Mrs. Trapping's face was red and her hands were clutching her side. Mr. Leveret reached for her arm but she shook him away. The Contessa had not moved.
“As you desire, Charlotte,” she said. “Of course, there remains much that none of you know, despite your presumption—all of Macklenburg, for example, as ripe for plunder as Peru, and richer to our interests than a continent full of silver. And even more beyond Macklenburg— initiatives have begun in Vienna and Cadiz, in Venice—”
“What initiatives in Venice?” asked Mr. Phelps, rather quickly.
“Precisamente,” laughed the Contessa. Then the laughter caught in her throat and the light stalled in her eyes. She clawed at the air, and gasped through her open mouth, an animal panting. The glass woman withdrew. The Contessa met their gazes, eyes fierce, her voice raw as she called to the glass woman.
“You may harvest facts from my brain, Margaret. But beyond fact lies an understanding you cannot capture—and that is my instinct. I outwitted Robert Vandaariff and Henry Xonck—and it ought to be clear to a hare-lipped infant that if you proceed without me now, it is at your peril.” She turned to Fochtmann, snorting at the metal device he held. “I watched Oskar create the marrow sparge himself. Do you even know what it is?”
“It connects below the skull,” hissed Mrs. Marchmoor. “There are hidden needles.”
Fochtmann snorted upon finding the needles—as, now he had the tool, how obvious was its purpose—and set at once to its installation. Mrs. Trapping watched him for a moment but then looked away, impatient and cross.
“What is a ‘sparge’?” she asked, generally.
“A medieval term,” said Doctor Svenson, after no one else replied. “For the Comte, the meaning would be alchemical—to aerate, to infuse—”
“That tells me nothing,” Mrs. Trapping muttered.
“Why ask a German?” Leveret replied with a sneer.
The Doctor cleared his throat. “With this device in place, the energy from the book will be sent directly along Lord Vandaariff's spine, infusing the natural fluid there. This same fluid bathes the primary mass of nerves—the spinal column as well as the brain. It is the alchemical marrow.”
“Will that work?” Mrs. Trapping asked doubtfully.
“If it does not also boil his brain like a trout.”
“We have seen it,” grunted Xonck from the depths of his distress. “At the Institute—the Comte wiped the mind of a caretaker, then infused it with the memories of an African adventurer he had harvested that week at the brothel. The old man's mind became nothing but slaughtered dervishes and impregnated tribeswomen.”
“How interesting it will be to speak to Oskar once again,” said the Contessa.
“If I remember correctly,” observed Doctor Svenson, “at the moment of his own death the Comte—beg pardon, Oskar—was intending to kill you.”
“O tush,” said the Contessa. “The Comte d'Orkancz is, if nothing else, sophisticated.”
“You cannot think he will be your ally?”
“Doctor, I will be over-joyed to see my old friend.”
“But will it be the Comte?” asked Chang. “That adventurer was harvested under the Comte's own care. This book was inscribed at the very worst of times—”
“Inconsequential,” rasped Xonck.
“And what of Robert Vandaariff?” asked Svenson. “Is he truly expunged? Or will a lingering remnant dangerously shatter the Comte's essence?”
“And will either of these proud men submit willingly to all of you?” asked Chang.
“Be quiet!” cried Mrs. Trapping. “They do not have to submit willingly! The Comte must do our bidding—is that not why he underwent that horrible Process—so we may manage him and Vandaariff's money? We have acquired this power, and now we will employ it! Everyone has agreed—it is very, very simple—and I insist that we be finally ready. You, there—tall fellow…”
“I am Mr. Fochtmann,” he said, aghast.
“Exactly so. Proceed.”
THE HANDLE was pulled and the crackle of current spat across the copper wires like fat on a red-hot stove. Miss Temple clenched her fists and squinted, half turning her face away. Robert Vandaariff's voice echoed from under the black rubber mask, in unearthly yelps of terror, high-pitched and plaintive as an uncomprehending dog whose leg had been crushed by a cart. His tightly bound limbs thrashed and his spine arched until it seemed it must break from straining. At the first touch of current, blue light glowed from the brass device that held the book, intensifying to a bright white flame—the scorching reek of indigo clay came off in clouds. Within the glare, Miss Temple saw flickers of shadow, ghost fragments, dreams flaming to life.
Then it was done. At Fochtmann's wave the machines went silent.
Vandaariff sagged against the restraints. No one else moved.
“Did it work?” whispered Charlotte Trapping.
Vandaariff lurched forward, choking. Miss Temple felt a mirroring, sympathetic spasm of nausea. Leveret cried aloud as he pulled the mask away—Vandaariff had filled it with black bile, and now vomited another ink-colored gout across the man's trousers.
GRIM AND determined, Fochtmann loosened the restraints, easing Vandaariff to his knees and watching carefully as the man emptied the fouled contents of his stomach onto the planking. Leveret opened his mouth to complain, but the engineer impatiently motioned him to silence.
Vandaariff tipped his head from side to side, slowly, like a stunned bull, and flexed his fingers as if he were testing a pair of new leather gloves.
“Do not approach him,” Fochtmann warned.
Vandaariff strove to rise, grunting with effort, the livid scars accentuating the whiteness of his eyes. Fochtmann took the rag and wiped Vandaariff's face.
“Look at him!” whispered Mrs. Trapping. “What is wrong?”
“These are temporary effects,” said Fochtmann. “Be patient…”
“Monsieur le Comte?” asked Leveret. “Is it you?”
The Contessa took one hesitant step. “Oskar?”
Vandaariff tried to stand but could not, slipping to his knees and elbows like a tottering colt. He looked into the faces around him, and his eyes—the whites tinged with a blue film his blinking pushed into beads that broke down his cheeks—began to clear… and upon seeing the Contessa, a rattle of recognition rolled from his throat.
“Oskar?” Her voice was gentle. He swallowed, his face suddenly clouded by fear. The Contessa sank so her face was at his level.
“You are alive again, Oskar… it is not the airship. On the airship you were killed… but you have been restored. You have been restored by one of your own marvelous books, Oskar. Do not be afraid. You have come back to us… back from where no man has ever returned.”
Vandaariff swung his head awkwardly, straining to make sense of her words, of the different room and so many people—so different from the ones he had last seen. He lurched forward. Fochtmann patiently raised him when the spasms had stopped, once more wiping Vandaariff's chin.
“Is it truly him?” whispered Mrs. Trapping.
“Of course it is,” said the Contessa easily. “He knows me.”
“Did not Robert Vandaariff know you too?” asked Leveret. He peered suspiciously into Vandaariff's face, like a farmer inspecting a pig at auction.
“Monsieur le Compte—if you are the Compte—my name is Leveret—”
“Tell him we need proof,” Mrs. Trapping called over Leveret's shoulder. “Something only he could know—some snip of alchemical whatsit.”