The stench of smoke was most intolerable at the center of the house, though any actual sign of what had been burned remained hidden. An elderly man in black livery toppled onto the marble floor as his mind fell subject to Mrs. Marchmoor's need. He lay on his back, blood flowing from his ears, and they swept to a winding staircase Miss Temple had taken before—down to an old library where the Comte d'Orkancz had set up a smaller experimental laboratory. The smell of smoke worsened as they traversed the curving corridor to the blackened door. The Comte's laboratory was littered with the charred wreckage of fallen balconies and the bookcases that had propped them up, the walls peeled and streaked with soot, the domed ceiling pitted by flame. The stone worktops were cracked, and seared with brilliant colors where his stores of chemical compounds succumbed to the blaze. Miss Temple stepped gingerly into the room, her feet crunching on cinders, gazing with a grim fascination at the charred feather bed where Lydia Vandaariff had undergone the loathsome ministrations of the Comte d'Orkancz.
Miss Temple turned to Mrs. Marchmoor. Clearly she had hoped to find the Comte's tools and his supply of refined blue glass, his copious notes and specially designed machines. Had Mrs. Marchmoor left the protection of Stäelmaere House, risked exposure, risked everything, only to find herself outwitted by an adversary she did not know existed?
But Mrs. Marchmoor was not looking at the wall, or the ruined chemical machinery, or even the bed. As Miss Temple watched, the glass woman carefully advanced into the ruined chamber, stopping only when she stood within a wide circle of smoke-blackened blue glass fragments. Miss Temple covered her mouth with one hand, recalling the first glass woman she had encountered—the Comte's prize… Cardinal Chang's love… the glass woman she had herself destroyed in this very room with Doctor Svenson's pistol. Mrs. Marchmoor turned to Miss Temple, impassive, her unseen feet grinding against the broken remains of Angelique.
No one spoke as they retraced their steps to the main floor. Directed by two more unfortunate servants, the glass woman stalked slowly across the empty ballroom. The smell of fire grew strong again, and then openly oppressive as they stepped through the French doors into the ornamental garden. As if a massive explosion had taken place (a level of destruction one associated only with newspaper accounts of full-scale battle), the center of the garden had fallen in on itself, collapsing utterly into the massive cathedral chamber beneath it, which now lay open to the air, and in ruins. Here the fire had been far more massive and savage, melting the bright pipes that lined the walls, consuming the roof timbers, toppling the tiers of prison cells into a mangle of misshapen steel. In the center of it all still rose the iron staircase tower, broken and jagged as a black rotting tooth. The platform at its base, where all the Comte's machinery had been installed, where Mrs. Marchmoor had been strapped to a table—for the last time flesh and blood—lay smothered in debris.
Mrs. Marchmoor's head whipped to the right, toward the interior of the house, the action so sharp as to dislodge her hood and reveal her shining face. In the doorway to the ballroom stood another figure in a cloak, as dark but much more ragged, tall but bent with fatigue. His red hair was shocked with lifeless white, as if it had been wiped with paste. His skin, deathly pale, was at every margin—the rims of each eye, the discolored flare within each nostril, both livid dripping lips— cast in varying shades of blue, as if he were a monochrome portrait of a frozen corpse. In Francis Xonck's left hand glittered a narrow lancet of blue glass.
“YOU'VE TRAVELED quite a way, Margaret. How very brave of you.”
“So you are alive, Francis.”
The woman's response insinuated itself into Miss Temple's mind, like the sound of a knife being sharpened in another room. Xonck snorted and spat a knot of blue matter on the grass.
“When did it become Francis? Whatever happened to ‘Mr. Xonck’? Even when I was rogering you sideways at the Old Palace you still kept your sense of respect. I suppose that also explains the pack of spaniels out searching for me.”
He nodded contemptuously at Phelps and Soames, then passed his gaze more deliberately over the Duke, stiff as statuary, and then Miss Temple. Xonck's voice dropped into a low snarl.
“If you have her, then you have my book. Will you give it back, Margaret?”
“I cannot, Francis. I know what it holds.”
“If I understand things correctly, the contents would be useless to you.”
“Useless in that I cannot penetrate them directly. But I am determined to influence whoever does.”
“Influence? I think you mean control.”
“A great deal has changed.”
“You are no longer bound by the Process?”
“The Process opens one's eyes to the truth—you've only yourself to blame.”
Miss Temple remembered Xonck as a dandy—a rake, a wit—but within that pose he'd been as vicious and deadly as any viper. If Mrs. Marchmoor were not there, the whole of their party would have without question been at his mercy. Xonck took another step and his cloak gaped open to reveal a white shirt horribly stained with dried brown blood… and a spot within that stain boasting a bright blue crust.
Xonck cocked his head and studied the Duke. “Is he beginning to rot yet? I'm sure the Comte concocted all sorts of preparations to sustain longevity… such a shame he is not here to apply them.”
“You are as bereft without the Comte as I am,” hissed Mrs. Marchmoor. “Why else are you at Harschmort, if not to find his secrets?”
“I admit it freely,” replied Xonck, stepping just a bit closer. “A shame what's happened to the place, isn't it?”
“You claim not to have caused this destruction?”
“Don't be a fool,” laughed Xonck. “Look into the mind of any servant here and you will see the fire predates my return. What they will not tell you—for none of them know what to look for—is that the Comte's machinery had all been removed beforehand.”
“Who would have known to do that? Rosamonde—”
“She could not have returned any earlier than I. Truly, Margaret, who else could it be but you? Everyone else the Comte enlisted to help him is dead.”
“Where is Robert Vandaariff?” Miss Temple called out. “We did not see him anywhere.”
Xonck turned to her with a nasty look and in the same moment she felt a prick inside her skull from Mrs. Marchmoor's irritation. She winced but spoke again.
“I am well aware Lord Vandaariff's mind was emptied, but are the effects of an emptied mind permanent? Could some portion of the man remain? Before you betrayed him, Robert Vandaariff knew as much about your plots as anyone—indeed, he thought he was in command. One is curious, in these intervening days, who was given the task of minding him?”
Mr. Phelps stepped forward, sparking an immediate response from Xonck, the glass stiletto poised. Phelps raised his own empty hands before him and spoke clearly, despite his obvious fear.
“It is a simple enough matter for the servants to tell us where their master is, or at least when he left them. If his departure is coincidental with these fires, then the situation is all the clearer. Yes?”
Xonck nodded and stepped aside. Phelps walked quickly past him and into the house. Miss Temple wondered if he might not take the opportunity to run for his life.
“Elspeth Poole was to have tended Vandaariff,” said Xonck. “In her absence…”
He paused, his concentration broken by a spasm of discomfort. Miss Temple clucked her tongue. Xonck met her eyes with an intense distaste.
“May I ask why this woman is alive?” he snarled.
“Because I can force her to action, where the two of you cannot. And I don't care if she dies.”