannel apron.

“Dottore,” said Chang, with a nod of greeting.

“Cardinale,” answered Fabrizi, his tone serious and respectful.

Chang pulled out his dagger and placed it before the man. “I have had a misadventure with the rest of your splendid cane,” he said. “I would like you to repair it, if possible. In the meantime, I would request the use of a suitable replacement. I will of course pay for all services in advance.” He took the remaining banknote from the wallet and laid it on the counter. Fabrizi ignored it, instead picking up the dagger and studying the condition of the blade. He returned the blade to the counter, looked at the banknote with mild surprise, as if it had appeared there independently, and quietly folded it into the pocket of his apron. He nodded to one of the glass cases. “You may select your replacement. I will have this ready in three days.”

“I am much obliged,” said Chang. He walked to the case, Fabrizi following him behind the counter. “Is there one you would suggest?”

“All are superb,” said the Italian. “For a man like you, I recommend the heavier wood—the cane may be used alone, yes? This one is teak…this one Malaysian ironwood.”

He handed the ironwood to Chang, who held it with immediate satisfaction, the hilt curved like a black-powder pistol grip in his hand. He pulled out the blade—a bit longer than he was used to—and hefted the stick. It was lovely, and Chang smiled like a man holding a new baby.

“As always,” he whispered, “the work is exquisite.”

It was after three o’clock. Without the Library to tell him where Bascombe lived, the easiest thing would be to follow the man from the Ministry. Besides, if Celeste were truly intent on finding him quickly, she would certainly go to the Ministry herself, doing her best to meet him—kill him?—in his office. If he was not there…well, Chang would answer that when it became necessary. He weighed the coins in his pocket, decided against a coach, and began to jog toward the maze of white buildings. It took him perhaps fifteen minutes to reach St. Isobel’s Square, and another five to walk—taking the time to ease his breathing and his countenance—to the front entrance. He made his way under the great white archway, through a sea of coaches and the throng of serious-faced people pursuing government business, and into a graveled courtyard, with different lanes—paved with slate and lined with ornamental shrubbery—leading off to different Ministries. It was as if he stood at the center of a wheel, with each spoke leading to its own discrete world of bureaucracy. The Foreign Ministry was directly before him, and so he walked straight ahead, boots crunching on the gravel and then echoing off the slate, to another smaller archway opening into a marble lobby and a wooden desk where a man in a black suit was flanked by red-coated soldiers. With some alarm, Chang noticed that they were troopers from the 4th Dragoons, but by the time he had realized this, they had seen him. He stopped, ready to run or to fight, but none of the soldiers stirred from their stiff postures of attention. Between them, the man in the suit looked up at Chang with an inquiring sniff.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Roger Bascombe,” said Chang.

The man’s gaze took in Chang’s apparel and demeanor. “And…who shall I announce?”

“Miss Celeste Temple,” said Chang.

“Excuse me—Miss Temple, you say?” The man was well enough trained in dealing with foreign manners not to sneer.

“I bring word from her,” said Chang. “I am confident he will want to hear it. If Mr. Bascombe is unavailable, I am willing to speak to Deputy Minister Crabbé.”

“I see, you are…willing…to speak to the Deputy Minister. Just a moment.” The man jotted a few lines onto a piece of paper and stuffed it into a leather tube, which he fed into a brass opening in the desk, where it was sucked from sight with an audible hiss. Chang was reminded of the Old Palace, and found it somehow comforting that the highest levels of government shared the latest means of communication with a brothel. He waited. Several other visitors arrived and were either allowed to pass through or became the subject of another such message sent through the leather tubes. Chang glanced at the others waiting—a dark-skinned man in a white uniform and a hat with peacock feathers, a pale Russian with a long beard and a blue uniform of boiled wool with a line of medals and a sash, and two elderly men in run-down black tailcoats, as if they had been continuously attending the same ball for the last twenty years. He was not surprised to see all four of them staring at him in return. He casually looked around to make sure the exit behind was still clear, and to note the hallways and staircases on the other side of the desk, the better to anticipate any danger that might arrive. The troopers remained still.

It was five more minutes before an answering tube thumped into its receptacle near the desk. The clerk unfolded the paper, made a note in the ledger next to him, and handed the paper to one of the troopers. He then called to Chang.

“You’re to go up. This man will show you the way. I will need your name, and your signature…here.” He indicated a second ledger on the desk top, and held out a pen. Chang took it and wrote, and handed it back.

“The name is Chang,” he said.

“Just ‘Chang’?” the man asked.

“For the moment, I’m afraid so.” He leaned forward with a whisper. “But I am hoping to win at the races…and then I shall purchase another.”

The soldier led Chang along a wide corridor and up an austere staircase of polished black granite with a wrought iron rail. They moved among other men in dark suits walking up and down, all clutching thickly packed satchels of paper, none of whom paid Chang the slightest attention. At the first landing the soldier led the way across a marble corridor to another staircase blocked off with an iron chain. He unlatched the chain, stepped back for Chang to pass, and replaced it behind them. On this staircase there was no other traffic, and the farther they climbed the more Chang felt he was entering a labyrinth he might never escape from. He looked at the red-coated trooper ahead of him and wondered if it would be better to simply slip a knife between the man’s ribs here, where they were alone, and then take his chances. As it was, he could only hope that he was indeed being taken to Bascombe—or Crabbé—and not into some isolated place of entrapment. He had mentioned Miss Temple’s name on a whim, to provoke a response—as well as to see if she had been there before him. That he had gained entry without any particular reaction left him mystified. It could mean that she was there, or that she wasn’t—or that they merely wanted to find her, which he already knew. He had to assume that the people who had allowed him in did not ultimately plan for him to leave. Still, the impulse to kill the soldier was mere nervousness. All that would come soon enough.

They climbed past three landings but never a door or window. At the landing of the next floor, however, the soldier took a long brass key from his coat, glanced once at Chang, and stepped to a heavy wooden door. He inserted the key and turned it several times in the lock, the machinery echoing sharply within the stairwell, before pulling it open. He stepped aside and indicated that Chang should go in. Chang did so, his attention neatly divided between the instinctive suspicion about the man at his back and the room he was entering—a short marbled corridor with another door on the opposite side, some five yards away. Chang looked back to the soldier, who nodded him on toward the far door. When Chang did not move the soldier suddenly slammed the door shut. Before Chang could leap for the knob he heard the key being turned. The thing would not budge. He was locked in. He berated himself for a credulous fool and strode to the far door, fully expecting it to be locked as well, but the brass knob turned with a well-oiled snick.

He looked into a wide office with a deep green carpet, and a low ceiling made less oppressive by a domed skylight of creamy glass rising over the center of the room. The walls were lined with bookshelves stuffed with hundreds of massive numbered volumes—official documents no doubt, collected through the years and from around the world. The wide space of the room was divided between two great pieces of furniture—a long meeting table to Chang’s left and an expansive desk to his right—that, like oaken planets, cast their nets of gravity across an array of lesser satellites—end tables, ashtrays, and map-stands. The desk was unoccupied, but at the table, looking up from an array of papers spread around him, sat Roger Bascombe.

“Ah,” he said, and awkwardly stood.

Chang glanced around the office more carefully and saw a communication door—closed—in the wall behind Bascombe, and what might well be another hidden entrance set into the bookcases behind the desk. He pushed the main door closed behind him, turned to Bascombe and tapped the tip of his stick lightly on the carpet.

“Good afternoon,” Chang said.

“Indeed, it is,” Bascombe replied. “The days grow warmer.”

Chang frowned. This was hardly the confrontation he had expected. “I believe I was announced,” he said.

“Yes. Actually, Miss Celeste Temple was announced. And then your name of course, in turn.” Bascombe gestured to the wall where Chang could see the sending and receiving apparatus for the message tubes. Bascombe gestured again toward the end of the table. “Please…will you sit?”

“I would prefer to stand,” said Chang.

“As you wish. I prefer a seat, if it is all the same to you…”

Bascombe sat back at the table, and took a moment to rearrange the papers in front of him. “So…,” he began, “you are acquainted with Miss Temple?”

“Apparently,” said Chang.

“Yes, apparently.” Bascombe nodded. “She is—well—she is herself. I have no cause to speak of her beyond those terms.”

It seemed to Chang that Bascombe was choosing his words very carefully, almost as if he were afraid of being caught out somehow…or being overheard.

“What terms exactly?” asked Chang.

“The terms she has set down by her own choices,” answered Bascombe. “As you have done.”

“And you?”

“Of course—no one is immune to the consequences of their own actions. Are you sure you will not sit?”

Chang ignored the question. He stared intently at the slim, well-dressed man at the table, trying to discern where in all the competing spheres of his enemies he might fit in. He could not help seeing Bascombe as he thought a woman must—his respectability, his refinement, his odd assumption of both rank and deference—and not any woman, but Miss Temple in particular. This man had been the object of her love—almost certainly was still, women being what they were. Looking at him, Chang had to admit that Bascombe possessed any number of attractive qualities, and was thus equally quite certain that he disliked the young man intensely, and so he smiled.

“Ambition…it does strange things to a fellow, would you not agree?”

Bascombe’s gaze measured him with all the dry, serious purpose of an undertaker. “How so?”

“I mean to say…it often seems that until a man is given what he assumes he wants…he has no real idea of the cost.”

“And why would you say that?”

“Why would I indeed?” Chang smiled. “Such an opinion would have to be derived from actual achievement. So how could I possibly know?” When Bascombe did not immediately respond, Chang gestured with his stick to the large desk. “Where are your confederates? Where is Mr. Crabbé? Why are you meeting me alone—don’t you know who I am? Haven’t you spoken to poor Major Blach? Aren’t you just the slightest bit worried?”

“I am not,” replied Bascombe, with an easy self-assurance that made Chang want to bloody his nose. “You have been allowed into this office for the specific purpose of being presented with a proposition. As I assume you are no idiot, as I assure you I am no idiot, I am in no danger until that proposition has been made.”

“And what proposition is that?”

But instead of answering, Bascombe stared at him, running his gaze over Chang’s person and costume, very much as if he were an odd kind of livestock or someone from a circus. Chang had the presence of mind to realize that the gesture was deliberate and designed to anger—though he did not understand why Bascombe would take the risk, being so obviously vulnerable. The entire situation was strange—for all that Bascombe spoke of plans and propositions, Chang knew his appearance at the Ministry must be a surprise. Bascombe was delaying him at personal risk so something else could happen—the arrival of reinforcements? But that made no sense, for the soldiers could have stopped him at any time on the way up. Instead, what they had accomplished was to divert Chang from the entrance. Was this all a performance—was Bascombe somehow demonstrating his loyalty, or was it possible that Bascombe played a double game? Or was the delay not to bring anyone to the room, but to get someone away from it?

In a swift movement Chang raised his stick and strode to Bascombe. Before the man could half-rise from his chair the end landed viciously against his ear. Bascombe slumped down with a cry, holding the side of his head. Chang took the opportunity to press the stick roughly across his neck. Bascombe choked, his face abruptly reddening. Chang leaned forward and spoke slowly.

“Where is she?”

Bascombe did not immediately answer. Chang shoved the stick sharply into his windpipe.

“Where is she?”

“Who?” Bascombe’s voice was a rasp.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t think he knows who you mean.”

Chang whirled around and with a smooth motion pulled apart his stick. Behind the desk, leaning indolently against the bookcases, stood Francis Xonck, in a mustard yellow morning coat, his red hair meticulously curled, an unlit cheroot in his hand. Chang took a careful step toward him, risking a quick glance back to Bascombe, who was still laboring to breathe.

“Good afternoon,” said Chang.

“Good afternoon. I hope you haven’t hurt him.”

“Why? Does he belong to you?”

Xonck smiled. “That’s very clever. But you know, I’m clever too, and I must congratulate you—the mystery about the ‘she’ you so desperately seek is positively diverting. Is it Rosamonde? Is it little Miss Temple—or should I say Hastings? Or even better, the Comte’s unfortunate, slant-eyed trollop? Either way, the idea that you’re actually looking for any of them is richly amusing. Because you’re so manly, don’t you know, and at the same time such a buffoon. Excuse me.”

He pulled a small box of matches from his waistcoat and lit the cheroot, looking over the glowing tip at Chang as he puffed. His eyes shifted to Bascombe. “Will you survive, Roger?” He smiled at Bascombe’s reply—a hacking cough—and tossed the spent match onto the desk top.

Chang took another step closer to Xonck, who seemed as uncaring in his manner as Bascombe had been moments before, but oddly gay where Bascombe had been watchful. “Shall I ask you?” he hissed.

“You would do better to listen,” Xonck replied dryly. “Or, in lieu of that, to think. The way behind you is locked, as is the door behind me. If you were able to make your way through the door behind Bascombe—which you won’t—I promise you will be quickly lost within a dense maze of corridors with absolutely no chance of evading or surviving the very large number of soldiers even now assembling to kill you. You would die, Mr. Chang, in such a way as to serve no one—a dog run down by a coach in the dark.” He frowned and picked a scrap of tobacco off his lower lip and flicked it away, then returned his eyes to Chang.

“And you would suggest I serve you?” asked Chang.

“Serve yourself,” croaked Bascombe, from the table.

“He rallies!” laughed Xonck. “But you know, he is right. Serve yourself. Be reasonable.”

“We’re wasting time—” muttered Chang, moving for Xonck. Xonck did not move, but spoke very quickly and sharply.

“That is foolish. It will kill you. Stop and think.”

Against his better judgment, Chang did. He was nearly within reach of the man, if he lunged with the long part of the stick. But he didn’t lunge, partly because he saw that Xonck wasn’t frightened…not in the slightest.

“Whatever reason brought you here,” Xonck said, “your search—you must postpone. You were allowed up for the sole reason, as Mr. Bascombe has said, to make you a proposition. There is plenty of time to fight, or to die—there is always time for that—but there is no more time to find whichever woman you hoped would be here.”

Chang wanted very much to leap over the desk and stab him, but his instincts—which he knew to trust—told him that Xonck was not like Bascombe, and that any attack on him needed to be as carefully considered as one on a cobra. Xonck did not seem to be armed, but he could easily have a small pistol—or for that matter a vial of acid. At the same time, Chang did not know what to make of the man’s warning about escaping into the Ministry. While it might be true, it was in Xonck’s every interest to lie. But why had they let him ascend without any soldiers to take him in hand? He had too many questions, but Chang knew that nothing revealed more about a man than his estimation of what your price might be. He stepped away from Xonck and sneered.

“What proposition?”

Xonck smiled, but it was Bascombe who spoke, clearly and coolly despite the hoarseness of his voice, as if he were describing the necessary steps in the working of a machine.

“I cannot give you details. I do not seek to convince, but to offer opportunity. Those who have accepted our invitation have and will continue to benefit accordingly. Those who have not are no longer our concern. You are acquainted with Miss Temple. She may have spoken of our former engagement. I cannot—for it is impossible to say how I was then, for that would be to say how I was a child. So much has changed—so much has become clear—that I can only speak of what I have become. It’s true I thought myself to be in love. In love because I could not see past the ways in which I was subject, for I believed, in my servitude, that this love would release me. What view of the world had I convinced myself I understood so well? It was the useless attachment to another, to rescue, which existed in place of my own action. What I believed were solely consequences of that attachment—money, stature, respectability, pleasure—I now see merely as elements of my own unlimited capacity. Do you understand?”

Chang shrugged. The words were eloquently spoken, but somehow abstractly, like a speech learned by heart to demonstrate rhetoric…and yet, through it all, had Bascombe’s eyes been as steady? Had they betrayed some other tension? As if responding to Chang’s thought, Bascombe then leaned forward, more intently.

“It is natural that different individuals pursue different goals, but it is equally clear that these goals are intertwined, that a benefit to one will be a benefit to others. Serve yourself. You are a man of capacity—and even, it seems possible, of some intelligence. What you have achieved against our allies only certifies your value. There are no grievances, only interests in competition. Refuse that competition, join us, and be enriched with clarity. Whatever you want—wherever you direct your action—you will find reward.”

“I have no uncle with a title,” observed Chang. He wished Xonck was not there—it was impossible to read Bascombe’s true intention apart from his master’s presence.

“Neither does Roger, anymore.” Xonck chuckled.

“Exactly,” said Bascombe, with all the evident emotion of the wooden chair he sat in.

“I’m afraid I don’t actually understand your proposition,” said Chang.

Xonck sneered. “Don’t be coy.”

“You have desire,” said Bascombe. “Ambition. Frustration. Bitterness. What will you do—struggle against them until one of your adventures goes wrong and you die bleeding in the street? Will you trust your life to the whims of a”—his voice stumbled just slightly—“a provincial girl? To the secret interests of a German spy? You have met the Contessa. She has spoken for you. It is at her urging you are here. Our hand is out. Take it. The Process will transform you, as it has transformed us all.”

The offer was enormously condescending. Chang looked to Xonck, whose face wore a mild, fixed smile of no particular meaning.

“And if I refuse this proposition?”

“You won’t,” said Bascombe. “You would be a fool.”

Chang noticed a smear of blood on Bascombe’s ear, but whatever pain he had caused made no impression on the man’s self-assurance, nor on the sharpness of his gaze, the meaning of which Chang could not discern. Chang glanced back to Xonck, who rolled the cheroot between his fingers and exhaled a jet of smoke toward the ceiling. The question was how best to learn more, to find Angelique, or Celeste—even, he had to admit, confront Rosamonde. But had he only come here to deliver himself into their hands so effortlessly?

About the Ministry at least, Xonck had been telling the truth. They walked down a twisting narrow hallway in the dark—Bascombe in the front with a lantern, Xonck behind. The rooms they passed—the flickering light giving Chang brief, flaring glimpses before they fell back into shadow—had been constructed without any logic he could see. Some were crammed with boxes, with maps, with tables and chairs, day beds, desks, while others—both large and small—were empty, or contained but a single chair. The only point of unity was the complete absence of windows, indeed of any light at all. With his poor eyesight, Chang soon lost any sense of direction as Bascombe led him this way and that, up short sets of stairs and then down odd curving ramps. They had allowed him to keep his stick, but he was deeper in their power with each step he took.

“This Process of yours,” he said, ostensibly to Bascombe though hoping for a reply from Xonck. “Do you really think it will alter my desire to ruin you both?”

Bascombe stopped, and turned to face him, his gaze flicking briefly to Xonck before he spoke.

“Once you have experienced it yourself, you will be ashamed of your doubts and mockery, as well as the purposeless life you have so far pursued.”

“Purposeless?”

“Pathetically so. Are you ready?”

“I suppose I am.”

Chang heard a slight rustle from the darkness behind him. He was sure Xonck held a weapon.

“Keep walking,” muttered Xonck.

“You swayed Colonel Aspiche to your cause, didn’t you? The 4th Dragoons are a fine regiment—so helpful to the Foreign Ministry. Good of him to step into the breach.” He clucked his tongue and called back to Xonck. “You’re not wearing black. Trapping was your brother-in-law.”

“And I am devastated, I do assure you.”

“Then why did he have to die?”

He received no answer. Chang would have to do better than this to provoke them. They walked on in shuffling silence, the lantern light catching on what seemed to be chandeliers in the air above them. Their passageway had opened into some much larger room. Xonck called ahead to Bascombe.

“Roger, put the lantern on the floor.”

Bascombe turned, looked at Xonck as if he didn’t fully comprehend, and then placed the lantern on the wooden floor, well out of Chang’s reach.

“Thank you. Now go ahead—you can find your way. Give word to prepare the machines.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“I am.”

Bascombe glanced once, rather searchingly, at Chang, who took the opportunity to sneer, and then disappeared into the dark. Chang heard his footsteps well after the man had passed from the light, but soon the room was silent once more. Xonck took a few steps into the shadow and returned with two wooden chairs. He placed them on the floor and kicked one over to Chang, who stopped its momentum with his foot. Xonck sat, and after a moment Chang followed his example.

“I thought it worthwhile to attempt a frank discussion. After all, in half an hour’s time you will either be my ally or you will be dead—there seems little point in mincing words.”

“Is it that simple?” asked Chang.

“It is.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t mean my decision to submit or die—that is simple—but your own reasons…your desire to speak without Bascombe…not simple in the slightest.”

Xonck studied him, but did not speak. Chang decided to take a chance, and do exactly what Xonck asked—speak frankly.

“There are two levels to your enterprise. There are those who have undergone this Process, like Margaret Hooke…and then there are those—like you, or the Contessa—who remain free. And in competition, despite your rhetoric.”

“Competition for what?”

“I do not know,” Chang admitted. “The stakes are different for each of you—I imagine that’s the problem. It always is.”

Xonck chuckled. “But my colleagues and I are in complete agreement.”

Chang scoffed. He was aware that he could not see Xonck’s right hand, that the man held it casually to the side of his chair behind his crossed leg.

“Why should that surprise you?” Xonck asked. Chang scoffed again.

“Then why was Tarr’s death so poorly managed? Why was Trapping killed? What of the dead painter, Oskar Veilandt? Why did the Contessa allow the Prince to be rescued? Where is the Prince now?”

“A lot of questions,” Xonck observed dryly.

“I’m sorry if they bore you. But if I were you, and I didn’t have those answers—”

“As I explained, either you’ll be dead—”

“Don’t you think it’s amusing? You’re trying to decide whether to kill me before I join you—so I won’t tell your colleagues about your independent plans. And I’m trying to decide whether to kill you—or to try and learn more about your Process.”

“Except I don’t have any independent plans.”

“But the Contessa does,” said Chang. “And you know it. The others don’t.”

“We’re going to disappoint Bascombe if you don’t show up. He’s a keen one for order.” Xonck stood, his right hand still behind his body. “Leave the lantern.”

Chang rose with him, his stick held loosely in his left hand. “Have you met the young woman, Miss Temple? She was Bascombe’s fiancée.”

“So I understand. Quite a shock to poor Roger, I’m sure—quite a good thing his mind is so stable. So much fuss for nothing.”

“Fuss?”

“The search for Isobel Hastings,” Xonck scoffed, “mysterious killer whore.”

Xonck’s eyes were full of intelligence and cunning, and his body possessed the easy, lithe athleticism of a hunting wolf—but running through it all, like a vein of rot through a tree, was the arrogance of money. Chang knew enough to see the man was dangerous, perhaps even his better if it came to a fight—one never knew—but all of this was still atop a foundation of privilege, an unearned superiority imposed by force, fear, disdain, by purchased experience and unexamined arrogance. Chang found it odd that his estimation of Xonck was crystallized by the man’s dismissal of Celeste—not because she wasn’t in part a silly rich girl, but because she was that and still managed to survive, and—more important than anything—accept that the ordeal had changed her. Chang did not believe Francis Xonck ever changed—in fact change was the exact quality he held himself above.

“I take it you haven’t made her acquaintance then,” Chang said.

Xonck shrugged and nodded at the door in the shadows behind Chang. “I will bear the loss. If you would…”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I’ve found what I meant to. I’ll be going.”

Xonck swung his hand forward and aimed a shining silver-plated pistol at Chang’s chest. “To hell?”

“At some point, certainly. Why invite me to join you—your Process? Whose idea was that?”

“Bascombe told you. Hers.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You needn’t be.” Xonck stared at him, the lines of his face deeply etched in the flickering lantern light. His sharp nose and pointed chin looked positively devilish. Chang knew it was a matter of moments—either Xonck would shoot him or drive him along to Bascombe. He was confident that his guesses about the fissures within the Cabal were correct, and that Xonck was smart enough to see them too. Was Xonck arrogant enough to think they didn’t matter, that he was immune? Of course he was. Then why had he wanted to talk? To see if Chang was still working for Rosamonde? And if he thought Chang was…did that mean he would kill him, or try to satisfy the Contessa and let him escape—thus the need to get rid of Bascombe…

Chang shook his head ruefully, as if he had been caught out. “She did say you were the smartest of them all, even smarter than d’Orkancz.”

For a moment Xonck didn’t respond. Then he said, “I don’t believe you.”

“She hired me to find Isobel Hastings. I did. Before I could contact her, I was waylaid by that idiot German Major—”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Ask her yourself.” He suddenly dropped his voice, hissing with annoyance. “Is that Bascombe coming back?”

Chang turned behind him as if he’d heard footsteps, so naturally that Xonck would have been inhuman not to look, even for a moment. In that moment Chang, whose hand was on the back of the wooden chair, swept it up with all his strength and hurled it at Xonck. The pistol went off once, splintering the wood, and then once more, but by that time Xonck was flinching against the chair’s impact and the shot went high. The chair hit his shoulder with a solid cracking sound, causing him to swear and stumble back against the possibility that Chang would rush him with his stick. The chair rebounded away and, his face a mask of fury, Xonck brought the pistol back to bear. His third shot coincided exactly with a scream of surprise. Chang had scooped up the oil lantern and flung it at him, the contents soaking Xonck’s extended arm. When he fired, the spark from the gun set his arm ablaze. The shot missed Chang by a good yard. His last image of Xonck, screaming with rage, was the man’s desperate attempt to rip off his morning coat, his fingers—the pistol dropped—roiling with flame and clutching in agony against the sizzling rush of the fire that swallowed his entire arm. Xonck thrashed like a madman. Chang dove forward into the darkness.

Within moments he was blind. He slowed to deliberate steps, hands held out to prevent walking into walls or furniture. He needed to put distance between himself and Xonck, but he needed to do it quietly. His hand found a wall to his left and he moved along it in what seemed to be another direction—had he entered a corridor? He paused to listen. He could no longer hear Xonck…could the man have put out the fire so quickly? Could he be dead? Chang didn’t think so. His one comfort was that Xonck was now forced to shoot with his left hand. He crept along, pawing at a curtain in front of him until he found an opening. Behind it—he nearly twisted his ankle missing the first step—was an extremely narrow staircase—he could easily touch the walls on either side. He silently made his way down. At the landing, some twenty steps below, he heard noises above him. It had to be Bascombe. There would be lights, a search. He groped ahead of himself for the far wall, found a door, then the knob. It was locked. Chang very carefully dug in his pockets for his ring of keys and, clutching them hard to stop them jingling into one another, tried the lock. It opened with the second key, and he stepped through, easing the door closed behind him.

The new room, whatever it was, was still pitch black. Chang wondered how long before these corridors were full of soldiers. He felt his way forward, his hands finding a stack of wooden crates, and then a dusty bookcase. He worked his way past it, and to his great relief felt a pane of glass, a window undoubtedly painted black. Chang pulled the dagger from his cane and smartly rapped the butt into the glass, punching it clear. Light poured into the room, transforming it from formless dark to an unthreatening vestibule full of dusty unused furniture. He peered out through the broken pane. The window overlooked one of the wheel-spoke pathways, and was—he craned his neck—at least two floors below the roof. To his dismay he saw the outer wall was sheer, with no ledges or molding or pipes to cling to, going up or down. There was no exit this way.

Chang wheeled around at a sudden draft of cool air behind him—as if the door had been opened. The breeze came from a metal vent in the floor, the cool air—which with a sense of smell might well have made him nauseous—flowing out to the open window. Chang knelt at the vent. He could hear voices. He sighed with frustration—he could not make out the words for the echoing effect of the vent. The opening was wide enough for a man to crawl through. He felt inside and was gratified to find it was not moist. Keeping as quiet as possible, he pried apart the housing until it was wide enough for him to get at the hole. It was pitch black. He set his stick inside and wormed his way after it. There was just room for him to move on his hands and knees. He crawled forward as quietly as he could.

He’d gone perhaps five yards when the vent split three ways, to either side and angling upwards. He listened carefully. The voices were coming from above—from the floor he’d just escaped. He peered up, and saw a dim light. He climbed upwards, pressing his legs against both sides to keep himself from sliding back. As he rose, the vent leveled off again—where the light bled in. He kept climbing, finding it more and more difficult, for the surface of the vent was covered with a fine powder that prevented him from getting any solid purchase. Was it soot? He couldn’t see in the dark—he cursed the fact that he was probably filthy—and kept struggling to reach the light. He reached up, his fingers finding a ledge and just beyond it, a metal grate over the opening. He laced his fingers over the grating and pulled his body up until he could see out the hole, but the only view was a slate-covered floor and a tattered dark curtain. He listened…and heard a voice he did not recognize.

“He is a protégé of my uncle’s. Of course, I do not approve of my uncle, so this is not the highest recommendation. Is he quite secured? Excellent. You will understand that I am not—given these recent events—inclined toward the risks of politesse.”

A woman chuckled politely in response. Chang frowned. The voice spoke with an accent quite like the Doctor’s, but with an indolent drawl that announced its words one at a time without regard to conversational sense or momentum, so draining them of any possible wit.

“Excuse the interruption, but perhaps I should assist—”

“You will not.”

“Highness.” The word was followed by the clicking of heels. The second voice was also German.

The first voice went on, and obviously not to the second voice, but to the woman. “What people do not understand—who have not known it—is the great burden of obligation.”

“Responsibility,” she agreed. “Only a few of us can bear it well. Tea?”

“Danke. Is he able to breathe?”

It was a question from curiosity, not from concern, and it was answered—to Chang’s ears—with a swift meaty impact followed by a violent expulsion of coughing discomfort.

“He should not expire before the Process re-makes him,” continued the voice rather pedantically. “He will know what it means to be faithful, yes? Is there a lemon?”

The voices were still some distance away, perhaps across the room, he could not tell. He reached out and tentatively exerted pressure on the grated covering. It gave, but not enough to come loose. He pushed again, steadily and with more force.

“Who is this man they have with them?” asked the first voice.

“The criminal,” answered the second man.

“Criminal? Why should we be joined by such a fellow?”

“I would not agree that we should—”

“Different walks of life bear different cares, Highness,” said the woman smoothly, cutting into the second man’s words. “Truly when we have nothing more to learn, we have stopped living.”

“Of course,” the voice agreed eagerly. “And by this logic you’re very much alive, Major—for you have obviously very much to learn about sensible thinking!”

Chang’s brain took in the fact that the second voice must be Major Blach and the first voice—though his manner contradicted the sense-drugged dissipation as described by Svenson—Karl-Horst von Maasmärck, but these were hardly the crux of his attention. The woman was Rosamonde, Contessa Lacquer-Sforza. What she was doing here he could not say. He was too much stirred at the knowledge she was speaking of him.

“The Major is angry, Highness, for this man has caused him much discomfort. But yet, that is exactly why Mr. Bascombe, at my suggestion, has importuned him to join our efforts.”

“But will he? Will he see the sense of it?” The Prince slurped his tea.

“We can only hope he is as wise a man as you.”

The Prince chuckled indulgently at this ridiculous suggestion. Chang pressed again against the grate. He knew it was foolish, but he very much wanted to see her, and to see—for he recognized the particular sounds—who was being kicked on the floor. He could feel the grate giving way, but had no idea what sound it would make when it pulled free. Then the room’s door was kicked open with a bang, the commotion of a man violently swearing, and another calling for aid. He heard Bascombe shouting for help and the room was an uproar—Xonck’s vitriolic profanity, Rosamonde sharply issuing commands for water, towels, scissors, the Prince and Blach bawling contradictory orders to whoever else was present. Chang slipped backwards from the grate, for the commotion had driven his enemies into view.

The cries had faded to fierce muttering as Xonck was attended to. Bascombe attempted to explain what had happened in the office, and then that he had gone ahead.

“Why did you do that?” snapped Rosamonde.

“I—Mr. Xonck asked that—”

“I told you. I told you and you did not pay attention.”

But her words were not addressed to Bascombe.

“I did pay attention,” Xonck hissed. “You were wrong. He would not have submitted.”

“He would have submitted to me.”

“Then next time you can get him yourself…and pay the consequences,” Xonck replied malevolently.

They stared at each other and Chang saw the others watching with various degrees of discomfort. Bascombe looked positively stricken, the Prince—the scars still visible on his face—looked curious, as if not sure he should be concerned, while Blach viewed them all with a poorly masked disapproval. On the floor behind them, trussed and gagged, was a short stocky man in a suit. Chang did not know him. Kneeling to the other side of Xonck was another man, balding with heavy glasses, wrapping the burned arm with gauze.

Xonck sat on a wooden table, his legs between dangling leather straps. Around them on the floor were several of the long boxes. Covering one wall were large maps stuck with colored pins. Hanging over the table from a long chain was a chandelier. Chang looked up. The ceiling was very high, and the room itself was round—they were in one of the building’s corner cupolas. Just under the ceiling beams was a row of small round windows. He knew from his view on the street that these were just above the rooftop, but he saw no way to reach them. He returned his gaze to the maps. With a start he realized that they were of northern Germany. The Duchy of Macklenburg.

Xonck rolled off of the table with a snarl and strode for the door. His face was drawn and he was biting his lip against what must have been excruciating pain.

“Where are you going?” Bascombe asked.

“To save my bloody hand!” he cried. “To find a surgeon! To prevent myself from killing one of you!”

“You see what I mean, Highness,” Rosamonde said lightly to the Prince. “Responsibility is like courage. You never know you possess it until the test. At which point, of course, it is too late—you succeed or fail.”

Xonck stopped in the doorway, doing his best not to whimper—Chang had just seen the livid blistering flesh of his arm before they’d wrapped it—while he spoke. “Indeed…Highness,” he snarled dangerously, as if his very words were smoking vitriol. “Abdicating responsibility can be mortal—one is scarcely in more peril than when trusting those who promise all. Was not Satan the most beautiful of angels?” Xonck staggered away.

Bascombe appealed to the Contessa. “Madame—”

She nodded tolerantly. “Make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.” Bascombe hurried out.

“Now we are alone,” said the Prince, in a satisfied tone that was meant to be charming. The Contessa smiled, looking around the room at the other men.

“Only a Prince thinks of himself ‘alone’ with a woman when there are merely no other women in the room.”

“Does that make Francis Xonck a woman—as he’s just left us?” laughed Major Blach. He laughed like a crow.

The Prince laughed with him. Chang felt a twinge of empathy for Xonck, and was tempted to simply step out and attack them—as long as he killed Blach first, the others would be no trouble. Then Rosamonde was speaking again, and he found her voice still fixed him where he was.

“I would suggest we place Herr Flaüss on the table.”

“Excellent idea,” agreed the Prince. “Blach—and you there—”

“That is Mr. Gray, from the Institute,” said Rosamonde patiently, as if she had said this before.

“Excellent—pick him up—”

“He is very heavy, Highness…,” muttered Blach, his face red with exertion. Chang smiled to see Blach and the older Mr. Gray futilely struggling with the awkward, kicking mass of Herr Flaüss, who was doing his best to avoid the table altogether.

“Highness?” asked the Contessa Lacquer-Sforza.

“I suppose I must—it is ridiculous—stop struggling, Flaüss, or indeed it will go the worse for you—this is all for your benefit, and you will thank me later!”

The Prince shoved Gray to the side and took the writhing man’s legs. The effort was not much more successful, but with much grunting they got him aboard. Chang was pleased to see Rosamonde smiling at them, if discreetly.

“There!” gasped Karl-Horst. He gestured vaguely to Gray and returned to his seat and his tea. “Tie him down—prepare the—ah—apparatus—”

“Should we question him?” asked Blach.

“For what?” replied the Prince.

“His allies in Macklenburg. His allies here. The whereabouts of Doctor Svenson—”

“Why bother? Once he has undergone the Process he will tell us of his own accord—indeed, he will be one of our number.”

“You have not undergone the Process yourself, Major?” asked the Contessa in a neutral tone of polite interest.

“Not as of yet, Madame.”

“He will,” declared the Prince. “I insist upon it—all of my advisors will be required to partake of its…clarity. You do not know, Blach—you do not know.” He slurped his tea. “This is of course why you have failed to find Svenson, and failed with this—this—criminal. It is only by the grace of the Contessa’s wisdom that you were not relied on to effect changes in Macklenburg!”

Blach did not answer, but less than deftly tried to change the subject, nodding to the door. “Do we need Bascombe to continue?”

“Mr. Gray can manage, I am sure,” said the Contessa. “But perhaps you will help him with the boxes?”

Chang watched with fascination as the long boxes were opened and the green felt packing pulled onto the floor. While Blach secured Flaüss to the table—without the slightest scruple for tightening the straps—the elderly Mr. Gray removed what looked to be an oversized pair of eyeglasses, the lenses impossibly thick and rimmed with black rubber, the whole apparatus—for indeed, it was part of a machine—run through with trailing lengths of bright copper wire. Gray strapped the glasses over the struggling man’s face—again, viciously tight—and then stepped back to the box. He removed a length of rubber-sheathed cable with a large metal clamp at either end, attaching one end to the copper wire and then kneeling for the box with the other. He attached it there—Chang could not see exactly to what—and then, with some effort, turned some kind of switch or nozzle. Chang heard a pressurized hiss. Gray stood, looking to Rosamonde.

“I suggest we all step away from the table,” she said.

Blue light began to radiate from inside the box, growing in brightness. Flaüss arched his back against his bonds, snorting breath through his nose. The wires began to hiss. Chang realized that this was his moment. He shoved the grate forward and to the side, slithering quickly into the room. He felt a pang for Flaüss—especially if he was indeed an ally of Svenson, though Svenson had mentioned no ally—but this was the best distraction he was likely to find, as all four of them were watching the man’s exertions as if it were a public hanging. Chang gathered his stick, stood, took three quick steps and swung his fist as hard as he could against the base of Blach’s head. Blach staggered forward with the force of the blow before his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor. Chang turned to the Prince, whose face was a gibbering mask of surprise, and backhanded him savagely across the jaw, so hard the man sprawled over his chair and into the tea table. Chang spun to Gray, who’d been on the other side of Blach, and stabbed the blunt end of his stick into the man’s soft belly. Gray—an old man, but Chang was not one for taking chances—doubled up with a groan and sat down hard on the floor, his face purpling. Chang wheeled toward Rosamonde and pulled his stick apart, ready to answer whatever weapon she had drawn. She had no weapon. She was smiling at him.

Around them the ringing wires rose to a howl. Flaüss was vibrating on the table hideously, foam seeping around the gag in his mouth. Chang pointed to the box. “Stop it! Turn it off!”

Rosamonde shouted back, her words slow and deliberate. “If you stop now it will kill him.”

Chang glanced at Flaüss with horror, and then turned quickly to the other men. Blach was quite still, and he wondered if the blow had broken his neck. The Prince was on his hands and knees, feeling his jaw. Gray remained sitting. Chang looked back at Rosamonde. The noise was deafening, the light flaring around them brilliantly blue, as if they were suspended in the brightest, clearest summer sky. It was pointless to speak. She shrugged, smiling still.

He had no real idea how long they stood there, minutes at least, looking into each other’s eyes. He did force himself to check the men on the floor, and once snapped the stick into Karl-Horst’s hand as the Prince attempted to palm a knife from the scattered tea tray. The roaring Process made it all seem as if it occurred in silence, for he could not hear any of the normal sounds of reality—the tinkling of the knife on the stone floor, the Prince’s profanity, the groans of Mr. Gray. He returned to Rosamonde, knowing she was the only danger in the room, knowing that to look into her eyes as he was doing was to cast the whole of his life up for judgment where it must be found desolate, wanting, and mean. Steam rose up from Flaüss’s face. Chang tried to think of Svenson and Celeste. They were both probably dead, or on their way to ruin. He could do nothing for them. He knew he was alone.

With a sharp cracking sound the Process was complete, the light suddenly fading and sound reduced to echo. Chang’s ears rang. He blinked. Flaüss lay still, his chest heaving—he was alive at least.

“Cardinal Chang.” Rosamonde’s voice sounded unsettlingly small in the shadow of such a din, as if he wasn’t hearing correctly.

“Madame.”

“It seemed as if I would not see you. I hope I am not forward to say that was a disappointment.”

“I was not able to accompany Mr. Xonck.”

“No. But you are here—I’m sure through some very cunning means.”

Chang glanced quickly to the Prince and Gray, who were not moving.

“Do not trouble yourself,” she said. “I am intent that we should have a conversation.”

“I am curious whether Major Blach is dead. A moment…” Chang knelt at the body and pressed two fingers into the man’s neck. The pulse was there. He stood again, and restored the dagger to the stick. “Perhaps next time.”

She nodded politely, as if she understood how that could be a good thing, then gestured to the older man. “If you will permit—as long as we are interrupted—perhaps Mr. Gray can attend to Herr Flaüss? Just to make sure he has not injured himself—sometimes, the exertions—it is a violent transformation.”

Chang nodded to Gray, who rose to his feet unsteadily and moved to the table.

“May we sit?” asked Rosamonde.

“I must ask that you…behave,” replied Chang.

She laughed, a genuine burst of amusement he was sure. “O Cardinal, I would never dream of anything else…here—” She stepped to the two chairs she’d shared with the Prince—who was still on his hands and knees. She sat where she had, and Chang picked up the Prince’s upended chair and extended his stick toward Karl-Horst. The Prince, taking the hint, scuttled away like a sullen crab.

“If you will give Cardinal Chang and me a moment to discuss our situation, Highness?”

“Of course, Contessa—as you desire,” he muttered, with all the dignity possible when one is crouched like a dog.

Chang sat, pushing his coat to the side, and looked to the table. Gray had removed the restraints and was detaching the mask of glass and wire, peeling it away from what looked to be a pink gelatinous residue that had collected where the mask touched the skin. Chang was suddenly curious to see the fresh scarring firsthand, but before the mask was pulled completely free Rosamonde spoke, drawing his attention away from the spectacle.

“It seems a long time since the Library, does it not?” she began. “And yet it was—what—but little more than a day ago?”

“A very full day.”

“Indeed. And did you do what I asked you?” She shook her head with a mocking gravity.

“What was that?”

“Why, find Isobel Hastings, of course.”

“That I did.”

“And bring her to me?”

“That I did not.”

“What a disappointment. Is she so beautiful?” She laughed, as if she could not keep the pretense of it being a serious question. “Seriously, Cardinal—what is it that prevents you?”

“Now? I do not know where she is.”

“Ah…but if you did?”

He had not remembered the color of her eyes correctly, like petals of the palest purple iris flower. She wore a silk jacket of the precise same color. Dangling from her ears were beads of Venetian amber, fitted with silver. Her exquisite throat was bare.

“I still could not.”

“Is she so remarkable? Bascombe did not think so—but then, I would not ask a man like Bascombe for the truth about a woman. He is too…well, ‘practical’ is a kind word.”

“I agree.”

“So will you not describe her?”

“I believe you have met her yourself, Rosamonde. I believe you consigned her to rape and murder.”

“Did I?” Her eyes widened somewhat coyly.

“So she says.”

“Then I’m sure I must have.”

“So perhaps you should describe her.”

“But you see, Cardinal, that is exactly the trouble. For—and perhaps this is obvious—in my own interaction with the lady I judged her to be an insignificant insolent chit of no value whatsoever. Is there any more tea?”

“The pot is on the floor,” Chang said. He glanced to the table. Gray was still bent over Flaüss.

“Dommage,” Rosamonde smiled. “You have not answered me.”

“Perhaps I’m unsure of the question.”

“I would think it evident. Why have you insisted on choosing her over me?”

If it was possible her smile became even more engaging, adding a tinge of sensuality to her lips, teasingly revealed as the first hint of explicit temptations to follow.

“I did not know it was my choice.”

“Really, Cardinal,…you will disappoint me.”

It was an odd conversation to have in the midst of toppled bodies, crouching princelings, and the trappings of scientific brutality—all in a secret room in the maze of the Foreign Ministry. He wondered what time it was. He wondered if Celeste was in another room nearby. This woman was the most dangerous of anyone in the Cabal. Why was he behaving like her suitor?

“Perhaps it had to do with your associates trying to kill me,” he replied.

She dismissed this with a wave. “But did they kill you?”

“Did you kill Miss Temple?”

“Touché.” She studied him. “Is it merely that? That she survived?”

“Perhaps it is. What else am I, but survival?”

“A provocative question—I shall inscribe it in my diary, I assure you.”

“Xonck knows, by the way,” he said, desperate to shift the conversation.

“Knows what?”

“That there are diverging interests.”

“It’s very charming of you to get ahead of yourself like this, but—and please do not take this as in any way a criticism—you were best to concentrate on mayhem and rooftops. What Mr. Xonck knows is my affair. Ah, Herr Flaüss, I see you are with us.”

Chang turned to see the man on his feet next to the table, Gray at his side, his face livid with looping burns, the skin around them drawn and slick, his collar moist with sweat and drool. His eyes were disturbingly, utterly, vacant.

“I do admire you, Cardinal,” said Rosamonde.

He turned to her. “I’m flattered.”

“Are you?” She smiled. “I admire very few people, you know…and tell even fewer.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“I do not know.” Her voice dropped to a provocatively intimate whisper. “Perhaps what has happened to your eyes. I can glimpse the scars, and I can only imagine how terrible they are without your glasses. I expect they would repulse me, and yet at the same time I have imagined myself running my tongue across them with pleasure.” She gazed at him closely, then seemed to restore her composure. “But there it is, you see, now I am ahead of my own self. I do apologize. Mr. Gray?”

She turned to Gray, who had walked Flaüss quite near to them. Chang was sickened by the man’s dead eyes, as if he were an example of ambulatory taxidermy. He turned away with discomfort, wishing he had been able to intervene more quickly—what had happened to Flaüss was somehow worse than if he had been killed. A rattling choking snapped Chang’s gaze back—Gray’s hands were around Flaüss’s neck from behind, throttling him. Chang half-rose from his chair, turning to Rosamonde. Hadn’t they done enough?

“What is he—”

The words died on his lips. Both of Flaüss’s hands had shot forward and wrapped around Chang’s windpipe, squeezing horribly. He pulled at Flaüss’s arms, tried to pry apart his grip. It was like steel, the man’s face still expressionless, the fingers digging into his neck. Chang could not breathe. He drove his knee into Flaüss’s stomach, but there was still no reaction. The vise of his hands tightened. Black spots swam before Chang’s eyes. He wrenched apart his stick. Gray’s face was staring at him, over Flaüss’s shoulder, Gray’s hands were still squeezing Flaüss…Flaüss was reacting to Gray! Chang drove the dagger into Gray’s forearm. The old man screamed and flung himself away, blood pouring from his wound. Released, Flaüss immediately relaxed, his hands still in place around Chang’s neck but loosened. Chang thrashed free of his grip, sucking in air. He did not understand what had happened. He turned to Rosamonde. There was something in her gloved hand. She blew on it. A puff of blue smoke burst into Chang’s face.

The sensation was instantaneous. His throat clenched and then felt bitterly cold, as if he was swallowing ice. The bitter feeling flowed into his lungs and up through his head, wherever he had breathed in the powder. His stick and dagger fell from his hands. He could not speak. He could not move.

“Do not be alarmed,” said Rosamonde. “You are not dead.” She looked past Chang to the Prince, still on the floor. “Highness, if you would assist Mr. Gray with his bleeding?” She turned her violet gaze back to Chang. “What you are, Cardinal Chang,…is my own.” She reached out to take hold of Karl-Horst’s arm, stopping him on his way to Gray. “Actually, why doesn’t the Cardinal help Mr. Gray? I’m sure he has more experience staunching wounds than the Crown Prince of Macklenburg.”

He helped them with everything, his body answering her commands without question, his mind watching from within, as if from a terrible distance, through a frost-covered window. First he effectively bound Gray’s wound, then lifted Blach onto the table so Gray could examine his head. How long had this taken? Bascombe returned with several red-coated Dragoons and spoke to the Contessa. Bascombe nodded and whispered earnestly in the Prince’s ear. He then called to the others—the Dragoons lifted Blach, Gray took Flaüss by the arm—and led them all from the circular room. Chang was alone with Rosamonde. She crossed to the door and locked it. She returned to him and pulled up a chair. He could not move. Her face bore an expression he had never seen, as if deliberately purged of the barest trace of kindness.

“You will find that you can hear me, and that you can respond in a rudimentary way—the powder in your lungs makes it impossible to speak. The effects will fade—unless I desire them to be permanent. For now I will be satisfied with a yes or no answer—a simple nod will suffice. I had hoped to sway you with conversation, or barring that give you over to the Process, but now there is no time and no one to properly assist—and I should be very annoyed to lose all of your information in a mishap.”

It was as if she was asking someone else. He felt himself nod in agreement, that he understood. Resistance was impossible—he could barely follow her words, and by the time he made sense of them his body had already answered.

“You have been with the Temple girl, and the Prince’s Doctor.”

Chang nodded.

“Do you know where they are now?”

He shook his head.

“Are they coming here?”

He shook his head.

“Do you have plans to meet them?”

Chang nodded. Rosamonde sighed.

“Well, I’m not going to spend all my time guessing where…you spoke to Xonck. He is suspicious—of me in particular?”

Chang nodded.

“Did Bascombe hear you speak?”

Chang shook his head. She smiled.

“Then there is ample time…it is true that Francis Xonck carries some of his older brother’s great power, but only a very little, for he is so rebellious and rakish that there is no intimacy of friendship between them, and little prospect of inheritance. But of course I am a friend to Francis no matter what—so he truly has nowhere else to go. So, enough of that—imagine, you trying to scare me—what about what you know, from your investigations…do you know who killed Colonel Trapping?”

Chang shook his head.

“Do you know why we have chosen Macklenburg?”

Chang shook his head.

“Do you know of Oskar Veilandt?”

Chang nodded.

“Really? Good for you. Do you know of the blue glass?”

Chang nodded.

“Ah…not so good—for your survival, I mean. What have you seen…wait, were you at the Institute?”

Chang nodded.

“Breaking in—that was you, when that idiot dropped the book—or did you perhaps cause him to drop the book?”

Chang nodded.

“Incredible—you’re an unstoppable force. He’s dead, you know—and then of course what happened to the Comte’s girl because of it—but I don’t suppose that would bother you?”

In the prison of his mind Chang was wrenched by the confirmation that his actions had doomed Angelique. He nodded. Rosamonde cocked her head.

“Really? Not for the man. Wait—wait, the girl…she was from the brothel—I did not think you so chivalrous—but wait, could you know her?”

Chang nodded. Rosamonde laughed.

“It is the coincidence of a novel for ladies. Let me guess…did you love her terribly?”

Chang nodded. Rosamonde laughed even louder.

“Oh, that is priceless! Dear, dear Cardinal Chang…I believe you have just given me the nugget of information I require to make friends again with Mr. Xonck—an unintended prize.” She attempted to compose her face but was still grinning. “Have you seen any glass other than the broken book?”

Chang nodded.

“I am sorry, for your sake. Was it—yes of course, the Prince had one of the Comte’s novelty cards, didn’t he? Has there ever been a man who likes more to watch himself? Did the Doctor find it?”

Chang nodded.

“So the Doctor and Miss Temple know of the blue glass as well?”

Chang nodded.

“And they know of the Process—never mind, of course they do—she saw it for herself, and the Doctor examined the Prince…do you know the significance of Lydia Vandaariff’s marriage?”

Chang shook his head.

“Have you been to Tarr Manor?”

Chang shook his head. Her eyes narrowed.

“Miss Temple has been there, I expect, with Roger…but so long ago it would not signify. All right. One last question for the moment…am I the most exquisite woman you’ve ever known?”

Chang nodded. She smiled. Then, slowly, like a sunset slipping over the horizon, her smile faded and she sighed. “It is a sweet thought to end on, perhaps for both of us. The end itself is regrettable. You are an exotic dish for me…quite raw…and I would have preferred to linger over you. I am sorry.” She reached into the tiny pocket of her fitted silk jacket and came up with another dose of fine blue powder on the tip of her gloved finger. “Think of it as a way to join your lost love…”

She blew the powder into his face. Chang’s mouth was closed but he could feel it enter through his nose. His head felt as if it was freezing then and there, his blood stiffening, splitting the veins within his skull. He was in agony but could not move. His ears echoed with an audible crack. His eyes swam. He was staring at the floor tiles. He had fallen. He was blind. He was dead.

The chandelier was formed of three concentric large iron rings, each ring set with forged-metal sockets to hold candles…in all three rings perhaps a hundred sockets. Chang looked up to the high ceiling above him and saw perhaps eight of them still lit. How much time had passed? He had no idea. He could barely think. He rolled over to be sick and found that he had already done so, perhaps many times. The discharge was blue and—even to him—stinking. He rolled in the other direction. He felt as if someone had cut off his head and packed it in ice and straw.

It was his nose that had saved him, he was sure. The damage inside, the scars, the blockages—somehow the powder, or enough of the powder to kill, had not fully penetrated. He wiped his face—blue smears of mucus ran from his mouth and each nostril. She had intended to kill him with an overdose but his scarred passages had prevented the fatal concentration from taking effect, absorbing the vile chemicals more slowly and allowing him the time to survive. How long had it taken? He looked up at the round windows. It was after nightfall. The room was cold, with wax spattered on the floor in a sloppy ring where it had dripped to the floor. He tried to sit up. He could not. He curled up away from the vomit and shut his eyes.

He woke feeling distinctly better, if still only slightly more spry than a slaughtered pig on a hook. He rolled to his knees, working his tongue in his mouth with revulsion. He dug for a handkerchief and wiped his face. There did not seem to be any water in the room. Chang stood, shutting his eyes. The darkness weaved about him, but he did not fall. He saw the teapot, on its side on the floor. He picked it up and shook it gently—the dregs were still there sloshing. Taking care not to cut himself on the broken spout, he poured the bitter tea into his mouth, worked it around and then spat it on the floor. He took another sip and swallowed, then set the broken pot on the tea tray. With no small feeling of wonder, he saw his stick underneath the table. He understood that leaving it was a gesture of contempt—mainly so his body would be found with a weapon. As weak and sick as he felt, Chang was more than willing to make them regret it.

The room had a lantern and, after some minutes of search, matches to light it. The door opened into darkness as before, but now Chang was able to navigate clearly, if not with any knowledge of where he should go. He wandered for some minutes, finding no other person, nor hearing any noise, through various storage rooms, meeting rooms, and hallways. He did not see any of the rooms he remembered passing through with Bascombe and Xonck, and instead simply forged ahead, alternating left and right turns in an attempt to keep a straight line. This eventually brought him to a dead end: a large door without lock or knob. It would not budge. It was either sealed or barred from the other side. Chang shut his eyes. He felt sick again, his weakened body overtaxed by the walking. In frustration, he pounded on the door.

A muffled voice answered him from the other side. “Mr. Bascombe?”

Instead of calling out, Chang pounded again on the door. He heard the bar being shifted. He did not know what to prepare for—whether he should fling the lantern, ready his stick, or retreat. He was without the energy for any of them. The door was pulled back. Chang was faced with a red-coated Dragoon private.

He took in Chang. “You’re not Mr. Bascombe.”

“Bascombe’s gone,” said Chang. “Hours ago—you didn’t see him?”

“I’ve just been on watch since six.” The trooper frowned. “Who are you?”

“My name is Chang. I was part of Bascombe’s party. I became sick. Would you…” Chang shut his eyes for a moment and strained to finish the sentence. “Would you have some water?”

The trooper relieved Chang of the lantern and took his arm, leading him to a small guardroom. This, like the hallway, was fitted with gaslight fixtures and had a warm, hazy glow to it. Chang could see that they were near a large staircase—perhaps the main access for this floor, as opposed to Bascombe’s secret lair where he had been taken. He was too tired to think. He sat on a simple wooden chair and was given a metal mug of tea with milk. The trooper, who offered that his name was Reeves, put a metal plate of bread and cheese on Chang’s lap, and nodded that he should eat something.

The hot tea stung his throat as it went down, but he could feel it restoring him all the same. He pulled off a hunk of the white loaf with his teeth and forced himself to chew, if only to stabilize his stomach. After the first few bites however he realized how hungry he was and began to steadily devour everything the man had given him. Reeves refilled his mug and sat back with one of his own.

“I am much obliged to you,” said Chang.

“Not at all.” Reeves smiled. “You looked like death, if you don’t mind me saying. Now you just look like hell.” He laughed.

Chang smiled and drank more tea. He could feel the rawness of his throat and the roof of his mouth, where the powder had burned him. Each breath came with a twinge of pain, as if he’d broken his ribs. He could only speculate about the true state of his lungs.

“So you said they all left?” asked Reeves.

Chang nodded. “There was an accident with a lantern. One of the other men, Francis Xonck—do you know him?” Reeves shook his head. “He spilled oil on his arm and it caught fire. Mr. Bascombe went with him for a surgeon. I was left, and unaccountably became ill. I thought he might return, but find I have been asleep, with no idea of the time.”

“Near nine o’clock,” said Reeves. He eyed the door a bit nervously. “I need to finish rounds—”

Chang put out his hand. “Do not let me disturb you. I will leave—just point me the way. The last thing I would want is to be more of a bother—”

“No bother to help a friend of Mr. Bascombe.” Reeves smiled. They stood, and Chang awkwardly put his mug and plate on the sideboard.

He looked up to see a man in the doorway, a polished brass helmet under his arm and a saber at his side. Reeves snapped to attention. The man stepped in. The rank of captain was in gold on the collar and the epaulettes of his red uniform.

“Reeves…,” he said, keeping his gaze on Chang.

“Mr. Chang, Sir. An associate of Mr. Bascombe’s.”

The Captain did not reply.

“He was inside, Sir. When I was on my rounds, I heard him knocking on the door—”

“Which door?”

“Door five, Sir, Mr. Bascombe’s area. Mr. Chang’s been sick—”

“Yes. All right, off with you. You’re overdue to relieve Hicks.”

“Sir!”

The Captain stepped fully into the room and motioned for Chang to sit. Behind them, Reeves snatched up his helmet and dashed from the room, pausing at the door to nod to Chang behind the Captain’s back. His hurried steps clattered down the hallway, and then down the stairs. The Captain filled a mug with tea and sat. Only then did Chang sit with him.

“‘Chang’, you say?”

Chang nodded. “It’s what I am called.”

“Smythe, Captain, 4th Dragoons. Reeves says you were unwell?”

“I was. He was most kind.”

“Here.” Smythe had reached into his coat and removed a small flask. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Chang. “Plum brandy,” he said, smiling. “I have a sweet tooth.”

Chang took a sip, feeling reckless and very much wanting a drink. He felt a sharp spasm of pain in his throat, but the brandy seemed to burn through the blue dust’s residue. He returned the flask.

“I am obliged.”

“You’re one of Bascombe’s men?” asked the Captain.

“I would not go so far. I was calling upon him at his request. Another man of the party had an accident involving lantern oil—”

“Yes, Francis Xonck.” Captain Smythe nodded. “I hear he was quite badly burned.”

“It does not surprise me. As I told your man, I became ill waiting for their return. I must have slept, perhaps there was fever…it was some hours ago—and I woke to find myself alone. I expected Bascombe to return. Our business was hardly finished.”

“Undoubtedly the trials of Mr. Xonck demanded his attention.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Chang. “He is an…important figure.”

He took the liberty of pouring more tea for himself. Smythe did not seem to notice. Instead, he stood and crossed to the door, pulled it shut, and turned the key. He smiled somewhat ruefully at Chang.

“One can never be too careful in a government building.”

“The 4th Dragoons are newly posted to the Foreign Ministry,” observed Chang. “I believe it was in the newspaper. Or was it to the Palace?”

Smythe drifted back to his chair and studied Chang for a moment before answering. He took a sip of tea and leaned back, cradling the mug in both hands. “I believe you are acquainted with our Colonel.”

“Why would you say that?”

Smythe was silent. Chang sighed—there was always a cost to idiocy.

“You saw me yesterday morning,” he said. “At the dockside, with Aspiche.”

Smythe nodded.

“It was a stupid place to meet.”

“Will you tell me the reason for it?”

“Perhaps…” Chang shrugged. He could sense Captain Smythe’s suspicion and defensiveness, but decided to test him further. “If you tell me something first.”

Smythe’s mouth tightened. “What is that?”

Chang smiled. “Were you with Aspiche and Trapping in Africa?”

Smythe frowned—it was not the question he expected. He nodded.

“I ask,” Chang went on, “because Colonel Aspiche made much of the moral and professional differences between Trapping and himself. I have no illusions about the character of Colonel Trapping. But—if you will forgive me—the insistence on our meeting place was just one example, in our dealings together, of Aspiche’s thoughtless arrogance.”

Chang wondered if he’d gone too far—one never knew how to read loyalty, especially with an experienced soldier. Smythe studied him closely before speaking.

“Many officers have purchased their commissions—to serve with men who are not soldiers save by money paid is not unusual.” Chang was aware that Smythe was picking his words with exceptional caution. “The Adjutant-Colonel was not one of those…but…”

“He is no longer the man he once was?” suggested Chang.

Smythe studied him for a moment, measuring him with a hard professional acuity that was not entirely comfortable. After a moment he sighed heavily, as if he had come to a decision he did not like but could not for some reason avoid.

“Are you acquainted with opium eating?” he asked.

It was all Chang could do not to smile, instead offering a disinterested, knowing nod. Smythe went on.

“Then you will know the pattern whereby the first taste can corrupt, can drive a man to sacrifice every other part of his life for a narcotic dream. So it is with Noland Aspiche, save the opium is the example of Arthur Trapping’s position and success. I am not his enemy. I have served him with loyalty and respect. Yet his envy for this man’s undeserved advancement is consuming—or has consumed—all that was dutiful and fair in his character.”

“He does now command the regiment.”

Smythe nodded in brusque agreement. His face hardened. “I’ve said enough. What was your meeting?”

“I am a man who does things,” said Chang. “Adjutant-Colonel Aspiche engaged me to find Arthur Trapping, who had disappeared.”

“Why?”

“Not for love, if that’s what you mean. Trapping represented powerful men, and their power—their interest—was why the regiment had been transferred from the colonies to the Palace. Now he was gone. Aspiche wanted to take command, but was worried about the other forces at work.”

Smythe winced with disgust. Chang was happy with his decision to withhold the whole truth.

“I see. Did you find him?”

Chang hesitated, and then shrugged—the Captain seemed plain enough. “I did. He is dead, murdered. I do not know how, or by whom. The body has been sunk in the river.”

Smythe was taken aback. “But why?” he asked.

“I truly don’t know.”

“Is that why you were here—reporting this to Bascombe?”

“Not…exactly.”

Smythe stiffened with wariness. Chang raised his hand.

“Do not be alarmed—or rather, be alarmed, but not by me. I came here to speak to Bascombe—what is your impression of the man?”

Smythe shrugged. “He is a Ministry official. No fool—and without the superior airs of many here. Why?”

“No reason—his is a minor role, for my errand truly lay with Xonck, and with the Contessa Lacquer-Sforza, because they were in league with Colonel Trapping—Xonck especially—and for reasons I do not understand, one of them—I don’t know which, nor, perhaps, do they—arranged for him to die. You know as well as I that Aspiche is now in their pocket. Your operations today, taking the boxes of machinery from the Royal Institute—”

“To Harschmort, yes.”

“Exactly,” said Chang, not missing a beat but elated at what Smythe had revealed. “Robert Vandaariff is part of their plan, likely its architect, along with the Crown Prince of Macklenburg—”

Smythe held up his hand to stop him. He dug out his flask, unscrewed it with a frown and took a deep drink. He held it to Chang, who did not refuse. The swig of brandy set off another fire in his throat, but in some determined self-punishing way he was sure it was for the better. He returned the flask.

“All of this…” Smythe spoke almost too low to hear. “So much has felt wrong—and yet, promotions, decorations, the Palace, the Ministries—so we can spend our time escorting carts, or socialites stupid enough to set themselves on fire—”

“Whom do you serve at the Palace?” asked Chang. “Here it is Bascombe and Crabbé—but even they must receive some approval from above.”

Smythe was not listening. He was lost in thought. He looked up, his face marked by a fatigue that Chang had not previously seen. “The Palace? A nest of impotent Dukes posing around an unloved, fading hag.” Smythe shook his head. “You should go. The guard will be changing, and the Colonel may be with them—he often meets with the Deputy Minister late in the evening. They are making plans, but none of the other officers know what they are. Most, as you can imagine, are as full of arrogance as Aspiche. We should hurry—they may have been given your name. I take that your story of being ill was a fabrication?”

Chang stood with him. “Not at all. But it was the result of being poisoned—and having the dreadful manners to survive.”

Smythe allowed himself a quick smile. “What has come of the world when a man won’t obey his betters and simply die when they ask him?”

Smythe led him quickly down the stairs to the second floor, and then through several winding corridors to the balcony above the rear entrance. “It is relieved later than the front, and my men will still be here,” he explained. He studied Chang closely, glancing over his clothing and ending at his impenetrable eyes. “I fear that you are a scoundrel—or so I would normally find you—but strange times make for strange meetings. I believe you are telling the truth. If we can help each other…well, we’re that much less alone.”

Chang extended his hand. “I’m sure I am a scoundrel, Captain. And yet I am these people’s enemy. I am much obliged for your kindness. I hope some time to return it.” Smythe shook his hand and nodded to the gate.

“It is half-past nine. You must go.”

They walked down the stairs. On a whim, Chang whispered to him. “We are not alone, Captain. You may meet a German doctor, Svenson, of the Prince’s party. Or a young woman, Miss Celeste Temple. We are together in this—mention my name and they will trust you. I promise they are more formidable than they appear.”

They were at the gate. Captain Smythe gave him a curt nod—anything more would have been noticed by the troopers—and Chang walked out into the street.

He made his way to St. Isobel’s Square and sat at the fountain, where he could easily see anyone approaching him from any direction. The moon was a scant pale glow behind the murky clouds. The fog had risen from the river and crawled toward him across the bricks, its moist air tickling his raw throat and lungs. With a nagging dismay he wondered how badly he’d been injured. He had known consumptives, hacking their life away into bloody rags—was this the first stage of such a misery? He felt another twinge as he inhaled, as if he had glass in his lungs, cutting into the flesh with the movement of each breath. He hawked up a gob of thick fluid from his throat and spat on the paving. It seemed darker than normal, but he could not tell if it was more of the blue discharge or if it was blood.

The boxes were sent to Harschmort. Because there was more room? More privacy? Both were true, but a further thought arose to him—the canals. Harschmort was the perfect location to send the boxes away to sea…to Macklenburg. He berated himself for not studying the maps in the cupola room when he’d had the chance. He could have at least described them to Svenson—now he only had the barest sense of where they had placed a few colored pins. He sighed—a lost opportunity. He let it go.

The time he’d been insensible had spoiled his hope to find Miss Temple, for wherever she might have reasonably gone, it was doubtful she would still be there—no matter what had happened. The obvious possibility was Bascombe’s house, but he resisted it, as much as thrashing Bascombe might have pleased him, no matter what the man’s true loyalties. For the first time he questioned whether Celeste might not have the same resistance—was it possible that Bascombe hadn’t been her destination? She had left them churning with emotion, after speaking of what she had lost. If that didn’t mean Bascombe, then who could it mean? If he took her at her word—which he realized he never had—Bascombe was no longer anchored to her heart. Who else had so punctured her happiness?

Chang cursed himself for a fool and walked as quickly as he could to the St. Royale Hotel.

He ignored the front and instead went directly to the rear alley, where white-jacketed men from the night kitchen were dragging out metal bins heaped with the evening’s scraps and refuse. He strode to the nearest, gestured to the growing collection of bins and snapped at him. “Who told you to leave these here? Where is your manager?”

The man looked up at him without comprehension—clearly they always put the bins there—but stuttered when faced with Chang’s harsh, strange demeanor. “M-Mr. Albert?”

“Yes! Yes—where is Mr. Albert? I will need to speak to him at once!”

The man pointed inside. By this time the others were watching. Chang turned to them. “Very well. Stay here. We’ll see about this.”

He stalked inside along a service corridor, taking the first turn he could find away from the kitchen and Mr. Albert. This led him, as he had hoped, to the laundry and storage rooms. He hurried on until he found what he wanted: a uniformed porter loafing with a mug of beer. Chang stepped in—amidst mops and buckets and sponges—and shut the door behind him. The porter gulped with surprise, backing up instinctively into a clattering array of broom-handles. Chang reached out and took him by the collar, speaking quickly and low.

“Listen to me. I am in haste. I must get a message—in person, discreetly—to the rooms of the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza. You know her?” The man nodded. “Good. Take me there now, by the rear stairs. We cannot be seen. It is to preserve the lady’s reputation—she must have my news.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver coin. The man saw it, nodded, and then in one movement Chang pocketed the coin and pulled the man out of the room. He’d get it once they were there.

It was on the third floor, in the rear, which made sense to a suspicious mind like Chang’s—too high to climb to or jump from, and away from the crowds on the avenue. The porter knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again. There was no answer. Chang pulled him away from the door, and gave him the coin. He took out a second piece of silver. “We have not met,” he said, and flipped the coin into the porter’s hand, doubling his fee. The porter nodded, and backed away. After a few steps—Chang staring at him fiercely—he turned and ran from sight. Chang took out his ring of keys. The bolt snapped clear and he turned the knob. He was in.

The suite was everything that Celeste’s suite at the Boniface had not been—exuding the excess that defined the St. Royale, from the carpets to the crystal, the monstrously over-carved furniture, the profusion of flowers, the luxurious draperies, the painfully delicate pattern of the wallpaper, to the truly expansive size of the suite itself. Chang shut the door behind him and stood in the main parlor. The suite seemed empty of life. The gaslight had been lowered, but the dim glow was enough for him to see. He smiled wryly at another difference. Clothes—admittedly, laces and silks—were strewn haphazardly over the arms of the chairs and sofas, even on the floor. It was impossible for him to imagine such a thing under the tight scrutiny of Aunt Agathe, but here, the occupant’s decadent experience extended a casual disregard for so naïve a sense of order. He stepped to a lovingly fashioned writing desk cluttered with empty bottles and took its equally elegant wooden chair back to the front door, wedging it under the handle. He did not want to be interrupted as he searched.

He turned up the gaslight and returned to the main parlor. There were open doorways to either side and a closed door at the far end. He quickly glanced to each side—maids’ rooms and second parlor, equally strewn with clothing and in the case of the parlor, glasses and plates. He stepped to the closed door, and pushed it open. It was dark. He fumbled for the gaslight sconce and illuminated another elegant sitting room, this with a handsome pair of chaise longues and a mirror-topped tray full of bottles. Chang stopped where he stood, a twinge of dread at his heart. Under one chaise was a tumbled pair of green ankle boots.

His gaze swept the room for any other signs. The drinks tray held four glasses, some half-empty and smeared with lipstick, and there were two more glasses on the floor beneath the other chaise. High on the wall across from him was a large mirror in a heavy frame pointing to his doorway at a looming angle. Chang looked into it with distaste—he disliked seeing himself at any time—but his eye was caught by something else in the reflection—on the wall next to him, a small painting that could only have been executed by the hand of Oskar Veilandt. He reached up and took it from the wall, and flipped it over to examine the rear of the canvas. In what he assumed was the artist’s own hand, in blue paint, he read “Annunciation Fragment, 3/13”, and then beneath it a series of symbols—like a mathematical formula incorporating Greek letters—which were in turn followed by the words, “And so they shall be Reborn.”

He turned the canvas to the painted image and found himself astonished by its bluntly lurid nature. Perhaps it was the contrast between the image and its luxurious gold frame, the subsequent isolation—the fragmentary nature, its containment—of the subject matter that made the whole seem such a transgression, but Chang could not turn his eyes away. It was not so much pornographic—indeed it was not precisely explicit—as it was, somehow, palpably monstrous. He could not even say why, but the stark tremor of revulsion was as undeniable and as simultaneous as the stirring in his groin. This portion of the painting did not seem to be adjacent to the one they had seen in the gallery, of the woman’s—the very idea of thinking of her as “Mary” was appalling—rapturous scarred face. This section showed her naked pelvis from the side, her splendid thighs wrapped around the hips of a figure in blue who had quite obviously mounted her. On a second glance however, Chang saw the hands of the blue figure clutching the woman’s hips…the hands were blue as well, and decorated with many rings, as the wrists glittered with many bracelets of different metals—gold, silver, copper, iron—the man was not wearing a blue garment, the blue was his skin. Perhaps he was an angel—blasphemy enough—but the work’s unnatural quality was compounded by the perfectly realized corporeality of the bodies, the sensual immediacy of the weight of the woman’s haunches in the man’s grip, the twisting angle of their conjoinment, fixed for a moment, but directly evocative of the writhing exquisite union that would continue—in the mind of the viewer if nowhere else.

Chang swallowed and clumsily replaced the painting on its hook. He glanced at it again, mortified at his reaction, compelled and disturbed anew at the long nails at the tip of each blue finger and the tenderly rendered impressions they made in the woman’s flesh. He turned away to the chaise and collected the green boots from beneath it. They had to belong to Celeste. It was rare enough that Chang felt any obligation to another soul that to have formed such a bond—to so unlikely a person—and then find it so swiftly broken gnawed terribly at his conscience. The poignance of the empty boots—the very idea that her feet could be so small, could fit within such a space and yet enable her willful marching, was suddenly unbearable. He sighed quite bitterly, stricken with regret, and dropped them back on the chaise. The room had one door, which was ajar. He forced himself to push it with the tip of his stick. It opened silently.

This was clearly Rosamonde’s bedroom. The bed itself was massive, with high mahogany pillars at each corner and a heavy purple damask curtain drawn across each side. The floor was littered with clothing, mainly underthings, but also here and there pieces of a dress, or a jacket, or even shoes. He recognized none of them as belonging to Celeste, but knew that he wouldn’t in any case. The very idea of Celeste’s underthings forced his mind to a place it had not formerly been, which seemed somehow—now that he feared she was dead—transgressive. Perhaps it was just the residual impact of Veilandt’s painting, but Chang found his thoughts—indeed, he wondered, his heart—punctured by the idea of his hands around her slim ribcage…sliding down to her hips, hips unencumbered by a corset or petticoats, the unquestionably creamy texture of her skin. He shook his head. What was he thinking? For all he knew, he was about to part the purple curtains and find her corpse. He forced himself grimly back to the task, to the room and away from his insistent fantasies. Chang took a deliberately deep breath—his chest seizing in pain—and stepped to the bed. He pulled the curtain aside.

The bedclothes were heavy and tangled, kicked into careless heaps, but Chang could see a woman’s pale arm extending from beneath them. He looked to the pillows piled over the woman’s head and pulled the topmost away. It revealed a mass of dark brown hair. He pulled away another and saw the woman’s face, her eyes closed, her lips delicately parted, the skin around her eyes displaying the nearly vanished looping scars. It was Margaret Hooke—Mrs. Marchmoor. Chang realized that she was naked at about the same moment she opened her eyes. Her gaze flickered as she saw him above her, but her face betrayed no lapse in composure. She yawned and lazily rubbed the sleep from her left eye. She sat up, the sheets slipping to her waist before she absently pulled them up to cover herself.

“My goodness,” she said, yawning again. “What is the time?”

“It must be near eleven,” answered Chang.

“I must have slept for hours. That is very bad of me, I’m sure.” She looked up at him, her eyes dancing with coy pleasure. “You’re the Cardinal, aren’t you? I was told you were dead.”

Chang nodded. At least she had the manners not to sound disappointed.

“I am looking for Miss Temple,” he said. “She was here.”

“She was…,” answered the woman somewhat dully, her attention elsewhere. “Is there no one else you can ask?”

He resisted the impulse to slap her. “You’re alone, Margaret. Unless you’d prefer that I take you to Mrs. Kraft—I’m sure she’s worried sick over your disappearance.”

“No thank you.” She looked at him as if she was seeing him clearly for the first time. “You’re unpleasant.” She spoke as if it were a surprise.

Chang reached out and took hold of her jaw, wrenching her eyes to face his. “I haven’t started to be unpleasant. What have you done with her?”

She smiled at him, fear fretting at the edges of her expression. “What makes you think she didn’t do it to herself?”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know—I was so sleepy—I am always so sleepy…afterwards…but some people find they want something to eat. Did you ask in the kitchens?”

Chang didn’t reply to her vulgar implication—he knew she was lying to provoke him, to buy time, but her words were nevertheless a spur to lurid thoughts flickering impulsively across his inner eye…the image of this woman’s mouth flinching with surprise at her own pleasure—and then with disturbing ease that face became Celeste’s, her lips curled in a desperate mixture of anguish and delight. Chang was startled and stepped away from Mrs. Marchmoor, releasing his grip. She threw back the covers and stood, walking toward a pile of discarded clothes on the floor. She was tall and more graceful than he would have thought. Quite deliberately she turned her back to him and bent over at the waist for a robe—rather like a dancer—exposing herself lewdly in the process. As she stood—glancing back to confirm Chang’s appreciation with a smile—he noticed a lattice-work of thin white scars across her back, whip marks. She slipped into her robe—pale silk with a great red Chinese dragon across the back—and tied the sash with a practiced gesture, as if her hands were marking the well-known end, or the start, of some arcane ritual.

“I see your face is healing,” said Chang.

“My face is of no consequence,” she answered, nudging her foot through the pile of clothes, finding a single slipper as she spoke and stuffing her foot into it. “The change takes place within, and is sublime.”

Chang scoffed. “I only see you’ve left the service of one brothel for another.”

Her eyes became sharp—he had offended her, he saw with great satisfaction.

“You have no idea,” she said, affecting a lightness he knew was false.

“I’ve just watched another undergo your hideous Process—quite against his wishes—and I can tell you now, if you’ve done that to Miss Temple—”

She laughed—contemptuously. “It is no punishment. It is a gift—and the very notion—the very ridiculous notion that—that person—your precious Miss Inconsequent—”

Chang felt a moment of profound relief, a reprieve from a fear he hadn’t realized was with him—that Celeste would become one of them…almost as if he would rather she were dead. But Mrs. Marchmoor was still speaking. “…cannot appreciate the capacity, the reserves of power…” It was a quality of pride, he knew, especially in those who in their lives have been subject and then elevated—years of withheld speech turned their mouths into arrogant floodgates, and her quick turn from coy seductress to haughty lady made Chang sneer. She saw the sneer. It inflamed her.

“You think I do not know what you are. Or who she is—”

“I know you hunted us both through the brothels—without skill or success.”

“Without success?” She laughed. “You are here, aren’t you?”

“As was Miss Temple. Where is she now?”

She laughed again. “You truly do not understand—”

Chang stepped forward quickly, took a handful of the front of her robe and threw the woman bodily onto the bed, her white legs kicking free as she fell. He stood over her, giving her a moment to shake the hair from her face and look up into his depthless eyes.

“No, Margaret,” he hissed. “You do not understand. You have been a whore. Giving up your body is no longer cause for delicacy, thus you will understand, given my profession…well, just imagine what no longer causes me to hesitate. And I am hunting you, Margaret. This day I have set Francis Xonck on fire, I have defeated the Prince’s Major, and I have survived the trickery of your Contessa. She will not trick me again—do you understand? In these things—and I know these things—there are rarely second chances. Your people have had their chance to kill me—the only one of you that could—and I survived. I am here to find—quickly—whether you are of the slightest—the slightest—use to me whatsoever. If you are not, then I assure you I don’t have the slightest qualm in exterminating you as if you were just one more rat in a filthy infestation that I am—believe me—going to destroy.”

He pulled his stick apart as dramatically as he could—hoping the speech hadn’t been too much—and allowed his voice to become more conversationally reasonable.

“Now, as I have asked…Margaret,…where is Miss Temple now?”

It was then that Chang first took in the severity of the Process. The woman was not stupid, she was alone, she possessed reason and experience, and yet, even though her eyes had widened in terror when he had taken out his blade, she began to rant at him, as if the words themselves were weapons to drive him away.

“You’re a fool! She is gone—you’ll never find her, she is beyond rescue—she will be beyond your comprehension! You live like a child—you are all children—the world was never yours, and it never will be! I have been consumed and reborn! I have surrendered and been renewed! You cannot harm me—you cannot change anything—you are a worm in the mud—get away from me! Get out of this room—cut your own throat in the gutter!”

She was screaming and Chang was suddenly furious—the deep disdain in her voice pricking his composure like a venomous fang. He dropped his stick and with his left hand took hold of her kicking ankle and yanked her body sharply toward him. She sat up, screaming still, her face quite mad now, not even bothering to fend him off with her arms, spittle flying from her lips. The dagger was in his right hand. Instead of stabbing her, he forced himself to drive a punch into her jaw, his fist bolstered by the cane-hilt. Her head snapped back—his fingers were jarred cruelly—but she did not fall. Her words became more disjointed, there were tears at the corners of her eyes, her hair was ragged.

“—worth nothing! Ignorant and abandoned—alone in rooms—pathetic rooms of pathetic bodies—kennels—the rutting of dogs—”

He dropped the dagger and struck her again. She sprawled across the bed with a grunt, her head hanging over the other side, silent. Chang shook his hand, wincing, and sheathed the dagger. His fury was gone. Her contempt for him was so clearly one with her contempt for herself—he remembered Mrs. Kraft saying Margaret Hooke had been the daughter of a mill owner—that he let it pass. He wondered if anyone else in the hotel had heard, and hoped that such screams—judging perhaps by the profusion of empty bottles—were not unusual in the rooms of Rosamonde, Contessa Lacquer-Sforza. He looked down at Margaret Hooke’s body—the gapping robe showed the softness of her belly and the open tangle of her legs, somehow strangely poignant. She was a handsome woman. Her ribs rose and fell with each still-ragged breath. She was an animal like anyone else. He thought of the scars on her back, so different perhaps from the scars on her face—both testament to her submission to the desires of others more powerful, yet each also the mark of some inarticulate groping on her part, for peace of mind. Her vitriolic eruption told Chang she had not found it yet, but merely imprisoned her discontent beneath layers of control. It was perhaps more poignant than anything. He straightened her robe, allowing himself a moment to run his hand along her hips, and made his way unseen from the hotel.

As he walked in the darkened streets, Chang ran over the words of Mrs. Marchmoor in his mind…“beyond rescue”…which either meant that something had already happened to Celeste, or was so certain to happen that he would be unable to alter it. Her arrogance made him think the latter. He felt the clumping weight of Celeste’s ankle boots in each side pocket of his coat. It was likely, he felt, that they had taken her to some concentration of power—perhaps to convert her with the Process, perhaps to merely kill her—but if that were so, why not already do it? With a sickening thought, his mind went to Angelique and the glass book. Would they dare to repeat that ritual with Celeste? Their attempt with Angelique had been spoiled by his interruption—but what would be a successful outcome? He had no doubt that it was somehow even more monstrous.

The first question was where they would take her. It would be either Harschmort—where they had taken the boxes—or Tarr Manor—which Rosamonde had asked him about. Both places would offer solitude and space, without any outside interference. He assumed Svenson had reached the Manor, and so perhaps he ought to go to Harschmort…but if such forces were in fact in play, could he rely on the Doctor to effect a rescue? He had an image of that earnest man, an inert Celeste over one shoulder, trying to walk while firing the pistol at a pursuing gang of Dragoons…utterly doomed. He had to know where they had taken her. A wrong guess could destroy them all. He would have to risk a visit to the Library.

Like most great buildings, the Library was of a size to be without adjacent rooftops that might have removed the problem altogether. The high front double doors and the rear staff entrance both had regular postings of guards inside, even during the night. From a vantage point of forty yards away, Chang could also see the black Macklenburg troopers slouching in the shadow of the columns that lined the front steps. He assumed they were at the rear as well—presenting him with guards within and without. Neither mattered. Chang jogged to a squat stone structure perhaps fifty yards away from the main edifice. The door had a crude wooden bolt, but a minute of concerted effort with the dagger—sliding it through the gap, digging into the bolt, pushing it a fraction of an inch to the side, again and again—had the door open. He stepped in and closed it behind him. In the dim light from the one barred window he saw a stack of lanterns, selected one and checked the oil, and then carefully struck a match. He turned the wick low, allowing just enough of a glow to find the hatch in the floor. He set the lamp down and with all his strength pulled on the handle. The heavy metal hatch creaked on its hinges, but swung open. He picked up the lantern again and stared into the pit below. For the second time in the day he thanked fate for his damaged nose. He descended into the sewers.

He had done it before during a protracted disagreement with a client unwilling to pay. The man had sent agents into the Library and Chang had been forced to use this most loathsome bolt-hole. He was still dripping sewage when he kicked in the client’s window later that evening—resolving the disagreement at razor’s edge—but that had been in late spring. Chang hoped it was close enough to winter and the water levels still low so he could pass without getting soaked in filth. The hatch led to a slimy set of stone steps, without any kind of rail. He walked down, stick in one hand and lantern in the other, until he reached the sewage tunnel itself. The fetid stream had shrunk since his last visit and he was relieved to see a slippery yard of stone to the side where he could walk. He bent his shoulders beneath the overhang and stepped very carefully.

It was very dark, and the lantern wick sputtered and sparked in the foul air. He was under the street, and then soon enough—counting his steps—under the Library itself. It was another twenty paces to another set of stairs and another hatch. He climbed up, heaved on the hatch with his shoulder, and entered the lowest Library basement—three floors below the lobby. He scraped his boots as best he could and shut the hatch behind him.

Keeping the lamp wick low, Chang made his way up to the main floor and darted across the corridor into the stacks. The building itself he knew intimately—indeed, like a blind man. There were three floors of hidden book stacks for each spacious floor of the Library that was open to the public. The stack aisles were crammed, dusty, and narrow, stuffed with seldom used books that could nevertheless never be disposed of. The walls—and floors and ceilings—were no more than iron scaffolding, and during the day one could look up through the gaps, as if through a strange sort of kaleidoscope, to the very top of the building, some twelve levels above. Chang climbed quickly up six narrow flights of stairs to what was the third floor of the Library proper, pushed open the door with his shoulder—it always stuck—and entered the vaulted map room, where he had so recently been hired by Rosamonde.

Now Chang turned up the wick, knowing there was no chance the guards would see—the map room was well away from the main staircase where light might be glimpsed from below. He set the lantern on one of the great wooden cases and searched for a particular volume on the curator’s desk—the massive Codex of Royal Surveyor’s Maps, and the easiest source for a detailed view of Harschmort and Tarr Manor. He did not, however, know where each of them was exactly located—or not precisely enough to guess the map that would contain them. He braced himself for the small print of the Codex and found his way to the index of place names, squinting painfully. It took him several minutes to find each, with grid references to the main master map in the front of the Codex. By locating them on the grid-marked master map that unfolded awkwardly from the front of the Codex, he would then have the citation numbers for the detailed surveyor maps, of which there were hundreds and hundreds in the Library’s collection. It was another matter of minutes, closely poring over the master map, and he was off to the surveyor maps, kept in a high bureau of wide, thin drawers. Again, with his face inches from their identifying numbers, he located the two maps in question and pulled them from the bureau. He dragged the maps—each of them easily six feet square—over to one of the wide reading tables and collected the lantern. He rubbed his eyes and began the next step of his search.

The map of Tarr Manor—and Lord Tarr’s quite expansive grounds—showed it to be in the county of Floodmaere. It was easy enough to find the quarry, some five miles from the main house, where the Lord’s estate claimed a low range of craggy hills. The manor house itself was large but not abnormally so, and the immediate grounds did not strike any particularly suspicious chord: orchards, pasture, stables. The land seemed generally wild, without notable cultivation or building. The map did show a number of small outlying structures at the quarry itself, but were they large enough to contain the Comte’s experiments?

The map of Harschmort was similarly inconclusive. The house was larger, certainly, and there were the nearby canals, but the surrounding land was fen and flat pasture. He had been in the house itself—it was not especially high. He was looking for any place where they might replicate the great sunken building at the Institute, which had been set well into the earth, but in these places must mean some kind of high tower. He could see no such location on either map. Chang sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was running out of time. He returned his attention to the map of Harschmort, for that had been where Aspiche’s Dragoons had taken the Cabal’s boxes, looking for anything he might have missed. He could not see the far edge of the map, and rotated it on the table to bring it closer to the light. In his haste, his fingers tore at the lower corner. He swore with annoyance and glanced at the damage. There was something there, something written. He peered closer. It was a citation to another map, a second map of the same area. Why another map? He noted the number in his head and crossed back to the Codex, searching quickly for the reference. He did not immediately make sense of it. The second map was part of a survey of buildings. Chang rushed to the bureau, hurriedly dug for it and spread it onto the table. He had forgotten. For his great house, Robert Vandaariff had purchased and re-made a prison.

It was only a moment before he found the clue he sought. The present house was a ring of buildings around an open center occupied by a substantial formal garden in the French geometrical style. In the prison map, this center was dominated by a circular structure that—Chang’s mind raced to take it in—descended many floors, a panopticon of prison cells arranged around a central observation tower, all of it sunk under the earth. He looked again at the map of Vandaariff’s Harschmort…there was no visible trace of it at all. Chang knew in an instant that it was still there, underground. He thought of the Institute chamber, the mass of pipes running down the walls to the table where Angelique had lain. The prison panopticon could be easily re-made for the same purpose. There could be nothing like it at Tarr Manor—the expense would be well beyond the income of such a middling estate. He left the maps where they were and strode back to the stacks with the lantern. For all he knew Celeste was in that table’s embrace at Harschmort even then.

By the time he descended into Stropping it was after midnight. If anything, the spectacle of the place was even more infernal than he remembered (for Chang disliked leaving the city and so the station was invariably colored by annoyance and resentment)—the shrieking whistles, the fountains of steam, the glowering angels to either side of the awful clock, and below them all a desperate handful of driven souls, even at this hour, isolated under the vast iron canopy. Chang raced toward the large board that detailed the trains and their platforms and destinations, forcing his eyes to focus as he ran. He was half-way across the floor when the blurred letters congealed into a shape he could read—platform 12, leaving at 12:23 for Orange Canal. The ticket counter was closed—he would pay the conductor—and he dashed for the platform. The train was there, steam rising from the stack of its red engine.

As he came nearer he noted with a stab of wariness a line of finely dressed figures—men and women—boarding at the rear car. He slowed to a walk. Could it be another ball? After midnight? They would not be arriving at Harschmort until nearly two o’clock in the morning. He loitered until the last of the line had boarded—he recognized none of them—and approached the rear carriage himself, unseen. Perhaps twenty people had entered. He looked up at the clock—it was 12:18—and allowed another minute for them to clear the rear car before he climbed the steps and entered. The conductor was not there. Had he escorted the others forward? Chang took a few steps farther in and looked around. No one was in the rear-most compartments. He turned back to the door and froze. Advancing toward the train across the marble floor of Stropping Station was the unmistakable form of Mrs. Marchmoor, in a dress of dramatic black and yellow, and marching behind her a group of some fifteen red-coated Dragoons, their officer at her side. Chang spun on his heels and dashed forward into the car.

The compartments were empty. At the far end of the corridor Chang pulled open the door and closed it behind him, moving steadily ahead. This car seemed to be empty as well. It wasn’t surprising for so late an hour, especially since the people boarding seemed to make up a single large party. They would undoubtedly be seated together—and Chang had little doubt that Mrs. Marchmoor would be joining them, once she had established to her satisfaction he was not to be found. He reached the end of the second car and plunged on into the third. He looked back with a start, for through the glass doors and down the length of two corridors, he could see the reddish shapes of the Dragoons. They were aboard. Chang broke into a run. These compartments were equally empty—he was barely bothering to look into them as he passed. He reached the end of the third car and stopped dead. This door was different. It opened onto a small open platform with a handrail of chain on either side. Beyond it, just a short step away, was another car, different from the others, painted black with gold fittings, with a forbidding doorway of black-painted steel. Chang reached out for the handle. The door was locked. He turned to see red coats at the far end of the corridor. He was trapped.

With a lurch the train began to move. Chang looked to his right and saw the ground of the station drop away. Without another thought he vaulted the chain and landed heavily in a crouch on the gravel; the wind was knocked from his lungs with a wickedly sharp wrench. He forced himself up. The train was still picking up speed. He stumbled after it, driving his body to move, fighting the sensation that he had just inhaled a box full of needles. He broke into a tormented run, legs pumping, catching up to the platform where he had jumped and then racing to reach the front of the black car. Ahead the track disappeared into a tunnel. He looked up at the black car’s windows, dark, covered by curtains—or was it paint? Or steel? His lungs were in agony. He could see the gap at the front of the car, but even if he reached it, had he the strength to pull himself up? The vision of dropping under the train’s wheels flashed hideously into his mind—legs sheared off in an instant, the gouts of blood, his last glimpse of life the filthy soot-covered slag of a Stropping railway track. He pushed himself harder. The whistle sounded. They were nearing the tunnel. With a surge of relief he saw a ladder bolted to the far end of the car. Chang leapt for it and caught hold, legs swinging near the rails, and clawed his way madly up hand over hand—somehow not dropping his stick—until he could hook a knee into the lowest rung. He panted desperately, his lungs and throat on fire. The train swept into the tunnel and he was swallowed by the dark.

Chang held on for his life, working both legs through the rungs to take the burden from his arms. His chest heaved. He hawked and spat repeatedly into the darkness, away from the train, the taste of blood in his mouth. His head was swimming and he felt dangerously close to a faint. He tightened his grip on the iron rungs and took deep, agonizing breaths. With a sickening thought he realized that if anyone had seen him, he was utterly unable to defend himself. He cursed Rosamonde and her blue powder. His lungs were being ground up like sausage-meat. He spat again and squeezed his eyes shut against the pain.

He waited until the end of the tunnel, which was at least fifteen minutes. No one emerged from the car. The train raced through the city to the northeast, past desolate yards and crumbling brick houses, to the wood and tar-paper hovels that lined the tracks at the city’s edge. The hidden moon still gave Chang enough light to see another platform with a chain rail connecting the black car to the next, which had no door at all, only another ladder rising to its upper edge. With a slowness that revealed how spent he had become, he understood. This was the coal wagon, and ahead of it the engine. He worked his legs free and, wedging his foot tightly, reached across the empty space toward the coal wagon’s ladder. His arm was perhaps three inches short. If he threw himself, he was almost sure to make it, and it was another sign of his fatigue that he even thought twice. But he couldn’t stay where he was, and he trusted himself to leap over the chain rail even less. He stretched out his arm and one leg, glancing once at the gravel track rattling past beneath him, the rail ties a flickering blur. He turned his gaze solely to the ladder, took a breath and jumped…and landed perfectly, his heart pounding. He looked over at the metal door from this better angle. It seemed exactly like its counterpart on the opposite side: heavy, steel, windowless—as welcoming as the front of any bank safe. Chang turned his gaze to the top of the ladder and began to climb.

The coal wagon had been recently filled, so the drop from the top of the ladder into the bed of coal was perhaps two feet—just enough to conceal Chang from anyone on the platform between cars. More than this, the level of coal was higher in the center, where it had been poured into the wagon, creating a hillock between Chang and the engineers and stokers on the other side. He lay on his back, looking up into the midnight fog as the train raced through it, the sound of the wheels and the steam loud in his ears, but so constant as to become soothing. He rolled over and spat onto the wall of the wagon. From the taste in his mouth there was no question, this was blood. He felt a thin primal vibration of fear running up his spine, recalling the terrible year when he’d first felt the crop across his eyes—damned to a poorhouse sickroom, and lucky to survive the fever, his every thought trapped in the fearful space between the person he remembered himself being and the person he was terrified to become—weak, dependent, contemptible. If anything, once he’d left the sickroom and attempted to reclaim his life, the reality had been worse than his fear—after the first day he had abandoned everything for a new existence fueled by bitterness and rage and the desperation of the destitute. As for the young nobleman who had struck him…Chang hadn’t known who he was at the time—the blow had come in the common room of a university drinking hall in the midst of a larger, tangled disagreement between gangs of students—and still didn’t. The glimpse had been very, very brief—a sharp jaw, a rictus of vicious glee, mad green eyes. For all he knew—or hoped—the man had succumbed to syphilis years ago…he had left that kind of impression.

In the coal wagon however, it was all starting again. If his lungs were ruined, then so was his livelihood. He could wheeze through his work at the Library, but actually settling the business—which he both enjoyed and found a source of self-defining pride—would be beyond him. He thought of his impromptu adventures over the past days and knew that he never would have escaped the soldier in his room—or from the Institute, or the Major, or Xonck, or survived Rosamonde…none of them with his body in such a state. He had re-made himself by an assertion of will, learning to survive, learning his business (when and who and to what degree to trust, when and how and who to kill or merely thrash) and most importantly where to safely locate, in a life of apportioned areas—work and peace, action and oblivion—some semblance of human contact. Whether it was chatting about horses with Nicholas the barman between drinks at the Raton Marine, or allowing himself the painful leisure to approach Angelique (the clacking rush of the train brought to mind her native tongue—he’d said that someone speaking Chinese sounded like an articulate cat, and she’d smiled, because he knew she liked cats), the space for all of these interactions depended on his place in the world, on his ability to take care of himself. What if this was gone? He shut his eyes, and exhaled. He thought of dying in his sleep, choking on the blood in his chest and being found whenever the stokers reached this far into the coal for fuel. When would that be—days? His body would go to a pauper’s grave, or simply into the river. His mind drifted to Doctor Svenson, and he saw him stumbling away from pursuit—limping, as Chang realized dimly the Doctor had done throughout their time together, though he had not mentioned it—out of shells, dropping the pistol…he would die. Chang would die. The stability of Chang’s thoughts drifted, and without him noticing, as if in a dream, his sympathy for the Doctor’s plight caused his gaze to transpose itself into the struggle—he saw his own hands throw down the pistol and fumble for and draw apart his stick (somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered that the Doctor would have such a weapon) and flail at the many men who followed him through the fog (or was it falling snow—he must have lost his glasses)—sabers everywhere, surrounded by soldiers in black and in red…swinging helplessly, his weapons knocked away…the blades flashing toward him like starving bright fish darting up from the depths of the sea, their hideous punctures in his chest—or was he merely breathing?—and then behind him, from far away yet insistently in his ear, the whispered voice of a woman, her moist, warm breath. Angelique? No…it was Rosamonde. She was telling him that he was dead. Of course he was…there was no other explanation.

When Chang opened his eyes the train was no longer moving. He could hear the desultory hiss of the engine in repose, like a muttering, tamed dragon, but nothing else. He sat up, blinking, and dug out a handkerchief to wipe his face. His breath was easier, but there was a dark crust at each corner of his mouth and around both nostrils. It did not exactly look like dried blood—he couldn’t be certain in the dark—but rather like blood that had been crystallized, as if seeped into sugar, or ground glass. He peered over the lip of the coal wagon. The train was at a station. He could see no one on the platform. The black car was still closed—or re-closed, he had no idea if it had been vacated or not. The station house itself was dark. As the train did not seem about to move on, he reasoned they had to be at the end of the line, at Orange Canal. Chang laboriously swung his leg over the side of the wagon and climbed down, tucking the stick under his arm. His joints were stiff, and he looked up at the sky, trying to judge by the moon how long he’d been asleep. Two hours? Four? He dropped onto the gravel and brushed himself off as best he could—he knew the back of his coat was blackened with coal dust. There would be no chance to brazen his way past servants looking like this, but it made no difference. The situation was beyond disguise.

As so often happens, the return trip to Harschmort seemed much shorter than his flight away from it. Small landmarks—a dune, a break in the road, the stump of a tree—appeared one after the other with almost dutiful dispatch, and it was a very brief half an hour before Chang found himself standing on a hillock of knee-high grass, gazing across a flat fennish pasture at the brightly lit, forbidding walls of Robert Vandaariff’s mansion. As he advanced he weighed different avenues of approach, based on the parts of the house he knew. The gardens in the rear were bordered by a number of glass doors which would offer easy entry, but the garden was above the hidden chamber—the inverse tower—and might be closely watched. The front of the house was sure to be well-occupied, and the main wings only had windows high off the ground, as per the original prison. This left the side wing, where he’d smashed through a lower window to escape, which also seemed to be where much of the secret activity had been found before—Trapping’s body, at any rate. Should he try there? He had to assume Mrs. Marchmoor had warned them of his possible arrival, despite not finding him on the train. They would expect him, to be sure.

The fog broke apart at a rise in the wind, laying the ground before him more open to the moonlight. Chang stopped, a pricking of suspicion at the back of his neck. He was mid-way across the pasture, and could suddenly see that in front of him the grass had been flattened in narrow trails. People had been here recently. He stepped slowly forward, his eyes noting where these trails might cross his path. He stopped again and sank to one knee. He extended his stick ahead of him and pushed aside the grass. Just visible in the sandy dirt was a length of iron chain. Chang dug the stick under it and lifted, pulling the chain free of the sand. It was only two feet long, with one end bolted to a metal spike driven deep into the earth. The other end, he noted with a weary kind of dread, was attached to a metal bear trap—or in this case, man trap, the vicious circle of iron teeth stretched apart and ready to shatter his leg. He looked up at the house, then behind him. He had no idea where else they had placed these—he didn’t even know if this was their beginning or his progress so far just luck. The road was well away—and getting to it didn’t offer any safer route than going forward. He would have to take a chance.

Not wanting it broken, he wormed the tip of his stick under the rim of the trap’s teeth and edged it within reach of the small sensitive plate. He rapped with the tip on the plate and the trap went off with vicious speed, snapping savagely through the air. Even though he expected it, Chang was still startled and chilled—the trap’s action was just shockingly brutal. He screamed, cupping his hand around his mouth to propel the sound toward the house. He screamed again, desperately, pleadingly, allowing it to trail off in a moan. Chang smiled. He felt better for the release of tension, like an engine venting built-up steam. He waited. He screamed a third time, still more abjectly, and was rewarded by a new chink of light in the nearest wall, an opened doorway and then an exiting line of men carrying torches. Keeping low, Chang scuttled back whence he had come, aiming for a part of the pasture where the grass was high. He threw himself down and waited for his breath to settle. He could hear the men, and very slowly raised his head enough to watch them approach. There were four men, each with a torch. With a sudden thought he pulled off his glasses, not wanting the lenses to reflect the torchlight. The men came nearer, and he noted with satisfaction the very deliberate path they walked, one after another, marking it clearly in the grass. They reached the sprung trap, perhaps twenty yards from where he watched, and it quite visibly dawned on them that they saw no writhing man in the grass, nor heard any further screaming. They looked around with suspicion.

Chang smiled again. The coal dust absorbed the light and made him nearly invisible. The men were speaking low to each other. He couldn’t hear them. It didn’t matter. Three were Dragoons, in brass helmets that caught the torchlight, but the one in front was from the household, his head bare, his coat flapping about his knees. The soldiers had torches in one hand and sabers in the other. The man held a torch and a carbine. He planted the torch in the sandy ground and inspected the trap, looking for blood. The man stood up, collected his torch, and quite deliberately scanned the pasture around him. Chang slowly lowered himself—there was no point botching it now—and waited, following the man’s thoughts as clearly as if he saw into his mind. The man knew he was being watched, but had no idea from where. Chang was abstractly sympathetic, but whoever’s idea the traps actually were, this was obviously the man who had set them. While Chang was a killer, he did not admire those whose traffic was agony. He made a point of fixing the man’s face—a wide jaw with grizzled side whiskers and a balding pate—in his mind. Perhaps they would meet indoors.

After another minute, when it became clear that they were not willing to blunder around searching amongst the unsprung traps, they retreated to the house. Chang let them go, and then very cautiously followed in the safe pathway of their steps, crouching low. At the edge of the grass and the end of his cover, he waited—for all he knew they were watching from a darkened window. He was facing the same side wing, but could not place the window he’d broken through only two nights before. It had already been reglazed. Chang smiled wickedly, and felt around him for a stone. With Mrs. Marchmoor having arrived before him, the only way he was going to get inside was by creating a bit of fuss.

He rolled to one knee and threw—it was a lovely, smooth stone, and sailed very well—as hard as he could at the window to the right of the doorway where the men had emerged, which shattered with a gratifying crash. Chang ran toward the house, vaulting a border of flower beds, to the left of the door, reaching the wall as he heard cries within and saw answering light flooding out from the broken window. The door opened. He pressed himself flat. An arm appeared holding a torch, and just after it the man with the grizzled whiskers. The torch was between his face and Chang, and the man’s attention—naturally—was toward the broken window, in the other direction.

Chang snatched the torch from his astonished grasp and kicked him soundly in the ribs. The man went down with a grunt. Behind, through the door, Chang saw a crowd of Dragoons. He thrust the torch in their faces, driving them back until the handle of the door was in reach. Before they could react he threw the torch into the room, against what he hoped was drapery. He slammed the door shut, turned to the grizzled man, who was rising, and slashed the stick against his head. The man cried out, with shock at the impropriety as much as pain, and raised his arms to block another blow. This allowed Chang to kick him again in the ribs, and shoulder him aside, knocking him off balance and down with another squawk of outrage. Chang bolted past him along the wall. With luck the Dragoons would prevent the house from catching fire before giving chase.

He rounded the corner and kept running. Harschmort was a kind of nearly closed horseshoe, and he was on the far right end. In the center was the garden, and he quickly raced for the depths of its ornamental trees and hedges, putting as much distance as he could between himself and any pursuers. During the day, he was sure the garden gave the impression of being rigid and arid, nature subdued to the strictures of geometry. Now, in his headlong rush to escape, it seemed to Chang a murky labyrinth fabricated solely to provoke collision, as benches, fountains, hedges, and pedestals loomed abruptly up at him through the fog and the night. But if he could elude pursuit here they would be forced to re-group and look for him everywhere, which would mean fewer enemies in any single place—it would give him a chance. He stopped in the shadow of boxed shrubbery, pain rising damnably in his lungs like an undeterred creditor. There were bootsteps somewhere behind. He drove himself forward, keeping low, making a point to tread on the grass paths instead of the gravel. It occurred to him that he was even then moving across the great submerged chamber. Could there be any entrance left through the garden? He had no leisure to look—in any case the fog was too thick—and continued to creep across the garden to the opposite wing. That was where he had first met Trapping, where the great ballroom was. If tonight’s events were indeed of a more secretive nature, perhaps it would be unoccupied.

The bootsteps were growing unpleasantly closer. Chang listened carefully, waiting, trying to determine how many men there were. Fighting two or three Dragoons with sabers in the open air was suicidal, even without his lungs seething blood. He padded rapidly along a waist-high hedge, bent double, and then across a gravel lane into another ornamental thicket. The few steps on the gravel would draw them like a pack of hounds, and Chang immediately changed direction, angling toward the house and the nearest of the glass garden doors. He reached the cover of another low hedge and listened to the boots converge behind him, gratified that they had not thought to send men around the borders of the garden to trap him from the sides. It was just as he congratulated himself that Chang heard the unmistakable rattle of a scabbard-belt, somewhere ahead of him. He swore silently and drew apart his stick—had he been seen? He didn’t think so. He took a bead on the man’s location…near a short conical pine tree…Chang crept toward it, quiet as a corpse. He inched around the tree and the back of a red coat came into view.

Whether it was his rasping breath or the smell of the blue crystals that signaled his presence, or merely his own fatigue, Chang knew as soon as his arms shot out for the man that there would be a struggle. His left hand clamped over the Dragoon’s mouth and stifled any scream, but his right arm didn’t cleanly clear the man’s shoulder and so his blade was not at once in position. The man thrashed, his brass helmet falling onto the grass and his saber waving for some kind of purchase. In the next moment Chang pulled him off balance and dug the edge of the dagger into the man’s throat…but in that same moment he also saw that the man whose life he held in his hands was Reeves.

What did it matter? The 4th Dragoons were his enemies, paid lackeys of the corrupt and wicked. Did he care whether Reeves was merely duped into their service? Chang recalled the man’s kindness in the Ministry and knew the answer, just as he knew any alliance with Smythe would crumble to nothing if he started killing Dragoons. All this went through Chang’s mind—along with an estimate of where the other Dragoons might be and how much noise he was making—in the time it took to place his mouth next to Reeves’s ear.

“Reeves,” he whispered, “do not move. Do not speak. I am not your enemy.” Reeves stopped struggling. Chang knew there were perhaps seconds before they were found. “It is Chang,” he hissed. “You have been lied to. A woman is in the house. They are going to kill her. I am telling you the truth.”

He released his hold and stepped away. Reeves turned, his face pale and his hand drifting up to his throat. Chang whispered urgently.

“Is Captain Smythe at Harschmort?”

Their attention was drawn by a sharp noise. Reeves wheeled. Over his shoulder Chang saw the grizzled bald man with the carbine step from the shadow of the hedges, along with a knot of Dragoons. They were well away—some twenty yards distant.

“You there!” the man shouted. “Stand clear!”

The man whipped the carbine to his shoulder and took aim. Reeves turned to Chang, his face a mask of confusion, just as the shot of the carbine echoed across the garden. Reeves arched his body with a hideous spastic clench and jackknifed into Chang, his face twisting with pain. Chang looked up to see the man with the carbine eject the shell and advance another into the chamber. He slammed the bolt home and raised the weapon. Chang dropped Reeves—whose legs kicked feebly, as if their action might yet undo the damage of the bullet—and dove behind the tree.

The next shot carried past him into the night. Chang ran, tearing his way into the hedges, trying to reach the house. He had no illusion it would be any safer, but there would at least be less room for shooting. A third shot rang out, whistling near him and then a fourth, sent he didn’t know where…had he slipped them for a moment? He heard the man’s voice, barking to the soldiers. He reached the far edge of the garden and stopped, gasping. Between where he crouched and the nearest glass door was an open band of grass perhaps five yards across. He would be entirely visible for the time it took to gain the door and—somehow—force it open. It was a fool’s risk. He’d be shot where he stood. He glanced behind him—he could feel the Dragoons getting closer. There had to be another way.

But Chang’s mind was blank. He was spent with pain, with fatigue, and with the sudden murder of Reeves. He looked at the glass doors, tensing himself—ridiculously—for a reckless, suicidal dash. They were waiting for him to show himself. Above the glass doors the wall rose two stories of sheer granite before there was an elegant bay window set out over the garden. There was no way to reach it. He imagined the view from that window was delightful. Perhaps it was Lydia Vandaariff’s own room. Perhaps it was covered with pillows and silk. She was a lovely young woman, he remembered from his visit to Harschmort. He wondered idly if she was a virgin, and felt a ripple of disgust at the subsequent image of Karl-Horst climbing aboard and crowing like a peacock. The thought brought him instantly, horribly, back to Angelique, the ever-piercing distance between them and his failure to preserve her. He shut his eyes as the final words of DuVine’s Christina rose to his scattered mind:

What is the pull of a planet to the gravity of care?

What the flow of time to her unfathomable heart?

Chang shrugged off his despair—he was drifting again—and found himself staring at the window. Something was wrong with the reflection. Because of the odd angle of the glass he could see part of the garden behind him…and the scraps of fog billowing in the wind. He frowned. There was no wind in the garden that he could feel, or not to cause such billowing. He turned behind him, trying to place the reflected ground. Hope rose in his heart. The wind was coming from below.

Chang crept quietly along the edge of the garden, on the bordering band of grass, until he could see the wisps of fog shifting, and stepped in to find a row of four large stone urns, each as tall as himself. Three were topped by the withered stalks of seasonal flowers. The fourth was empty and quite obviously the source of a steady exhalation of warm air. He placed his hands on the rim and went on his toes to peer inside. The hot air was foul and set off the raw flesh in his mouth and lungs. He winced and stepped back—his hands now covered in a pale crust of crystalline powder left by the chemical exhaust. Chang kneeled and pulled out his handkerchief. He tied it tightly across his face, stood again, and took a last glance around the garden. He saw no one—they were still waiting for him to run for the house. Tucking the stick under his arm he hoisted himself up and threw a leg over the lip of the urn. He looked down into it. Just below his boot was a wooden lattice-work across the urn, also covered with chemical accretions, in place to prevent the leaves and twigs from the garden that were trapped against it—and now dusted an icy blue—from blowing into the pipe. Chang leaned down and kicked once, very hard, on the lattice. His foot went through with an audible crack. He kicked again, knocking in the entire thing. Behind him there were sounds from the Dragoons—he had been heard, they were converging on the sound. He dropped completely inside, disappearing from their view, pulling apart the last bits of the lattice with his arms. He slid to the base of the urn, pressing against each side of it with his legs to stop himself from sliding down into the dark hole. He had no idea how far it went, if it was a sheer drop, or if it led into a furnace, but he knew it was better than being shot in the back. He lowered himself into the pipe—the steel sides warm to the touch—until he hung by his hands from the bottom edge of the urn.

Chang let go.