The Chemickal Marriage

Ten Severance

Swimming itself Miss Temple enjoyed, for she was small and water offered a freedom of movement that air never could. She kicked her legs like a frog – a lovely feeling – and pulled with one arm. Bubbles nibbled her skin like the mouths of tiny fish. The water was cold, but as she went deeper she met plumes of different temperature. The warmest water fed the baths, but the colder moved more quickly. Was that the river? She kicked to the cold, her lungs beginning to pinch, and felt her hand slap rock. Miss Temple held on as her body, paused, sought to rise. She felt a current … was there a channel in the rock? Her searching hand grazed a soft tendril – a bit of grass? She caught it and felt the bump of a seam: a strip of the Contessa’s petticoat, looped around the rock.

Miss Temple groped lower, into a pocket of cold, then wriggled through an opening well wide enough for her body. Her lungs were painfully tight. She kicked up into a faster current. Now that she wanted air the seconds grew unbearable.

She broke the surface with a gasp, still in the dark, and immediately swallowed a mouthful of water. She choked and almost lost hold of the leather case. Her loud breath echoed. A current carried along. Miss Temple swam to the side, and eventually her hand struck not rock but slippery brick.

She floated there, easing her breath, then felt her way along the bank. She’d begun to shiver. Her hands found a protrusion in the brick – it took her a moment to realize it was a ladder of inset rungs. Miss Temple climbed onto a dank but dry landing, but did not stand.

She turned to the sound of creaking wood. The formless dark took shape with the glimmer of a candle, well away but coming near, an oval face just glimpsed beyond its glow.

‘At last, and what a fright you look. Hurry up.’

‘The problem, of course, is that we may need to swim again.’

Miss Temple shivered under a heavy wool blanket, too chilled for her nakedness to cause disruption. Her teeth chattered and her bare knees pressed cold against her breasts. The Contessa, hair wrapped in a towel, wore a white robe and cork slippers, all purloined from the baths. She poured brandy into a teacup and passed it across.

‘Drink. Slowly.’

Miss Temple took small, burning sips, hating the taste but grateful for the warming glow.

‘Now, will anyone follow?’

Miss Temple shook her head. The Contessa glared, this not being enough of an answer, and so Miss Temple provided a brief account of Mr Schoepfil’s assault on propriety and her own escape. At the end her cup was empty and she held it out for more. The Contessa poured for them both, tucking the robe about her knees. Behind the Contessa, in an untidy pile, lay several open hampers. Miss Temple’s arrival had interrupted smoked oysters in sauce and the Contessa restored the jar to her lap. She dipped a finger in the sauce, frowned at the taste, dribbled some brandy into the jar and resumed her meal.

‘You should eat. The passage will take hours.’

Miss Temple sniffed. ‘What passage?’

‘Channel between royal premises,’ replied the Contessa, chewing. ‘Enabling duplicity and outright crime. In a spasm of conscience the way was bricked up – those habits being impure. An astute adviser of this present queen made it his business to uncover the legend – in secret, opening the passage enough for one or two very sodden individuals, an expedience. And I made it my business to uncover him.’

‘Lord Pont-Joule.’

‘Would you like an oyster? They aren’t very good.’

Miss Temple shook her head and the Contessa tossed the jar at the far wall. She frowned at the nearest hamper. ‘Cheese?’

‘No, thank you.’

The Contessa brought a white-moulded toque to her nose. ‘It’s very ripe.’

‘Where does the channel lead?’

‘Well, that was the value of Pont-Joule. An older man, desire and capacity so rarely in twain, but philosophic and not sour. A life dedicated to nothing of course – to that moulting cow – but he saw the wind’s way. Can you?’

‘Royal premises,’ said Miss Temple with a sniff.

‘O who is a good pup?’ The Contessa broke the cheese with her hands and took an exploratory nibble. She raised her eyebrows with approval and then filled her mouth.

‘I expect they sent people to prison in secret,’ muttered Miss Temple, for the Contessa was no longer entirely listening. ‘Sent them all the way to Harschmort, underground.’

Once the brandy had done its work, however, Miss Temple’s old troubles returned. The Contessa had wiped her fingers on the robe and gone to another hamper, this filled with clothing, her squatting hips an unwelcome gust across the embers of Miss Temple’s desire. She looked away, down at the brick.

‘Perhaps I will eat after all,’ she managed. The Contessa waved vaguely.

‘It is for you or the rats. Or, with that straggling hair, you as the largest rat …’

Miss Temple forced herself to swallow a water biscuit and a lump of cheese, taken from where the Contessa had not chewed. Though it stuck in her throat, she reached in the hamper for more. But, as she reached, the Contessa flung an armful of various garments and the blanket was knocked from her shoulders. Miss Temple turned, covering herself with her hands. The Contessa laughed.

‘I had not planned for two, much less two of such differing sizes. With a corset to wrench it all in, you may be presentable. Probably not.’

‘I will wear my own things,’ said Miss Temple, pulling the blanket up.

‘A mere corset and shift? You will freeze. They will hear your teeth from St Porte.’

‘I do not care.’

The Contessa dropped her robe and stepped into a pale silk shift. She pulled it over her hips, smiled, and then, as Miss Temple could not but look, slipped one arm and then the other through. The Contessa paused.

‘Celeste, I believe you are biting your lip.’

Miss Temple only swallowed, wet hair in dark ringlets on her nape. ‘You know what has become of me.’

‘But do I know it well enough?’ The Contessa did the last button and tugged the shift against her breasts, as if for comfort, but primarily to drag the silk across her nipples, knowing that Miss Temple could not look away.

‘You are very cruel.’

‘Not only cruel. What would you like?’

Miss Temple rocked on her heels. ‘That’s a horrible question.’

‘Only if you have a horrible answer.’

‘You amuse yourself. You will kill me.’

‘I thought you were going to kill me.’

‘I am,’ whined Miss Temple.

‘Stand up, Celeste.’

‘I won’t. I can’t.’

The Contessa came forward and caught the hands Miss Temple raised to put her off. Miss Temple was lifted and the blanket fell away, her pale skin tight with the cold. The Contessa looked at her. Miss Temple trembled.

‘I am ashamed,’ she whispered. ‘I am not myself.’

‘Few people are.’

‘But you –’

‘We are not talking about me.’

Miss Temple persisted. She forced out the words. ‘But I – I am not kind. I am not pretty. I want things. I want people. I –’ She shook her head. ‘I am so hungry … so angry.’

The Contessa set a hand on Miss Temple’s breast, squeezing it with the dispassion of a farmer judging ham. ‘You are not ugly. Besides, that matters very little.’ The hand took in the soft pinch of Miss Temple’s waist and the turn of her hips. ‘The person who isn’t angry is a stone. And the person without desire is in the grave.’ Miss Temple squirmed, for the Contessa’s hand had dipped between her legs. An extended finger pushed without warning past hair and skin to wetness and slipped in. Miss Temple gasped.

The Contessa looked her in the eye. ‘We have done this before. Do you remember?’ Miss Temple nodded. The Contessa eased her hand into motion. ‘In the coach, with Oskar. To shame you. To derange your little heart. Did it work?’

Miss Temple shook her head. The motion was already luscious.

‘No. That was my mistake. But what did you learn?’

‘That I am my own,’ whimpered Miss Temple.

‘O that’s a lie, isn’t it?’

Miss Temple did not speak. The Contessa gave her hand a twist and employed a thumb.

‘I said that’s a lie, isn’t it, Celeste? You admitted as much just now, this close to tears … because you want a world that isn’t yours … because your pleasure is unbounded … because in your heart you are the biggest whore in all Europe.’

Another turn of her hand stopped Miss Temple’s objection.

‘Or is that wrong? Are you not? Or are you? What other word would you use?’

‘Why – O – why are you –’

‘Because someone has to die, Celeste. It won’t be me. For this – your demons? Banish shame. Accept desire. Most men deserve the whip. You are what you are now.’ The Contessa dropped to her knees. She met Miss Temple’s eyes. ‘Yes?’

Miss Temple could not move. Sure as the strike of a snake, the Contessa’s tongue shot home. Miss Temple cried out. She writhed, but the Contessa held her hips fast and the crest was already imminent, a swelling of unbearable sweetness. Her fingers found the Contessa’s head and pulled it close.

Miss Temple had tumbled panting onto the blanket. The Contessa gave her a cold-eyed smirk. ‘And what do you know now?’

Miss Temple’s voice was small. ‘That this changes nothing.’

‘Precisamente.’ The Contessa took a corner of the blanket to wipe her face. ‘Get dressed and help with my corset. I’m damned if I’ll meet Robert Vandaariff without proper underpinnings.’

In the end, the Contessa’s clothing was too large, even the undergarments, and Miss Temple took back her own. She had carefully hidden the glass key upon disrobing, but still hoped she might find the silk-wrapped spur, that it might have slipped lower into her shift. She searched as unobtrusively as she could. Nothing.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘No.’ Miss Temple saw the leather case now lay near the Contessa’s foot.

‘Mine,’ the Contessa said. ‘Fair exchange.’

There being no dress to fit her, Miss Temple tied the Contessa’s cotton robe over her corset and shift, and walked in cork slippers with her hair in a towel. The Contessa wore a dark dress and simple shoes, her combed damp hair hanging past her shoulders. She held the leather case in one hand and the candle in the other. A small hamper was Miss Temple’s to carry, contents unknown. A short tunnel took them back to the embankment and a trim, narrow craft, not unlike the skiff Miss Temple had taken from the Raaxfall dock.

‘In the front,’ said the Contessa. ‘Try not to tip in and drown.’

The hamper went first and then Miss Temple, scrambling to the foremost thwart. The Contessa hitched her dress about her waist and settled in the rear of the skiff, stowed the leather case under her seat, and came up with a small box of glass and metal. She lit the candle inside it and wedged the box into a stand, then reached behind her for the tiller.

‘There is a pole, Celeste, beneath your feet. We should not run into the bank, but, if we do, you will use it to push off. I will steer. If you think to use that pole on me you may discard the idea now, for it will not reach. Are you ready?’

Miss Temple extracted the pole, which was indeed not very long, and turned to face forward. The Contessa cut the rope tethering them to the landing with a knife. While the weapon was no surprise, it was nevertheless bracing to see. The current caught the skiff and they shot into the dark.

For the first part of their journey, Miss Temple’s attention was fixed on the half-moon of light preceding the tip of the skiff, watching for dangers of all sorts. Large patches of the ceiling had fallen in, and from those spots dangled ropes of black moss. The banks were smooth rock save for the very occasional appearance of another landing. Miss Temple peered at these relics as closely as the light allowed. Sometimes the Contessa would announce their location, ‘the Citadel’ or ‘the Observatory’; but other times, and Miss Temple was convinced it was because she did not know, a landing passed without comment. Soon they flew on in silence and, at last, Miss Temple’s wilful concentration was undermined.

The act had been obscene and unnatural, with regard to Church teachings (which she dismissed) but also to Miss Temple’s understanding of loyalty, of virtue. Of course she had known those sorts of girls – everyone knew them – but in her own person the urge had been absent, or at least unconsidered. That had changed dramatically upon the invasion of her mind by the blue glass book. If a memory held a man’s relish of a woman, then Miss Temple’s experience of it quite naturally located that pleasure, that appreciation, in her own body. And many of the memories were perverse: women with women, men with men, and more, in such a profusion of incident that her body, if not her moral mind, was taught at last only ripe possibility. And so Miss Temple decided that, while she did not approve of the Contessa, or her tongue, it was plain enough that one tongue was much like another. Given that she could not, with her present knowledge and appetite, abjure tongues whole, whether it be a man’s or a woman’s seemed to make no matter at all.

But loyalty was something else again, and here her thought snagged. The Contessa was her enemy – it was as complete a fact as might exist on earth. How could even the highest claim of expedience justify such … abasement? Wasn’t it abasement? Wasn’t it compromise? Betrayal? It was – she knew it was – and yet she had done it! And in another circumstance of degrading need she would do it again! Miss Temple gripped the pole with both hands, hating the woman behind her, but loathing herself even more. In the coach, the Comte d’Orkancz had seized her throat – she was unable to resist … on the landing the Contessa’s hands had but cupped her thighs to bring her near.

Did it matter that it was her desire instead of theirs? Miss Temple scoffed at the hopeful phrasing – as if the teeming contents of the glass book were hers. Her desire was long gone – with bitterness she recalled the filthy words of Mr Groft, her father’s overseer – like piss in a stream.

And that was that. With nothing to be done, Miss Temple’s practical mind shoved the issue aside. She could not help what had happened, nor – for with the abating of need came clarity of mind (probably the Contessa’s exact intention) – did she regret it. And, besides, she was wrong: it would not happen again. Soon – and soon enough – either she or the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza would be dead.

They travelled without significant conversation aside from an observation that Miss Temple could move less clumsily or move not at all. Miss Temple pushed away the wet strands of moss, which seemed to dip nearer as they went.

‘The water has risen,’ said the Contessa, both by explanation and by complaint.

‘What if we run out of room?’ asked Miss Temple. ‘What if Pont-Joule built another stop-hole further on, to keep people out?’

‘He did not.’

‘Have you been here?’

‘No one has been here.’

‘Then you don’t know.’

‘Be quiet. O stinking hell –’

The Contessa ducked as they plunged through an especially sodden curtain of moss that swept the towel from Miss Temple’s head. She squealed with disgust, forcing her body flat. But then they were through and the skiff slowed into a lazy spin, the channel opening to a deeper pool. The ceiling rose, vaulted, the crusted tiles in different colours, a mosaic.

‘We have reached St Porte.’

Miss Temple followed the Contessa’s gaze to an entirely different sort of landing. Where the others had been simple brick, this was carved white stone, with a wall of once-elegant glass-fronted doors, opaque with filth.

‘What was in St Porte?’ she asked.

‘A woman who was not the Queen.’

Miss Temple considered this. The Contessa, in unacknowledged curiosity, had turned the tiller to slow their way. No one, not even the disrespectful young, had ever found the doors, for each heavy pane remained quite whole.

‘Who was she? Who was he?’

‘A king with a fat foreign wife.’

‘But what happened?’ Miss Temple looked back as the current carried them away.

‘She died. The King did not return.’

‘I suppose he couldn’t,’ said Miss Temple.

‘Of course he couldn’t,’ said the Contessa. ‘She died of plague. The rest of the place – above the ground – was razed flat.’

After St Porte the landings became few and far between, the last but a stand of rotten pilings. The Contessa changed the candle, which had sunk low.

‘That is the final station before Harschmort, though we’ve still far to go. Harschmort was placed well away for a reason.’

‘What will we find there?’ Miss Temple asked. ‘What sort of welcome?’

‘How should I know?’ The Contessa tossed the old stub in the water with a plonk.

‘It is your expedition.’

‘The train was impossible, and our situation at Bathings precluded a coach.’

‘That is a lie. You had this route planned.’

‘I have many plans. But, as I had not seen the channel landing at St Porte, I have not seen the one at Harschmort either – because of Oskar’s construction, his great chamber. The foundation of the place was walled off, even as he exploited the channel itself for power.’

Miss Temple frowned. ‘But that chamber was destroyed by explosives. Chang said so.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘What if there is no landing?’ The Contessa did not reply. Miss Temple turned to look at her. ‘I am hungry.’

‘You should have eaten before.’

‘Did you bring food or not?’ Miss Temple reached for the hamper.

‘Celeste.’

‘If you try to stop me it will tip the skiff.’ Without waiting for a reply she flipped back the wicker lid. Inside were three squat bottles sealed with cork and a layer of black wax. Miss Temple plucked up the nearest and held it to the light.

‘Damn you to hell, Celeste Temple, put that down.’

‘Tell me what’s in it or I’ll throw it overboard.’

‘You would not. You would not be so stupid – O damn you. It is a liquid you have seen before, derived from something called bloodstone. It is orange, and in most instances very harmful.’

‘In all three bottles?’

‘All three, you little pig.’

Miss Temple leant into the hamper. The open space inside showed a glimpse of blue beneath the bottles. The glass book the Contessa had taken from Parchfeldt. The book that held the corrupted essence of the Comte d’Orkancz. Miss Temple replaced the bottle.

‘I am not a pig. But I would have thrown it.’

‘Of course you would have.’

‘As long as we know each other,’ said Miss Temple.

The rest of their journey passed in silence, Miss Temple brooding again, bitter that, with the exception of some sofa-bound groping with Roger Bascombe, which she dismissed, and a single misguided kiss at Parchfeldt, her body’s charms had been sampled only by the worst of people. Kings and mistresses were nonsense, she knew full well. Most people made horrid marriages, mismatches of beauty and temper that only provoked a person to imagine the couple conjoined, as one hearing of an accident imagined the wounds. Was it so strange that her legitimate affection – if any such thing existed, and this was, the more she thought, the exact matter for doubt – had settled on a man such as Chang, suspect and unpresentable in every way?

She glanced back. Earlier, when the Contessa had stepped into her shift, a new scar, on her thigh, had come into view, a knife-cut by Miss Temple’s own hand from their fight at Parchfeldt. She remembered the other scar across the Contessa’s shoulder, from a train window in Karthe. No doubt there were more – no doubt there were scars within – and she wondered at the woman’s continuing beauty. How long would it last? Would some rash plan finally be met with disfigurement or death? She thought of Chang’s face – did not the Contessa deserve the same? Did not Miss Temple herself?

How – and, honestly, why – could the woman so persist?

‘You said before we’d swim again,’ she called. ‘Does that mean you’ve lied and you do know where we’ll go?’

‘Eyes ahead, Celeste. We ought to be near.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Eyes ahead, Celeste. I cannot see past you.’

Miss Temple turned, pleased to have pricked another nerve, then sat up straight.

‘Celeste! You cannot just move –’

‘Do you hear the water? Listen! The sound has changed.’

The channel had gone glassy calm, but, as their circle of light reached out, Miss Temple detected a shadow, an oddly shaped depression pointing down. She frantically waved her arm. ‘To the left, quickly!’

The Contessa pulled on the tiller and the skiff shot to the side, but not before the stern crossed into the glassy oval. Their motion was checked. They were being pulled.

‘It’s sucking the water down!’ cried Miss Temple. ‘Like the drain in a tub!’

‘The pole, Celeste! Use the damned pole!’

Miss Temple plunged the pole into the water to try to push them away but found no bottom to push against.

‘The landing!’

The Contessa strained on the tiller as the skiff spun stern-first towards the sink-hole in the centre of the pool. For it was a pool, Miss Temple now saw, flowing underground instead of further on. She stabbed at a piling with the hooked end of the pole – she had not actually believed the thick hook was for fish – and it caught fast, then she squealed as the weight of the skiff nearly tore it from her gasp.

‘Hold on! Just a moment … there!’

The skiff swung to the landing wall. The Contessa looped a rope around a rusted stanchion and tied it off.

‘You can let go.’

Miss Temple sat back and shook her fingers. ‘How do you know about boats?’

‘I am a Venetian.’

‘And I’m from an island. Ladies don’t sail boats.’

‘Then ladies should be careful getting out, because if they fall in they’ll get sucked down into the gears.’

Miss Temple again bore the hamper while the Contessa kept the leather case and the candle-box from the skiff. Harschmort’s platform was littered with broken masonry.

‘It does not seem as if Robert Vandaariff knew about this landing at all.’

‘No,’ agreed the Contessa. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t on the plans …’

‘How can something built not be on the plans?’

‘Celeste, how do you even eat breakfast?’

Miss Temple followed her to a door that had once been formidable, ironbound planks four inches thick. Now the wood was eaten by worms and hung by a single hinge. The Contessa lifted her dress and kicked with the flat of her foot, turning her head at the dust blown up when the thing fell in. She let the cloud settle and stepped over the mess.

‘Why did you say we had to swim?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘Because we may. Or I may.’

‘Why not me?’

‘Perhaps you.’

‘Perhaps I’ll go my very own way.’

‘Perhaps that is my intention.’

‘Your intentions can go hang,’ replied Miss Temple. ‘This leads nowhere.’

The ceiling had collapsed, blocking the passage with debris. The Contessa set the candle-box on the leather case and bent for a tumbled stone. She lifted it with a grimace and heaved it behind them.

‘Put down that hamper and help.’

‘You cannot be in earnest.’

The Contessa raised a second stone. ‘If you do not help me I will club out your brains.’

Miss Temple snatched up the light and climbed the pile, dislodging bricks and gravel where she stepped. At the top, she poked an arm between two beams and then wormed her head to follow. Threads of dust traced the air around her.

‘Celeste, you are just making more work.’

‘There is a way.’

‘You cannot fit. I cannot fit.’

‘You’re wrong. Come see.’

The Contessa gamely scrambled up, holding her dress with one hand and groping with the other until she could reach a beam to steady herself – an action that launched another spray of brick dust. She spat it from her mouth.

‘Look!’

Miss Temple raised the light. Perhaps ten feet above, the darkness opened to black space.

‘But where does it lead? We could be trapped in a hole.’

‘We are trapped in a hole.’ Miss Temple handed the candle-box to the Contessa. ‘Keep it steady. I will do my best not to bury you as I go …’

It was just like climbing a monkey-puzzle tree, not that she had done that for a decade, but Miss Temple’s limbs remembered how to wriggle from one branch to another. Only one of the beams gave way, a heart-stopping moment when – in the midst of a cascade of pebbles and dust and, from below, Italian profanity – the light went out. Miss Temple clung to where she was in the dark, waiting for all the debris to settle.

‘Goffo scrofa!’

‘Are you all right?’

A snap of a match and the light returned, to show the Contessa covered in dust, black hair like an old-fashioned powdered wig. ‘Climb.’

The distance was not far, and once she had a solid brace for her feet Miss Temple raised her head to the edge of a floor. ‘Half a moment … shut your eyes …’

She pounded the broken lip with a fist, breaking away weakened brick until she was sure that what remained would take her weight. Then Miss Temple writhed up over the edge. The air was warm and dank. She could not see, but the sounds around her – water and machines – echoed from a distance.

‘Pass everything up,’ she whispered. ‘We are inside.’

The Contessa joined her with an extremely sour expression, her person filthy, and shone the candle around the room: a barrel-shaped ceiling, a door cracked off its hinges and a line of furnaces, all cold.

‘You’ll be happy for a swim now, I wager,’ said Miss Temple as they padded on.

The Contessa did not reply and Miss Temple realized that they must be silent now, that around any corner might be a foe. They continued on, past standing pools and buckled plaster, finally reaching a gas-lit spiral staircase. They climbed one turn to a door. The Contessa faced her.

‘Put the hamper down.’ Miss Temple did, warily. The Contessa held out the leather case. ‘Take it.’

Miss Temple did, then backed away. ‘Why?’

‘Because I cannot carry everything. Because now I do not need it. I took it from you so you’d have no weapon.’

Miss Temple glanced at the hamper, wondering if she could snatch that up as well – and, with both books, run.

‘I thought you needed me. I thought I would be used.’

‘And did you want that?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What do you want, Celeste?’

‘I want to stop him,’ she said boldly. ‘Stop all of this. I want to save Chang. And Svenson.’ She hesitated. ‘And myself.’ The Contessa pursed her lips, sceptical. Miss Temple wanted to kick her. ‘What do you want?’

‘To find Oskar.’

‘What?’

The Contessa was silent. The knife was somehow in her hand.

‘But why?’ Miss Temple did not understand at all. ‘And how? Oskar is dead. And he wants to consume you. You’ve seen the painting. Those people get boiled down – they get killed and cooked in tubs and what’s left is given to him, to revive.’

‘Reincarnate. There’s a difference.’

Miss Temple remembered, quite vividly, the Comte’s last moments on the airship, his rage at the death of Lydia Vandaariff. His intention to wring the Contessa’s neck had been stopped only by Chang’s sabre. ‘You do not understand. He is mad. He was dead –’

‘But what if he wasn’t any more? What if he was just wicked old Oskar?’

‘He isn’t.’

‘Then you can kill him, if I’m wrong. And become his little Bride if I am not. You’ll want to go upstairs. And don’t confront anyone. Stay alive to the end.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Into the works, of course. Do you remember the tomb?’

‘What?’

‘Really, Celeste, try not to be completely stupid.’

‘I am not stupid. If it wasn’t for me you’d still be on the landing.’

‘As ever, Celeste Temple, you underestimate everything.’ The Contessa picked up the hamper and slipped through the door.

Miss Temple stood, undone at being suddenly alone and resenting the feeling extremely. She had not underestimated anything. She could sense the Comte’s death in the back of her throat. Why would the Contessa risk her life to restore him? She narrowed her eyes, anger building now the woman had gone. If she could not save herself, she would be damned if their two fates would be any different.

She climbed to another door. The landing was damp and wet footprints climbed the stairs. One of the prints, the right foot, carried a swirl of red. Against all reason she wondered if this was Chang. She stopped herself from calling out. The prints continued up, past the next door, which she tried to open out of curiosity. The door squeaked – it was locked – and at the squeak Miss Temple heard a noise above her on the stairs. She did not breathe. Then faint footfalls, coming down. Miss Temple retreated in silence until she was out of sight. The footfalls stopped on the platform, and she heard the same squeak of the door being tested, then the sound of a key. The door was opened … then closed again … silence. The man had gone through. If she moved quickly she could get past without, as the Contessa warned, confrontation.

She hurried around the turn to find Mr Foison on the landing. He leapt at her like a cat, grunting with pain as he landed and snatching at the tail of her robe. She dashed away and down, fumbling for the door at the next landing, but it was only half open before Foison was there. She swung the case at him. He dodged the blow and took her wrist.

‘How are you here?’ he hissed. ‘Where is she?’

‘Where is Chang?’

‘Chang is lost.’

His cold voice brought Miss Temple back to the Raaxfall works. She kicked at a bandage on his right thigh and yanked her wrist with all her strength. Foison’s grip broke, but then his fingers caught on the case. For an instant they strained against one another, but he was too strong. She let it go. He toppled back and Miss Temple raced away.

She burst through the next door down and ran until the corridor met another pool. She looked back and realized that Foison hadn’t followed. Of course not: he’d opened the leather case and seen what she’d been fool enough to lose.

Back on the floor where she’d started, Miss Temple stopped to think. What had Foison been doing here? A man like Foison did not repair machines. Had he been chasing someone? And what explained his being so wet?

Across the pool she saw water pouring through an open grate, forced from above. She peered upwards, shading her face from the spray, and her heart quickened. Had Foison followed someone into Harschmort on such a dangerous route – someone like Chang?

But if Foison had been following Chang, he would not have come after her, and he would have shouted for help. For some reason she did not understand, Mr Foison had made his own secret entry into Harschmort, through the guts of his master’s new construction.

Steeling her courage, she returned to the stairwell. Foison was gone. In that case, Miss Temple told herself, she would chase him.

The bloody prints continued to climb, despite – and Miss Temple’s heart leapt to her throat each time she slipped past – the noisy presence of Vandaariff’s men behind each successive stairwell door. Foison’s errand was his alone. But at the top of the staircase her search was foxed, for the bloody trail vanished into a long runner of carpet.

She kept walking. This was Harschmort. She would meet someone – and confront them. The Contessa was wrong about that too.

When the shouts came she hurried towards them, and the explosion that followed. Ahead, a woman careened through a smoking archway, gold-skinned and frail, black hair around her shoulders. She saw Miss Temple but did not pause.

‘Hurry!’ she cried. ‘Run!’

Without thinking Miss Temple took the woman’s hand and fled. A cork slipper flew from her foot, and after three awkward steps she kicked off its mate.

‘All of them – every last one taken –’

Cries and the sound of breaking glass came from behind. Miss Temple saw shadows wrestling in blue smoke, and brass-helmeted men charging into the cloud with clubs.

The woman watched with too wide eyes, hand to her mouth. ‘My son –’

Miss Temple tugged her on. ‘You can do nothing. Run.’

‘Who are you?’ the woman demanded, out of breath. ‘How did you escape?’

‘I have not escaped. I have entered. Wait.’

They had reached a doorway left ajar, and Miss Temple peered through. Four green-coated men lay on the floor, though they bore no wounds. The air stank of indigo clay, and Miss Temple’s eyes stung.

‘Wait,’ gasped the woman. ‘In case. My name is Madelaine Kraft –’

‘There is no “in case” if we keep moving,’ said Miss Temple.

‘I cannot run. You will be taken with me. Listen. You don’t know who I am. Please. I heard him once explain a thing –’

‘Who?’

She squeezed Miss Temple’s hand in a feeble request for patience. ‘The Comte d’Orkancz. The secret is light. “The chemical value of light” – as if it were as solid as earth or water, or active like fire or cold. He put a disc of glass – do not be shocked – a disc of glass on a woman’s body and opened a curtain so the sun hit it. She fairly sang with pleasure –’

‘What woman?’

‘That does not matter. Her name was Angelique –’

Miss Temple pulled her hand away. ‘Ah.’

‘Light. The character of blue glass –’

‘You mean it will not work in the dark?’

Madelaine Kraft shook her head. ‘We are already too late – the dawn has come! The only hope now is to know – to understand his thinking –’

‘His thinking is as scrambled as five eggs in a bowl. Do you know Cardinal Chang?’

‘Of course I know Chang.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I do not know. I have misjudged him. I have misjudged myself and lost my son.’ Abruptly Madelaine Kraft pushed Miss Temple through the door. ‘I will lead them away. Go.’

She closed the door, and through it Miss Temple heard her shouting to attract the guards.

Miss Temple pulled a revolving pistol from the holster of a fallen man. She waited, bracing the weapon with both hands, ready to shoot the first man through the door. The sounds outside went quiet – Madelaine Kraft had been taken away – and no guards returned to search. Still, for some minutes Miss Temple did not move. The men at her feet, asleep or dead, lay in a heap like the bones outside an ogre’s den. She had managed an entry to Harschmort, but this room marked another degree of danger. Newly constructed for the ritual of this night, here was the true beginning of her battle with its master.

Blocking her path was a bed of black gravel mixed with blue stones: blue glass spurs. She could not risk the spurs in bare feet. On the wall hung a line of white robes edged with green, with a pair of felt slippers at the foot of each. She exchanged the Contessa’s cotton robe for that of a Vandaariff acolyte, and helped herself to the slippers, noting how filthy and dark her feet were.

Between the gravel and the far door lay a mosaic of large tiles. A noxious resonance in her throat warned her not to simply walk across, though she’d no idea what would happen if she did. Each tile was made of a different coloured glass, but the Comte’s memories brought only confusion. Then Miss Temple laughed aloud, for in the corner of one tile she saw an x, quite freshly scratched.

‘Well, thank you very much …’

A series of hops brought her to the far side, thinking very little of the entire challenge. Like so much learnt thinking, to Miss Temple it was just another obstacle to avoid – or, like the fellow with the knot, hack through.

She threw the hood over her face and opened the door. Here was the same acrid smell … now augmented by gunpowder. Across the room three robed acolytes lay huddled in death. Another doorway had been blown open. Miss Temple padded to it, but quickly turned from the burnt, twisted bodies. It was now clear what happened if one stepped on the wrong tile.

She forced herself to approach the robed corpses, examining each as carefully as Chang or Svenson might have done. One man’s face was stained orange. Though the Contessa had taken such pains to bring her own supply, here was a bubbling fountain full of the stuff, from which this poor wretch had drunk. His lips were stretched and his empty eyes wide in a carnival mask of fear. The other two acolytes had been beaten and stabbed, but, judging by the blood smeared on the floor, there had been more men, hauled away. Again, she did her best to sort the passage of each one, diligence rewarded when her eyes at last caught a particular blot in a sooty footprint. These prints emerged from the blasted door and followed the drag marks leading out. She’d found Mr Foison … and he’d found someone else.

She started at a skittering noise: a metal grille, painted to blend with the distorted figures that decorated the walls. Miss Temple went to her toes and turned the knob. Through it came voices she knew.

‘You underestimate the power of his belief,’ said Doctor Svenson.

‘There was a second question, my lord?’ asked Mr Foison.

The doors next to the grille had been pushed closed, but remained ajar. Miss Temple cautiously craned her head. Robert Vandaariff stood with his back to her, the only occupant of a strange little room sealed off by thick glass. Beyond him, and more glass, stood Svenson and Foison in what was obviously Vandaariff’s new laboratory.

‘Indeed, for Doctor Svenson. You were given entry in the company of another man. A Mr Pfaff. Where is he now?’

‘We parted ways.’

‘Pfaff is an ally of the Contessa, my lord …’

They kept talking. Miss Temple paid no attention, for at the sight of Chang on the table her heart went cold.

She kicked off the slippers and ran, following Foison and the drag marks, only to reach a crossroads and more damned carpet, where the trail disappeared. Without a thought she dashed left, reached the end of the carpet and cried out as her toe caught on a new-laid plank. She hopped on one foot, picking at the splinter. Staring at Miss Temple with an imperious distrust was a band of acolytes in white robes.

‘Sister?’ ventured one. ‘What brings you here?’

‘I must find Mr Foison!’ cried Miss Temple. ‘Where is Mr Foison?’

But her hood had slipped off. The acolyte pointed at her face. ‘She has not been consumed. She has not been redeemed.’

‘Tell me!’ Miss Temple raised the revolver. ‘Where is Mr Foison!’

Her threat meant nothing. The acolytes charged. Miss Temple pulled the trigger. The pointing acolyte fell, clutching his leg. Miss Temple bolted, snapping another blind shot behind. She careened around a corner. A door ahead of her opened and another white robed idiot peeked out. She raised the pistol, her aim bouncing wildly. The acolyte threw out his arms.

‘There you are!’

She did not break speed, each step narrowing her aim.

‘It’s me! It’s me! It’s Jack!’

She saw beneath the hood and did not shoot. Pfaff pulled her in and slid the bolt home. Fists pounded on the far side of the door.

‘Well, well, little miss –’

‘I must reach Chang! They’re going to kill him!’

Pfaff flashed a confident smile. ‘Then you must follow me.’

He pulled her to an unfinished staircase, little more than a hole in the floor. She noticed his chequered trousers were wet from the knees down.

‘Where have you been, Mr Pfaff?’

‘Not Jack?’

‘It was never Jack. Do not bother to lie. She sent you here. You met her, and she set you a task.’

‘Miss, I came to find you. I have had dealings with the Contessa – had to convince her, didn’t I? But here I am, and I will take you to Chang.’

‘Do you know what they have done to him?’

Pfaff stopped and turned to her. He took a deep breath. ‘Miss –’

‘We must hurry!’

‘I do not like to tell you, but someone must. They took his mind, Miss Temple. Snatched it with a blue glass book, so Vandaariff can exchange himself into Chang’s empty shell. That has been his intention all this time.’

Miss Temple heard the words as if from a distance.

A part of her heart went away, a cloud pulled to pieces by the wind.

‘Who?’ Her voice was calm. She realized Pfaff had taken her hand, to comfort her. Miss Temple gently reclaimed it. ‘Who did this?’

‘Old Foison.’

‘With a glass book.’

‘Who knew that there were any left? I heard them talking, the ones in robes. But they’re all in on it. Even your German doctor. You’ll see for yourself. I’m the only one with you now.’

Pfaff nodded, as if her silence confirmed his last words, and walked on. Miss Temple followed in silence. Pfaff glanced back, with a wary look.

‘The Contessa is all that’s left, you know. Everyone else plays his game.’

‘Please stop talking, Mr Pfaff. Just take me to them.’

Instead, he stopped at a metal panel studded with iron wheels and numbered gauges. Pfaff consulted a pocket watch she did not recall him owning, then shot a white cuff from his coat, marked with numbers. He peered at the scribbles of ink and turned the wheels accordingly. These were controls for the turbines, she guessed. He winked at her.

‘Couldn’t let him get too far without us!’

The pipes behind Miss Temple’s head began to vibrate. Pfaff pointed to an open, square embrasure, its metal grille prised back. Pfaff threw off his robe.

‘No more need for these!’ He gathered his coat-tails and scuttled in. Miss Temple hiked up her own dripping robe, then discarded it as well.

The metal passage was hot, despite several inches of water. She waddled half bent, aware that only the Contessa could have instructed Pfaff on the workings of Vandaariff’s machines. Whether Pfaff had betrayed Miss Temple outright or somehow sought to serve both women and survive, the overweening optimism of the man sickened her. She could shoot him in the back this moment.

Pfaff clambered out. Miss Temple followed, aware of extending her bare legs.

‘Do not look at me, Mr Pfaff.’

‘Just making sure you don’t fall in, miss …’

He nodded to a roiling moat of black water. A tattered streamer of white rolled to the surface and then, with a tug, shot back to the depths … an acolyte’s robe.

They picked their way to an iron staircase, leading up. At its foot lay another acolyte, neck broken from the fall.

Pfaff leant close to her ear. ‘Take care now. We may come up in the middle of everything.’

She tightened her grip on the revolver and began to climb.

Another acolyte’s corpse blocked the stairs halfway up. Pfaff extended a hand to help Miss Temple over the corpse. They crept the final steps bent double, then paused to listen, hunched below an open trapdoor.

‘You have done nothing, madam!’ This was Mr Schoepfil’s mannered tenor. ‘Nothing save deliver all into my hands!’

‘How is that?’ The Contessa’s voice was far away. ‘You are disinherited, are you not? You are officially, legally nothing!’

Schoepfil laughed. ‘I have the will in my hand – once it is burnt, I reclaim my rightful place. You have slain the source too soon! His precious empty vessel will remain so – as if such a man, a known criminal, would ever be permitted such a legacy! No matter what this piece of paper may declare, my own array of supporters, powerful men –’

‘They are not yours,’ Doctor Svenson broke in. ‘Robert Vandaariff arranged it all. Just as he made sure you bought the Comte’s papers, and had the money to do so. Those men are loyal to him, and they will be loyal to his wishes.’

‘O what a tale!’ Schoepfil’s amusement trilled on. ‘His intentions, yes – I have read the strategy. But why should he engineer my support? What service do I provide him as an antagonist?’

‘By exposing your true self,’ replied Svenson. ‘With your own horrible behaviour you – and you alone – have made it possible for a criminal like Chang to inherit. Do you doubt that the Duchess of Cogstead, with the entire court behind her, will not intervene on his behalf if it means damning you?’

Schoepfil was silent, then abruptly erupted in petulant screams. ‘No! No! The court is nothing. And now that he is gone, those men will follow their own sense – they will throw their support behind the man they know! And mark me, Doctor, I won’t forget a word. After I burn this will – then I would like to see –’

‘O think, man,’ called Svenson. ‘Do you imagine there are no copies – lodged at his bank, with the law? He will have foreseen every objection. You cannot do a thing.’

‘No?’ Miss Temple heard a scuffle and Doctor Svenson grunted in pain. ‘I can punish every one of you. And take this criminal’s life right now. With him removed, the estate must revert to me, no matter how many damned wills there are!’

Miss Temple charged past Pfaff to the light.

‘Get away from him!’ Her voice came as shrill as a pipe. Schoepfil’s hands – his blue hands – hung above Chang’s neck. Miss Temple pulled the trigger, but the gun was too large and kicked, the shot flying high to shatter a mosaic. Miss Temple aimed again, bracing with her other hand, straight for Schoepfil’s heart.

‘Celeste,’ gasped Doctor Svenson, on his knees.

‘Wait!’ This was an enormous dark man with a soiled silk waistcoat, rubbing his arms where he’d been bound. On the floor behind him, bloody and still, lay Mr Foison. At the sight of him Miss Temple’s temper flared. She pulled the trigger, but Pfaff had reached around and the hammer snapped on his thumb, preventing any fire. He swore with the pain and wrenched the weapon free, extricating his hand with a wince.

Miss Temple kicked Pfaff in the shin. He cursed and hopped away, looking at the window. For the first time Miss Temple saw the blood, and the dead man in the feather mask.

‘Celeste Temple, do not move!’ The Contessa’s voice was doubly distant, by virtue of the helmet she wore and the glass barrier in the wall. ‘Mr Pfaff?’

‘All ready down below, Your Ladyship.’

‘This is nonsense,’ declared Schoepfil. ‘I will kill Cardinal Chang, and then I will kill the rest of you.’

Pfaff raised the revolver, taking charge of the room. ‘Now, now then –’

Schoepfil simply ran at him, faster than Pfaff could aim, and chopped the weapon to the floor. Pfaff swung with his brass-knuckled fist, but Schoepfil dodged and drove Pfaff back into the glass with a flurry of blows. A final kick and Pfaff collapsed wheezing. Schoepfil set his foot on Pfaff’s neck.

‘You will surrender, madam, or your man will die.’

‘That is your man, in the tub next to Harcourt, is it not?’

The Contessa’s voice was polite, as if she were asking about his tailor. Schoepfil turned. ‘Yes. Mr Kelling. A very useful person – and this disgraceful treatment –’

‘I wonder if he is more useful to you than Colonel Bronque.’

‘What? Colonel Bronque is my good friend.’

‘You have no friends. You are a mole.’

Schoepfil’s face reddened. ‘Come out at once! Or I promise you, this man will pay.’

The Contessa stepped to the rostrum. Her hand danced above the brass-covered knobs.

‘It does not work,’ Mahmoud called to her. ‘Vandaariff tried. The machines –’

‘Were disabled, yes, at my command – but now they are reset, and the sun has risen.’ The Contessa faced them all. ‘The question is one of attachment. One speculates in every direction … but I don’t suppose any one of you gives a damn for Matthew Harcourt. I’m the only person here who might, I suppose. And I do not.’

She pulled off the brass cap. Light fell from the ceiling onto the exposed glass lozenge and set it to gleaming. The copper cables leading to Harcourt’s tub sparked high into the air and the hoses along the tub shot stiff as they were filled. The liquid in the tub leapt to a hideous boil.

‘Stop!’ shouted Doctor Svenson. ‘God in heaven –’

The Contessa uncovered another knob and sparks leapt up round Mr Kelling’s tub. Schoepfil stepped towards his man, but already the liquid spit and steam billowed, the figure within obscured. Miss Temple covered her mouth and nose. With a slithering rush the hoses connecting the two tubs to the undercarriage of Chang’s table vibrated with the transfer of some gruesome reduction.

The power switched off. The noxious steam dispersed. With a sickening compulsion Miss Temple joined the others, stepping near enough to see. The red liquid had sunk to an opaque inch of crimson mud. Apart from lump-like shadows beneath the scum, no sign of either body remained.

Miss Temple turned, her gorge rising. No one moved to help her, not even Svenson, stricken dumb. She bent over, but nothing came … nothing save jumbled visions of bright paint and cold machines.

‘I trust my point is made,’ called the Contessa. ‘From now on you are responsible for one another’s good behaviour. Drusus Schoepfil to protect his friend. Mr Mahmoud doubly for his mother and his spouse.’ She laughed at Mahmoud’s expression of surprise. ‘O come, Bronque told me everything. And you, Doctor Svenson, will want to protect everyone, as ever, especially the gnome. The only one of you who might not care – care enough to submit – is poor, puking Celeste. I leave it to you gentlemen to compel her cooperation.’

‘And what do you intend?’ asked Doctor Svenson. ‘If it is anything like what Vandaariff had planned, these poor people are already lost. Kill them now and be damned!’

‘Why, Doctor, why should I follow Robert Vandaariff’s plan?’

‘Then what are you doing? What do you want?’

At last Svenson came to Miss Temple, a hand on her bare shoulder. She shrugged herself free, her eye falling upon the revolver near Pfaff’s feet, and dashed towards it.

‘Stop her!’ warned the Contessa. ‘Or someone else turns to soup!’

In a flash Schoepfil had his arms around Miss Temple’s waist. Mahmoud was only a step behind and snatched up the gun. His finger found the trigger as he looked to the glass.

‘Do try.’ The Contessa reached to the rostrum. ‘Will you break the glass in time to stop my hand?’

Mahmoud lowered the gun. Her hand did not retreat. He tossed the weapon through the trapdoor.

‘Bloody idiot,’ snarled Miss Temple. ‘She’s going to kill you all.’

‘That is not true,’ replied the Contessa. ‘Poor Celeste. I’m only going to kill you.’

A dozen acolytes entered from the open doorway and through the trapdoor climbed green-coated lackeys, three with carbines and a fourth, with a wry smile, holding the revolver Mahmoud had just thrown down. The two groups surveyed the chamber with a menacing aspect, but the Contessa addressed them with an easy confidence.

‘Welcome. As you can see, your master, Robert Vandaariff, is dead. His legacy is not. The man on that table is his legal heir. It is your duty to protect him. This is the will of Robert Vandaariff. If any one of these people attempts to interfere, take their lives. Faithful service will be handsomely rewarded.’

Schoepfil stammered with outrage. ‘That – that – woman – she has killed Robert Vandaariff. My uncle! I am his heir! I am his only heir! She is the villain!’

The Contessa’s hand floated warningly above the rostrum. ‘Mr Schoepfil …’

‘She killed him!’ protested Schoepfil desperately. ‘Use your eyes!’

Miss Temple knew it was the Comte d’Orkancz who would be restored, but the soldiers and acolytes had all sworn allegience to Harschmort’s lord.

The acolytes did not move, but the four soldiers took in the blood and the corpse and exchanged a look between them of great suspicion.

‘Perhaps I might speak – for the benefit of those others present in belief?’ An acolyte who had been crouched behind Chang’s table came forward, slipping the hood from his face. His Process scars carried an authority inside Harschmort, and the acolytes and soldiers listened closely. ‘My name is Trooste. I was redeemed this very night. The woman speaks the truth. She did take our master’s life. It was his intention that she do so. He commanded her admission to his chamber. He knew.’

The green-coat with the revolver pointed it at Vandaariff’s corpse. ‘But why?’

‘Yes!’ cried Schoepfil. ‘It makes no earthly sense –’

‘Only bear witness, gentlemen,’ replied Trooste. ‘And you will have your answer.’ He whispered to a pair of acolytes and they hurried away. Trooste bowed to the Contessa, who dipped her brass-bound head in return. Then she flicked the cover off a third glass knob.

‘Now, then, since, by Mr Schoepfil’s resistance, there is no love for Colonel Bronque …’

Schoepfil screamed his useless contrition. Bright sparks leapt up to burn the air.

The acolytes returned with a wheeled rack of blue glass books and a wicker hamper Miss Temple knew well. Trooste carefully extracted the book from the hamper and slotted it into the rack. He then emptied the three squat bottles, one by one, into rubber reservoirs that hung from the undercarriage of Chang’s table like bloated, black fruit.

The other acolytes confidently tended the machines. The four soldiers adopted positions of fire: two at the main door, one by the glass wall, and their leader behind Schoepfil, the revolver pressed to the man’s back. Schoepfil had fallen to his knees, his pinched face red and wet with tears, unable to turn from the horrid remains in Colonel Bronque’s tub.

The Contessa watched from the window, but her gaze most often returned to Miss Temple, who stared right back. This was the Contessa’s promise from Parchfeldt, a slow death after extinguishing all hope.

Doctor Svenson stepped casually between them, facing Miss Temple.

‘My poor Celeste,’ he whispered.

‘Chang and I are lost. I saw what happened to Francesca. Save yourself.’

‘I will not allow it.’

She looked into his blue eyes, despising his decency, even as she knew Svenson’s care was the only mirror that might show her as she had once been. She took his hand and glanced at the machines. ‘The star map. It shows every coupling, every wire and box.’

‘Star map?’ asked Svenson, fumbling his hand into a pocket.

‘In the leather case with the book. It does not matter. How much of this do you understand?’

‘Enough – perhaps as much as Trooste.’

‘Good.’

‘It isn’t good. Vandaariff showed me a book. Elöise – a scrap of her. God help me. In that rack, not ten yards away.’

Miss Temple’s voice was cold. ‘Elöise would be ashamed. Destroy everything.’

With that she pushed past him, to the glass. She pointed to the enclosed room’s blazing honeycombed ceiling. ‘That is a technique from the Vandaariff tomb. Each shaft draws light from the surface, passing it through different layers of treated glass – each shaft with its own alchemical recipe. The tempered light generates a reaction, and the turbines amplify it. Why did you want me to know?’

‘In case, Celeste,’ replied the Contessa. ‘And because you might have made something of the knowledge. Did you? No – only a sweet knot of regret in your stomach. But that is enough for me.’

‘How can such an insignificant person as myself command such malice?’

‘You have earned it ten times over.’

‘Why do you risk everything to restore a man who wished your death? Are you so lonely? Are you so old? Are your lovers sickened by your scars?’

The Contessa called with impatience, ‘Professor Trooste, we are past time. Strap the Bride to her marriage bed.’

Acolytes secured Miss Temple to the second table, next to Chang. She did not fight them.

The Doctor shouted to the Contessa: ‘This serves no purpose, madam – her participation is completely unnecessary!’

‘On the contrary, Doctor, it serves several aims in one thrust. Shall I explain? First, Cardinal Chang dies. Second, so does Celeste Temple. Third, Robert Vandaariff is restored.’

‘You know very well that Vandaariff is long gone.’

‘Robert Vandaariff will be restored.’

‘And you will become the next lady of Harschmort? Is it that simple?’

‘I am Robert Vandaariff’s heir!’ Schoepfil insisted, wiping his face on a sleeve. ‘Not that inert felon –’

Miss Temple did not mark the rest of his complaint, nor anyone’s reply. She turned her gaze to Chang. His face was wedged into a gap in the table, but his naked back offered its own portrait, muscles, nicks and scars. His strong arms were sheathed in black rubber, sprouting wire, like a bird’s wings stripped of feathers. Her heart ached for him, as it had never done for herself. Professor Trooste worked between them, connecting hoses and wires from Chang’s table to Miss Temple’s body at the hands and feet. He brought up the rubber mask, dangling cords.

‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘I want to see him.’

‘You will know him inside yourself, to every detail, before you succumb.’

Trooste smoothed her hair aside and cinched the mask in place, so hard her eyes began to tear. With a lurch the table was tipped to the same angle as Chang’s. She could look only forward through the narrow slits, straight at the equally faceless Contessa in her den. The room fell silent. Trooste came forward, dipped his head to the Contessa and began to speak.

‘The tale of The Chemickal Marriage is ancient, a true account of the defeat of corruption and perfect rebirth. A band of chosen guests make possible through their faith a resurrection. First, the royal party is sacrificed. Then the King and Queen, the Groom and Bride, are reborn. Some of this is metaphor. Much more is fact.’

Trooste bowed again to the Contessa. ‘Lord Vandaariff named you Virgo Lucifera, angel of light, the heaven-sent overseer – the celebrant of this most sacred rite. He knew a certain volume would arrive in your possession, madam. He relied upon it.’ Trooste indicated the glass book he had taken from the hamper. ‘Now death is immaterial and the marriage can begin. The ritual will remove the taint of corruption that consumed his body, and thus enact a new covenant. The flesh of life is remade to the flesh of dreams.’

Trooste’s last words were echoed by acolytes as if it were part of a liturgy.

The Contessa nodded gravely. ‘As he was ever the most mighty, so shall Robert Vandaariff be first redeemed.’

Trooste laid a hand on Chang’s scar. ‘The vessel has been prepared, seasoned through the progress of metals. As his essence is restored from the book, our master’s soul will pass through infusions of six sacred alloys, and so by each be cleansed.’ Trooste knelt at an empty slot beneath the table. ‘The glass volume is placed in a chamber charged with quicksilver, the seventh metal. An eighth metal, tincture of bloodstone, protects the vessel himself, serving as an alchemical sieve. The soul will take root in its new home.’ Trooste indicated the hoses that linked Chang to Miss Temple. ‘While the corruption of death is passed on. Into the Bride.’

Miss Temple’s throat burnt. The more fully Trooste detailed the path of violent energy, the more the Comte’s memories confirmed her doom. Trooste moved to where Miss Temple could see his earnest expression. ‘Thus she becomes the embodiment of pure love.’

‘It will kill her,’ declared Svenson.

‘Not immediately. We should have several hours for study.’

‘Wait.’ Mahmoud stepped forward, eyeing the metal tubs with suspicion. ‘Six metals? You’re not going to kill anyone else.’

Trooste blinked and said nothing.

‘You are not,’ repeated Mahmoud, ‘going to kill anyone else!’

‘Of course she is!’ bleated Schoepfil. ‘Don’t be a damned fool!’

‘I’ll do it this instant if you don’t be quiet,’ said the Contessa. She called to Trooste: ‘And his mind will be whole again? The corruption, the madness –’

‘All cleansed, madam. Purity. Rapture. Eden.’

Mahmoud began to protest but Svenson touched his shoulder and addressed Trooste: ‘How do you know this? Today, healing Mrs Kraft, you had no more idea than I.’

‘Lord Vandaariff instructed me, this very night.’ Trooste was a priest describing a revelation. ‘Just as his incarnation informed the child. And all has come to pass as he foretold. The Vessel returned for consumption, the Bride to accept the sin, the Virgo Lucifera to enforce heaven’s will. He knew. And he will know again.’

Trooste raised his hands like the conductor of an orchestra. A snapping sound came from Doctor Svenson’s hands. In a stride he reached Trooste and plunged the broken tip of a blue glass key into his neck. The blood around the wound stiffened to glass, cracking as Trooste’s throat filled. The wound bulged and his face darkened to purple. Trooste’s gasp of shock was swallowed in a gutteral crackling and he fell. Svenson stepped away and lifted his empty hands, three carbines and a revolver aimed at his chest.

‘You bloody imbecile!’ shouted the Contessa. ‘You – you –’

Svenson’s voice cut through her anger like a sword. ‘If I am killed, this ends. None of you know enough about the Comte’s science. Without me nothing can continue.’

The Contessa snarled with frustration. She nodded the helmet, ruefully it seemed and, despite her fury, with a certain appreciation. ‘And, let me guess, you refuse to do so?’

The Doctor reached into his tunic for a cigarette. ‘Not at all. But there will be conditions.’

At once the weapons shifted to Mahmoud and Schoepfil, each of whom had moved towards Svenson. Svenson blew smoke from the corner of his mouth, eyeing them coolly.

‘I’m sorry, gentlemen. At some point a man’s just had enough.’

With a feeling of dread Miss Temple watched Svenson approach the rack of books. His eyes were as absent of feeling as they’d been in the Thermæ. She had passed him Francesca’s key, as they discussed the star map, in the hope that he could somehow open the book and save Chang’s memory, but he had thrown away the tool to secure his own freedom. She had told him to save himself …

Svenson took a handkerchief from his pocket to protect his hand. He pointed to one of the volumes in the padded book rack and looked at the acolytes.

‘This volume has been lately brought by the Contessa – I’m sorry, the Virgo Lucifera?’

The acolytes nodded. Svenson pointed to another book, near it. Despite their disapproval, the acolytes did not prevent his reach. He carefully slid the second book from its slot, keeping a layer of cloth between his skin and the glass.

‘I will want this.’

‘And what is that?’ the Contessa sneered. ‘Lost love?’

‘It is my business, madam.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No. Safe passage – let us say a ship sailing east – and a supply of funds. As Lady Vandaariff in all but name, I doubt this is beyond your power.’ He broke off to address the acolytes sharply. ‘Is the quicksilver alloy prepared?’

When they did not immediately reply, he called to those attending Chang. ‘The quicksilver for the book! Has it been compounded?’ He turned back to the acolyte slipping the Contessa’s book from the rack, his hands insulated by the thin silk robe. ‘By God – not with your robe! Get away!’ He tucked his own book under one arm and used the handkerchief to lift the book containing the Comte. A properly gloved acolyte came forward to assist, but Svenson simply strode to Chang’s table. ‘Where is the mercury?’

‘Be careful!’ shouted the Contessa.

‘The interior of the chamber is already bathed,’ explained an acolyte, indicating the book-sized slot beneath Chang’s table. ‘A sheath of compounded glass plating –’

‘I must examine it …’

‘We have obeyed every instruction –’

‘And I do not care! You – every one of you – before this day wore other clothes! What were you – a banker? A shiftless second son? Parrot all you want – but I must know what has been done! I believe trust has been proven quite bankrupt in this enterprise!’

Svenson went to his knees, squinting at the brass undercarriage. He shifted the books from arm to arm as he changed position and probed gingerly with his fingers into the slot where the book would go. Finally he stood and thrust a book into the hands of the gloved acolyte. ‘It will need cleaning. There cannot be the slightest blemish or smear.’

‘Doctor Svenson,’ called the Contessa. ‘I admire this zeal for survival, but your demands? Is that all?’

He glanced at Miss Temple. The Contessa clucked her tongue.

‘You cannot save them. Chang is gone already. Celeste will die at your own hand.’

‘Better mine than someone who does not care.’

‘I’m sure she values the distinction. Can you hear us, Celeste? Have you gone to sleep?’

‘Robert Vandaariff was your enemy.’ Miss Temple was ashamed at the quaver in her voice. ‘His restoration will mean your ruin.’

‘Celeste, while you persist in refusing to see yourself, I do not. I am very good at some things, and not at others.’ She laughed. ‘Spelling, for example. Robert Vandaariff will be wise enough to see the many advantages I can offer. It is a circle returning to its start, for he and I began this whole affair. Doctor, what are you doing?’

‘I am protecting my charge.’ Doctor Svenson crouched near the rack of books, and for the first time Miss Temple saw the leather case, the same she had lost to Foison. The Doctor swivelled it to the Contessa. ‘I do not want my book broken in any disturbance.’

But before Svenson could place his book in the leather case, he had to remove the one that lay inside. He slipped it out and then juggled the two books arm to arm, for he’d only the one handkerchief with which to shield his skin, even as he also awkwardly moved the cigarette from his fingers to his mouth.

‘Doctor, please, what is that other book?’ called the Contessa impatiently.

Svenson raised it to the light, squinted, shrugged. ‘Mr Foison could tell us for sure, but I believe this book holds Cardinal Chang.’

‘Is Foison alive?’ asked the Contessa. ‘I thought not – rouse him! Rouse him! And rouse that idiot as well.’

This last was to the green-coat at her window, who gave a stiff kick to Jack Pfaff’s inert form. Acolytes hurried to Foison, turning his body and tapping his face, and the man rose stiffly to a sitting position.

‘The book in the leather case,’ Svenson explained. ‘Cardinal Chang?’

Foison nodded. ‘What has happened?’

‘Your master is dead,’ Svenson replied. ‘And about to be reborn.’ He knelt and set the other book into the case, standing again with the one Foison had agreed held Chang.

Svenson weighed it in his hands. ‘Perhaps I will take this too, as a condition.’

‘No,’ said the Contessa.

‘Why not?’

‘I do not trust you, Doctor.’

‘Then we are matched.’ He turned to Miss Temple. ‘Forgive me, Celeste. I did try.’

Without another word Doctor Svenson heaved the glass book into the air, straight past the green-coated guard and through the open trapdoor, where – to everyone’s ear – it burst to pieces on the iron steps.

The Contessa exploded with anger – the book was hers, the waste, it could have been reused – but Miss Temple only closed her eyes. When Pfaff had told her Chang’s mind was gone, she had been stricken, but at the book’s destruction he was finally, truly lost. With a dreadful relief Miss Temple exhaled, expelling with her breath all hope and all despair. For the first time in what felt like years, her mind was clear.

And the men before her were fools.

‘Would Colonel Bronque stand so idly by? Would your mother?’ The words were thick in her mouth, but she did not care. ‘She’s going to kill them all. She’s going to kill you.’

Mahmoud looked at Schoepfil. The Contessa’s cold voice cut in: ‘I can kill them now. But I will not, if I do not have to. Do I have to, Doctor Svenson, for the procedure to work?’

Svenson had returned to Chang’s table, bending low to peer beneath. ‘I am examining the Professor’s work – obviously he intended that they should be consumed –’

‘All must be consumed!’ warned an acolyte. They stood in a menacing ring around the machines.

‘Indeed. However,’ Svenson went on blandly, ‘art is not science. As Mr Schoepfil has taught me, what satisfies alchemical symmetry may be superfluous to the desired result.’ He indicated the tubs with distaste. ‘Mr Harcourt gives us iron … Mr Kelling copper … poor Colonel Bronque lead. Now … iron serves the blood, of course … ’

Miss Temple’s head swam. The more Svenson spoke, the more the Comte rose within her. She coughed wetly through the mask. Each insight felt like a knife turning inside Miss Temple’s chest. Was this what had happened to Francesca? She pictured the ravaged corpse, each ruined organ excised –

‘What is going on?’ asked Jack Pfaff. Miss Temple saw him stand through a haze. He was looking at her. ‘Is she being made to talk?’

‘She’s being made to die,’ said the Contessa. ‘Do not intervene.’

Pfaff said nothing, but his face was pale.

‘What report from the gates, from the perimeter outside?’

This was Mr Foison, hobbling to the green-coat with the revolver.

‘The party at the gate was taken in hand, sir.’

‘That was an hour ago. What since?’

‘There is nothing since,’ called the Contessa.

‘Bronque brought but one company. If the remainder of his regiment follows –’

‘The remainder is occupied in town. Besides, do you not have a strategy in place?’

‘Not for that many men.’

‘Mr Schoepfil, where is your late friend’s regiment?’

Schoepfil pulled his brimming eyes from the gruesome tub. ‘What?’

‘Where are the grenadiers?’

‘Aren’t they dead?’

‘What is wrong with him?’ asked Foison.

Schoepfil’s voice was small. ‘She has killed the Colonel.’

‘One is amazed,’ muttered the Contessa. ‘We need not worry, Mr Foison. Lord Axewith has given orders that no one should come near Harschmort. That the Colonel disobeyed with so few only describes the limits of his power.’

‘I would prefer to see for myself –’

‘And I would prefer you to remain.’ Without waiting for Foison’s reply – for he gave none, even when one of the soldiers came up with a three-legged stool for him to sit upon – she called, perturbed, to Doctor Svenson. ‘Are you not finished? Can we not proceed?’

‘We can.’

Miss Temple erupted in a spasm of choking, her mouth filled with the taste of rotten flesh.

‘Good Lord,’ said the Contessa. ‘Even at a distance, it’s disgusting.’

‘It will only worsen.’ Svenson stood before Miss Temple. ‘You know as well as I, Celeste. Like Francesca, you do see what will happen – and, like her, your sickness is a measure of my success with these machines, what I’m sure you see as my betrayal. The more I correctly arrange the fate of Chang and yourself, the more you plunge into distress.’

He met her eyes, took a puff on the cigarette. Miss Temple let fly a stream of dark phlegm that splattered near his boot.

‘That’s for your damned betrayal,’ she rasped, scarcely able to form the words.

‘Doctor Svenson,’ groaned the Contessa. ‘May we please –’

Svenson raised his hand in acquiescence, but his expression clouded as he saw the hoses and wires connecting the two tables. He called sharply to the acolytes standing at either side. ‘What is this? Who is responsible? These are wrong!’

‘They cannot be wrong,’ protested an acolyte. ‘Professor Trooste –’

‘I don’t give a damn about Professor Trooste.’ Svenson was on his knees, pulling at the undercarriage of each table. ‘Celeste! Look at me! Celeste Temple!’

She looked down, ready to spit again, though her eyes were swimming. He rapped his hand on the brass fittings that connected the black hose. ‘The direction of force is incorrect, Celeste? Is it not? It must pass through the tubs’ – he indicated the line of rubber reservoirs – ‘then through the mineral compounds and into the book. The whole reaches Chang and the bloodstone. The discharge, the corruption, is strained off and sent to you. But if these are misaligned, the bloodstone will come into play too soon – look at me, Celeste!’

He shoved aside the acolytes and with a few rapid tugs flipped a line of brass switches, toggling the flow of the hoses. Then, pivoting on his heels, cigarette pinched in his lips, the Doctor took a glass flask from his tunic and poured the raw bloodstone – with a spasm of pain Miss Temple knew it on sight – into a chamber beneath her own table. But she perceived within her fog of nausea that the Doctor’s actions bore no resemblance whatsoever to his words. There was no call for bloodstone on her table, and the brass switches now sent the purifying energy to her instead of Chang.

‘What are you doing?’ called the Contessa.

‘Exactly what you want, damn you!’ Svenson stood. ‘Ask Celeste!’

On cue Miss Temple began to froth and spit. She did not know what he intended, but knew what was required.

‘You’re a bastard,’ she croaked.

Svenson stepped back and wiped his hands on an acolyte’s robe. He waved for the acolyte with the Contessa’s book to join him. ‘On second thought, I should prefer my book to be cleaned as well –’

He quickly knelt and extracted the book from the leather case. As he extended his hand for the one book and offered up the other, the Doctor’s gaze fell on Mahmoud.

‘Wait – watch that man!’ he shouted.

Mahmoud had indeed stepped nearer to the tubs and at the Doctor’s cry every carbine swung its aim to his chest. Mahmoud went still, staring at the Doctor. Then, his arms raised, he slowly sank to his knees. Svenson cleared his throat to regain the acolyte’s attention and handed him a book. ‘Gently, please – and when you’ve finished, put it back in that protective case.’

‘Damn you to hell,’ growled Mahmoud.

‘I am sorry,’ Svenson told him. ‘I cannot help you more than I have. You must make your own choice. I know it is an impossible position.’

Svenson slid the glass book into the brass machine and stood.

‘My Lady Lucifera, at last, all is prepared.’

Miss Temple did not know what the Doctor had done. He stood with his cigarette – his last, perhaps – and brushed the hair from his eyes with thin fingers. She would not escape. Once the Doctor had been shot for his impudence, the Contessa would try again – or simply cut Miss Temple’s throat. But that he had done something, that he had tried to the last, touched Miss Temple in her sick isolation, like a rope snaking down into a well. She would never be pulled up, but even a glimpse of a world beyond her fate eased her heart.

She was not afraid. She had been exhausted by corruption and fever – she did not desire that life. She did not want to live without Chang either, and Chang was gone. And, since she did not imagine he would reciprocate her feelings, that they might perish together without her being subject to his rejection was perhaps an inadvertent benefit of the Contessa’s victory. Miss Temple smiled, and bile burnt the corners of her mouth.

The Contessa stood with one hand hovering over the brass knobs controlling the tubs, the other on a larger knob, the size of an apple, at the centre of the rostrum.

‘You must do it all together,’ explained Doctor Svenson. ‘Secondary cables will begin the rendering of the remaining metals. The minerals will advance in the proper sequence and temper the incarnation. The infusion of identity will travel directly to Chang. The corrupted essence will burn apart and flow to Miss Temple. Do you understand? Are you ready?’

The Contessa spoke to the green-coated guards. ‘If he has done anything, shoot him. Be ready, in fact, to shoot anyone. Your master’s survival is at stake. Doctor?’

Svenson nodded, glanced once at Mahmoud, and then stepped away.

The Contessa slid back the brass caps on three of the knobs, and then uncovered the largest, a blood-red ball of glass, like the one they had found in the Contessa’s abandoned laboratory, which had so nearly claimed Chang’s life and her own. This new red sphere was undamaged and whole. The light struck the glass and the glass transformed, glowing with heat. With a shriek the cables leading to Chang’s table rattled to life. The hoses went taut and the machines took up their escalating drone. Miss Temple jolted against the restraints as the current met her limbs. Without volition sound came from her mouth, air from her lungs.

In the same instant, sparks leapt from the three tubs. With a decisive lunge Doctor Svenson brought his heel down hard on the coupling at the front of Cunsher’s tub. A grisly crack and the coupling gave way, spitting smoke and fire. Miss Temple saw Mahmoud hesitate – the Doctor’s warning, she now realized – before flinging himself at the tub of Michel Gorine. He seized the coupling with both hands, screaming at the contact, and with a brutal wrench tore it free. Sparking smoke spewed from the broken connection. Mahmoud’s body vibrated cruelly, his fingers locked around the cable, and he fell. Both Cunsher and Gorine remained as they had been, unharmed, but the tub containing Madelaine Kraft, like the others before her, erupted with a cloud of horrid steam.

Miss Temple could no longer see for the shaking of her eyes. The machines became deafening – or was the roaring in her blood? She braced herself for the flood of cold corruption – but what she felt instead was heat, a clean consuming fire that scored each bone and every lineament of muscle and vein … and, with the agony of its passage, she felt the whole of her body reclaimed.

The corruption of the Comte d’Orkancz had been scoured away. Her eyes streamed, and with her tears went his memories … from this much of her burden, at least, she was set free.

The air reeked of burnt flesh and indigo clay. Mahmoud and Doctor Svenson lay on the ground, a guard with a carbine over them. Madelaine Kraft was gone. The Contessa’s hands were pressed against the glass. Every acolyte had gathered. Foison had come forward, along with Pfaff. Every one of them was looking at Chang.

The scar on his back had lost its flaming shade, was now white and smooth like so many of his older wounds. Chang’s muscles strained as he fought to rise.

He was alive … and awake.

‘Is it him?’ cried the Contessa. ‘Did it work or not?’

Acolytes lowered the table to a horizontal position and loosened the restraints. Six together lifted Chang gently and turned him on his back. Then they bowed their heads. Chang groaned.

‘We require an answer! Are you these men’s master come back to life?’

Chang raised a hand against the light. His voice came raw.

‘Who is there? What is this place? What has happened?’

The Contessa raised her hand so that no one else might speak. ‘You are at Harschmort. Are you Robert Vandaariff restored?’

Chang turned and met Miss Temple’s gaze. What had the Doctor done? His final changes had redirected the flow of power, and the bloodstone had effected her cure. But what had he done to Chang?

‘What is your name, damn you?’ This was Mr Schoepfil, still on his knees. ‘Do you know me?’

Chang pushed himself up, his eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Drusus Schoepfil. Nephew.’

‘And do you know me, Lord Robert?’ called the woman in the brass helmet. ‘Can you name my role?’

‘I know your voice … Rosamonde.’ Chang hesitated. ‘My Virgo Lucifera.’

The acolytes erupted with praise, fairly singing their master’s return. Mr Foison, Miss Temple noted, said nothing. Nor did Jack Pfaff. Chang held out a hand.

‘Something to drink. To return from so far away is thirsty work …’ The acolytes helped him off the table. One offered a white robe that Chang refused, another a bottle that he scrutinized and then accepted. He clutched the table for support, his body not yet under full command. His gaze fell on Svenson and Mahmoud. ‘Are those men dead?’ He turned again to Miss Temple, without expression, and her blood went cold. ‘Does this woman live?’

‘This is not my uncle!’ declared Schoepfil, edging closer. ‘I do not believe it.’

Chang ignored him, drinking deeply. ‘Come out, Rosamonde. If I owe this delivery to your kindness, I would thank you.’

‘Are you truly healed?’ she asked.

‘In every particular.’

‘Then you cannot be offended by a test. Much depends upon it. Poor Mr Schoepfil’s inheritance, for one.’

‘Does he have an inheritance?’ asked Chang drily. ‘Surely new provisions have been made. As for tests … try me as you see fit.’ Chang inhaled deeply and drew his fingers along the canvas hoses, the blackened hanks of wire. He gazed into the porcelain coffins. ‘What a provocative arrangement … what sacrifice.’ With a shiver Miss Temple saw his gaze fall on a small table of metal tools. He nodded to it and addressed the acolytes. ‘Take that woman down. She ought to be examined while the infusion is fresh …’

The acolytes leapt to the task. With two successive jerks Miss Temple was brought flat on her back. As the straps were loosed and the mask none too gently peeled free, she heard more questions fly at Chang.

‘How did Harald Crabbé perish?’ asked the Contessa.

‘What do you know about Ned Ramper?’ called Pfaff, who had pulled the tray of sharp tools from an angry acolyte.

‘When did we last speak?’ demanded Schoepfil. ‘The two of us alone?’

‘Excellent questions …’ Chang approached Miss Temple’s table. She felt the exposure of her bare limbs and a helplessness in her heart.

‘What would you have me do now, my lord?’ asked Mr Foison.

Chang ignored the question and brought his scarred face up to hers. With his thumb Chang wiped the black drool from Miss Temple’s chin. An acolyte offered him a cloth.

‘The Bride has accepted the corruption, my lord. Consuming the flesh of life –’

‘To make the flesh of dreams. By whose command?’

‘By your own,’ answered the Contessa.

‘I do not recall it.’ For the first time Chang noted the corpse of Robert Vandaariff. ‘But I am apparently indebted for your … assistance.’

‘There will be ample time to discuss debts.’

‘I would expect no less.’ Chang’s arm slipped and he fell back, catching himself on the table, his mouth near Miss Temple’s ear. His words were scarcely more than a sigh. ‘Remember the rooftop. Stay alive.’

Miss Temple did not move. ‘Rooftop.’ Happily – so very happily – she saw the Doctor had exchanged books – his fussy juggling, his insistence that the glass be cleaned, the leather case turned for an instant from all eyes. And the Contessa’s book had shattered on the iron stairs. If nothing else, the Comte could never return.

Acolytes moved at once to help him up. Chang pushed them away. He faced his audience and snapped his fingers. ‘I am perfectly well – but underclothed. A shirt. For the rest of you, Harald Crabbé died on a dirigible, slain by that woman’s hand. You and I, nephew, have not spoken alone for years. As for this Ned Ramper, I confess to never having heard the name.’

‘A lie!’ Pfaff smacked a fist into his palm. ‘He was your captive in this very house!’

‘I do not recall it,’ replied Chang. ‘But neither do I recall the changes made to this room. So many beautiful machines. Have I been … asleep?’

Before any of the acolytes could reply, the Contessa spoke forcefully: ‘Unfortunately the procedure was not completely successful. The blood fever has clouded Lord Vandaariff’s memory of recent events.’

‘Then have I answered you? Or is there more?’

Chang smiled thinly, as if his patience had been exactly spent. He held out his arms as an acolyte returned with a crisp white shirt and allowed himself to be dressed.

‘What I would have you do, Mr Foison,’ he went on, gesturing to the bodies on the floor and in the tubs, ‘is to gather these men up. If they are dead take them away; if they live, let them wake and receive judgement. Assuming I command my own house, of course. Do I?’

The acolytes bowed at once. After a moment’s hesitation, the green-coats came to attention. Chang turned his gaze to the glass.

‘And you, Signora? Will you not join us?’

Miss Temple rolled her head slowly from side to side, as if in delirium. She counted, to her right, four acolytes bending over Mr Cunsher and Mr Gorine, and one guard at the trapdoor. Directly before her two acolytes stood between the still bodies of Svenson and Mahmoud, and with them the sentry from the Contessa’s window. To her left stood Chang, with Foison, Pfaff and Schoepfil – in the excitement no longer meriting his own guard – and at least six more acolytes. Beyond them all were the last two green-coats at the main door.

The Contessa ignored Chang’s invitation. Instead, her fingers tapped restlessly on the rostrum. Chang could do nothing without revealing himself. Once that happened he would be assailed by all.

Miss Temple leant to one side and retched, an act whose vulgarity stopped conversation. Very little foulness remained in her mouth to void, but she covered the lack with an ugly croaking. She looked up with wild eyes.

‘Poor Mr Schoepfil. The Duchess will have her revenge. As least Colonel Bronque is spared the disgrace of being shot.’

Schoepfil’s mouth worked, and his goatee shuddered like a small mouse in the cold.

‘And Mr Foison,’ Miss Temple called, ‘are you a child? You know whom that book held.’

‘He is not my uncle,’ cried Mr Schoepfil with a rising zeal. ‘My uncle is dead and this man is nothing – a criminal! An assassin!’

Pfaff – more warily now – stepped back from Schoepfil. Miss Temple located a new supply of drool and let it fly.

‘And do you think she will lie with you, Jack Pfaff? With you?’ She heaved herself up to a sitting position. ‘What have any of you won? If she – she – is still in there?’

The words hung in the rancid air, and the acolytes and soldiers – for their loyalty determined the power in the room – shifted their attention back and forth from Chang to the Contessa.

‘I will come out,’ the Contessa at last replied, ‘but I will not be fooled.’

‘What else would you have me do?’ Chang asked.

‘I want you to choke the life out of her. Kill Celeste Temple in front of us all. That will convince me. And nothing less.’

‘And if I prefer to study her condition?’

‘You cannot. It is my price for your restoration.’

Chang smirked. ‘That alone? I expect your price to extend well into infinity.’

‘It is my price now.’

‘Or what?’

The Contessa cocked her head. ‘Don’t you know?’

Chang looked at the glass book in its slot. ‘My restoration does not extend to these latest days. The exact details of this chamber elude me.’

‘That is a pity. Watch.’ The Contessa slipped the cover from another knob and the light struck a glow inside the glass. From the ceiling dropped a small glass globe, bursting into a bloom of blue smoke amongst the acolytes minding Cunsher and Gorine. In an instant all four toppled senseless. The guard at the trapdoor retreated, his hand over his mouth and nose, waving his arm. But the Contessa had chosen her target deliberately: the men were far enough apart for the fumes to disperse before reaching anyone else.

‘The entire chamber may be so fumigated,’ warned the Contessa. ‘After which it might also be required that I come amongst you and cut a few more throats. In the interests of our higher purpose, naturally.’

‘Naturally,’ replied Chang.

‘So. Will you kill her now, Lord Robert, or am I to feel … unappreciated?’

Pfaff turned with a pained expression. ‘Come now, whatever her offence –’

‘Be quiet, Mr Pfaff –’

‘But she’s already going to die –’

‘Then a quick death is a mercy.’

Miss Temple laughed. ‘The most powerful man in the land, forced to murder a woman, by a woman! There’s restoration for you! There is transcendence!’

‘Do it!’ shouted the Contessa.

In the mansion of Miss Temple’s heart, pity was consigned to a very small pantry nook, and so it was with a cold eye that she watched Jack Pfaff exhaust his disapproval with a tight-lipped slap on his thigh.

Chang advanced to Miss Temple and she braced herself for his touch – but then behind him came a blur of movement. Chang spun round, but that did not stop the blow that turned his jaw.

‘I am master here!’ Schoepfil cried. ‘Harschmort is mine! Every last stick!’

He fell on Chang in a fury, battering his chest, his face. Two acolytes, loyal to their new lord, hurled themselves at his assailant. Schoepfil easily dispatched them and returned his attention to Chang, who had stepped back and stood ready. Schoepfil feinted, several blows in sequence, and Chang’s arms moved in instinctive response to block them. Schoepfil’s face darkened with a strange mixture of rage and glee. He raised his arms to the ceiling and crowed.

‘Questions be damned! Come and see – all of you! This cannot be Robert Vandaariff! Robert Vandaariff does not fight! Robert Vandaariff could not kill a sleeping rat with an axe!’ Schoepfil aimed an accusing finger at the Contessa. ‘Your enterprise has failed, madam! We have been duped! This is no one but Cardinal Chang! Nothing but criminal slime!’

The spinning leather case struck Schoepfil’s head and bounced off, splitting open as it struck the floor. The glass book inside flew free and shattered directly before the knot of acolytes. The robed men tottered and fell, screaming and clutching their ruined legs. Svenson called from his hands and knees, off-balance from throwing the case, his face a mask of blood.

‘Run, Celeste! Run!’

Chang launched himself feet-first into Schoepfil, sending the small man sprawling. Miss Temple leapt off the table. Glass balls dropped and burst across the chamber. Miss Temple held her breath. She saw Chang in a swarm of bodies, Doctor Svenson wrestling with Jack Pfaff, and – with a shock – Mr Foison, limping directly for her. Broken glass blocked her way to the trapdoor. She could only run for the main door, where two green-coats stood guard.

‘Stop her!’ shouted the Contessa.

Miss Temple ducked the swinging carbine of the first man, but the barrel of the other’s caught her on the shin and tripped her flat. She clawed for the doorway but a guard caught her waist. She kicked out, lungs on fire, eyes watering chemical tears. The second guard had his carbine high to strike when Mr Foison, not one for mincing matters, drove a knife into the soldier’s back. The second guard dropped Miss Temple to grapple with Foison.

‘Go!’ He put a fist into the guard’s abdomen, then bashed the knife hilt across his jaw, but speaking even that word brought the gas into Foison’s lungs. He clutched his throat and sank to the floor. Miss Temple scrabbled to the corridor and ran.

Past the first corner she took deep breaths, forcing herself to think, to see. This was where she’d been before – when she met the party of acolytes and let loose with the revolver. Now she needed the other direction. Her bare feet pounded down the corridor.

She burst into the fountain chamber and rushed straight to where she’d first come in, hopping like a schoolgirl across the tiles back to the band of gravel. With desperate fingers Miss Temple snatched up lump after lump of the black explosive stone and heaped it onto one of the robes, fast as she could, heart pressing at her throat. Not after regaining herself, not after regaining him. She would not see him perish.

Each second was agony – she could bear it no more – it must be enough – and Miss Temple gathered the robe like a tramp’s bundle. She returned over the tiles – stepping now, never a hop – and to the open room.

Two soldiers in blue stood in the charred doorway that had been blown wide, bayonets fixed – Colonel Bronque’s men, bloodied and bareheaded.

‘Help me!’ she hissed, before they thought to run her through. One had stripes on his sleeve. ‘Sergeant – I beg you –’

Miss Temple flinched at the crack of his rifle. The doorway to the carpeted hall was crowded with green-coated men. One flew backwards at the Sergeant’s shot, and then another from the second grenadier’s. Both men raised a terrifying shout and charged past Miss Temple. The green mercenaries could not withstand such ferocity – despite their greater number no two amongst them wanted to receive the bayonets – and broke away. The grenadiers thundered after, bringing down the rearmost with a shriek.

Miss Temple let them go. She dashed to the doors covering this side of the Contessa’s cell and swung them wide.

She retreated quickly as the Contessa leapt towards her, behind the glass. Miss Temple swept the bundle round her head, for momentum.

‘Celeste Temple – what in all hell –’

She gave her improvised explosive its release and dropped to the floor. The bundle struck the glass and every particle of air roared into smoke and flame.

When her mind returned her skin ached and it felt as if her body had been showered with sharp stones. Smoke hung low in the room, thick and grey. Her right side was painfully tender. She touched a sharp protrusion with terror before her slow wits told her the corset had absorbed the worst of the blow, that these were shafts of broken whalebone poking through the rips. She pushed the scraps of her shift between her legs to preserve her decency, coughed thickly and sat up.

The Contessa’s room no longer existed. Both walls of glass were blown clean through, the rostrum obliterated. The ceiling of light lay in chunks of twisted piping on the floor. Of the Contessa, Miss Temple saw no sign.

She stumbled forward, stepping over fallen pipes, searing hot to the touch, and finally into the far room. Her foot recoiled at the touch of something soft. She looked down to see Jack Pfaff, the orange coat shredded and his naked back, even up to the base of his skull, studded with daggers of glass. His face lay twisted to one side, lips curled in an expression of endless dismay. Beyond Pfaff, shielded from the blast by their grappling, Doctor Svenson lay rolled on his side, spitting dust. The blast had dispersed the blue smoke. The brass machines sparked and steamed, toppled and tipped, black hoses spurting like severed limbs.

He looked up and saw her. ‘Celeste …’

She passed Svenson by, her foot sliding in the blood of an acolyte. Another body lay across a tub, face down in the dregs – she extended a fearful hand and felt the rough wool of a guard’s green coat. She stumbled on to the tables. A hand caught hers, gripping, strong. She flinched and saw it was Chang. He lay on his back. She sank to her knees. He rose to meet her.

‘Celeste –’

‘You cannot die.’ Her tears poured out. ‘I could not bear it – not again –’

He squeezed her hand and reached to cup her cheek with an indelible soft care. She fell upon him, kissing his face until at last her lips found his, and there she stayed, sinking her need and her fear into his mouth, moaning, sobbing. Her fingers snaked through his hair and she cradled his head. At last she lifted her mouth to breathe.

‘I am so sorry,’ she gasped.

‘Do not. You are superb.’ Chang coughed and blinked. ‘Forgive me – the gas –’

More coughing came from behind them and Miss Temple turned. Svenson on his knees, hacking into one hand.

‘O dear Doctor …’

He waved vaguely to her, turning unsteadily towards the smoke. Miss Temple followed his gaze to the case of glass books, blown over, every felt-lined slot emptied. The shards of every book lay jumbled in a vast shining bed.

Abruptly Svenson doubled over and fell.

‘He is wounded!’ Miss Temple cried and struggled to rise.

‘He will die,’ Mr Schoepfil corrected her, emerging from the cloud, stepping over the groaning Svenson. Blue flesh showed through the tatters of Schoepfil’s clothes. ‘You will all die. Harschmort will be mine.’

He struck Miss Temple and she went down. Schoepfil glared at Chang with hatred.

‘You. You are no one at all.’

His swift hands dropped fast around Chang’s throat. Miss Temple scrambled up. She tried to break his grip but again Schoepfil thrust her away.

‘You can have Harschmort!’ she screamed. ‘You can have it all!’

Schoepfil laughed – then grunted as Chang jabbed a knee into his stomach. Chang thrust out his leg, shoving Schoepfil back over one of the tubs. In a flash the small man regained his feet. He rubbed his belly tenderly and licked his lips.

‘I can have it, can I? Well … well, perhaps –’

‘You can have nothing,’ said Chang, standing. ‘Harschmort will drown, and the Vandaariff fortune with it.’

‘O no.’ Schoepfil shook his head. ‘Never heard anything so absurd in my life. No. If you imagine – that anyone – that this world would allow – good Lord, such sums do not vanish – especially – ha – not – O mercy – not at the behest of the likes of you –’

Schoepfil’s amusement got the better of his words and he tipped back his head to laugh. The blade shot through his neck clean as a needle, emerging with a crimson spray in tow. Schoepfil gargled his surprise, eyes as wide as two eggs. The strength left his body and the Contessa shoved him down in the debris.

Without doubt the brass helmet had preserved her life, for her body was burnt, and she bled from a dozen oozing lacerations. Even with its protection, the Contessa’s face was divided by blood dripping from her hair.

‘Well.’ Her voice was as dry as sand. ‘Inevitably.’

Chang came forward, standing unsteadily before Miss Temple and Svenson.

‘I’ll kill you first,’ the Contessa said. ‘And then I’ll kill them.’

‘You should run,’ said Chang.

‘No one’s running.’ The Contessa brushed a blood-wet lock of hair from her eyes.

She swept the blade at Chang’s face, but she was not near enough and the tip stopped short. Chang tried for her wrist, but she twisted the knife so the tip nicked Chang’s forearm.

Miss Temple gasped. Neither Chang nor the Contessa reacted at all. The stakes were clear: if the Contessa won, Chang would die. If she missed, if he took her arm, then he would take the weapon from her and drive it home, or simply end her life with his hands.

Miss Temple could not bear it. She looked about her for a weapon, but did not see a thing. Then her arm scraped on the broken corset. She plucked a broken strip of whalebone from its sleeve.

The Contessa jabbed at Chang and set off a vicious clockwork of blows between them that ended with the Contessa’s blade shooting past Chang’s throat and her wrist pinned in his hand. She dug for his groin with a knee but he blocked it on his thigh. She clawed his face with her free hand, but he caught that too. The Contessa lunged to bite his face. Chang thrust her back at arm’s length.

‘Stop this –’

‘Never.’

The Contessa turned to Miss Temple’s stumbling arrival, bloody lips curled in a sneer, but Miss Temple’s arm was already in motion and the Contessa, hands held by Chang, could not move. Like a sharp stick of toast into the soft yolk of an egg, the slip of whalebone broke the surface of the Contessa’s right eye and then messily ripped free so all within spilled wide, onto her face and in the air.

The Contessa shrieked and – Chang releasing his grip in shock – tripped backwards and crashed down. Miss Temple did not move. The scream dipped just long enough for the Contessa to draw air and then blazed out again, a blistering klaxon of pain and rage.

Doctor Svenson pushed past Miss Temple, on his knees at the Contessa’s side. She thrashed against his attempts to touch her, spitting curses in her native tongue. Then a handkerchief was in Svenson’s hand. From the silk he withdrew a spur of blue glass. With a sudden force the Doctor pressed it hard into the exposed flesh, below her throat.

At the contact the Contessa arched her back, suspended in sensation. Her legs shook. One hand seized Svenson’s arm. Her cries gave way to the laboured pants of an agonized animal.

‘O … O God damn you … what – what … O damn you to hell …’

Her words collapsed to a devastated whine. Doctor Svenson’s hands moved gently to her face. ‘Let me see … just let me see –’

In a scramble of limbs the Contessa broke free and crawled. She somehow stood and careened back through the shattered room. She tripped on the pipes, fell with a grunt of pain, staggered up again and vanished in the smoke.

Doctor Svenson remained on his knees. Miss Temple said nothing. Chang collected the Contessa’s knife.

‘I’m sorry, but – should I not – should not someone –’

Svenson’s words were drowned out by a clatter of boots. Through the main doorway marched a crisply uniformed cavalry officer at the head of a dozen hussars. The officer waved the smoke from his eyes and viewed the carnage with a pinched dismay.

‘This house is under royal writ. All present will disarm themselves and be detained.’

Chang dropped the knife. The officer advanced to the sound. He bent his face to Miss Temple, sniffed, and took in the two men with an equal dismay.

‘I am sent for a young lady. She is wanted by Her Grace the Duchess of Cogstead. A Miss Celestial Temple. If any of you know what has become of her –’

‘I am Celestial Temple.’

‘Dear God. Indeed?’

‘The Duchess will know me. She will know my companions.’

The officer considered this unlikely promise, then opted for discretion and stepped aside, offering Miss Temple his arm.

‘Her Grace waits outside with the rest of the regiment. Come.’ He wrinkled his nose and looked at the wreckage that now embodied Harschmort House. ‘This circumstance cannot be pleasant for you.’