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“It quite nearly killed her,” said Svenson, a touch importantly.
“The point is that my glass book was empty,” said Elöise, “its intent being to take my memories. But Miss Temple looked into a book that was full.”
Doctor Svenson set down his spoon.
“My Lord. A full book… instead of the few incidents captured in a single glass card. One could experience entire lifetimes—and dear heaven, you would remember those experiences from other lives as things you yourself had done. An entire book… and depending on the memories it contained… and given the decadent tastes of the Comte…” The Doctor paused.
“So I suppose I merely wonder what she dreams,” said Elöise quietly.
Svenson looked across the table at Chang, who was silent. He glanced at Elöise. Her hand shook as she held her mug. She saw his gaze and set it down with another brisk smile.
“I find I ca
A SINGLE CANDLE burned in a dish near the bed in Miss Temple's room. Svenson sat down on the bed next to her, holding the light close to see her clearly. He took her pulse at the throat, feeling the heat of her glistening skin. Her heart was restless and fast. Was there so little else to do? He rose, opened the door, and nearly collided with Elöise, her hands occupied with a basin of water, new towels draped over each arm.
“I thought you'd gone with Sorge,” she said.
“Not at all. I set more herbs to steep, which should be ready. A moment.”
When he returned with the re-charged teapot, he found Elöise on the opposite side of the bed, bathing Miss Temple's body, one limb at a time. The Doctor swirled the tea before pouring it into Miss Temple's small china mug to cool, his eyes caught by the sensual competency of Elöise's fingers. Elöise carefully bent one leg at the knee and sponged along underneath, the beads of water ru
“That will ease her sleep a bit, surely,” she said softly. She handed the cloth to Svenson and nodded to the limb nearest to him. “Will you do that arm?”
He ran the cloth along Miss Temple's pale, thin arm, the cool water trickling to the stubbled pale pit and under the shift to her ribs.
“We were speaking of memory,” he said.
“We were.”
“A curious … phenomenon.”
Elöise did not answer, but instead reached out to glide a strand of hair from Miss Temple's face with an extended finger.
“My own circumstance, for example,” the Doctor continued. “In the course of these past weeks I have squandered all hope of returning as anything but a traitor to my home, my own duty invisible next to a murdered Prince, a slaughtered Envoy, a diplomatic mission in ruins.”
“Doctor…Abelard—”
“Your turn.” He handed the cloth to her and nodded at the other arm. “I am not finished. The point being that while I am presently banished—my mind spi
“She was… your wife?”
Svenson shrugged. “Never so much—or still more ridiculous. She was my cousin. Cori
Elöise said nothing, absently stroking Miss Temple's arm. He took a deep breath.
“I say all of this so you will understand, when I speak of remaining here, when I see your own tears, so you will know… I am determined—”
Elöise looked up and he stopped speaking. The silence widened and became unbearable.
“It is not that I do not possess feelings for you,” she said softly. “Of course I do, and most tenderly. It is the most awkward thing, and you must think me a terrible person. It would give me no greater pleasure than to offer myself to you, to kiss you right this moment. If I were free. But I am not. And my mind… it ca
“Of course not, we are in a wilderness—”
“No—no, please—it is what I recall, and what I feel within those recollections … even if I do not know fully why, or know… who.”
Svenson's throat was at once horribly dry. “Who?”
“There is a locked room in my mind. But there are paths to the room, and from it—there are words I remember being spoken, there are clues about what I ca
“But… you do not know? You mean… there is someone, but—”
“You must think very poorly of me. I think poorly of myself. Not to remember such a thing—though I know the thing to be true. I ca
She was silent, looking into his eyes. Her own were rimmed with tears, and impossibly sad. He struggled to catch up with her words. She was a widow—with a suitor. Of course she had a suitor, she was beautiful, intelligent, well placed…
But that was not the thing at all.
Svenson recalled her words on the beach. It was all to do with the book, with the memories having been taken, which meant for a reason. No memories of a simple suitor—no lover—would have been added to the glass book and thus expunged from her mind. For the memories to be worth taking, Elöise's lover could only have been someone of value to the Cabal. The number of men this could describe was unpleasantly small.
“Elöise—”
“The tea has cooled. I have been enough of a burden.”
Elöise stood, wiping her eyes. In an instant she was out the door.
The Doctor sat alone, his head pounding, the room a roar of silence. Without a hope in the world he picked up the teacup and eased his other hand behind Miss Temple's head, tilting it so she might drink.
THE NEXT morning, having passed most of the night on Miss Temple's floor, the Doctor rose early, shaved, and threw on his coat, finding Sorge with the chickens. A brief conversation pointed Svenson to the most likely fisherman to accommodate his errand. He left word for Chang to join him at the village piers.
The walk did nothing for his mood—the woods were thick with fog, the ground soft beneath his boots, the entire landscape only reminded him of home, and thus of misery. What else had he expected? And why—just because they had survived when they ought to have died ten times? Had luck in one instance ever trumped his unhappiness in another? He had only to remember first entering the halls of Macklenburg Palace—uniform crisp, boots gleaming, a far cry from the ice-rimed cabin of a ship—while the palace of his mind housed only despair. If being the protégé of Baron von Hoern had not assuaged Cori
It was an easy enough matter, once money was offered, to arrange for the journey. A few minutes poring over a map of the local sandbars with the fisherman quickly isolated the likely spots where the dirigible must lay. This settled, Svenson inspected the boat's supply of canvas. If they were to bring out the bodies—assuming the storm had not cracked the ship open and scattered the corpses with the tides—he would need enough to hold them.