“Elöise, do not tell this man one thing.”

Chang shot out his hand and slashed Mrs. Trapping's jacket— trusting the razor would not cut through the whalebone in her corset— clean across her torso, causing the blue fabric to hang, the gash made before the woman could even squeak.

“Do not speak again until I am asking questions of you. I promise, we will talk, for I have spoken to your brother. Elöise?”

Elöise looked into Chang's black lenses for the first time since his entry, her gaze grim and beaten.

“I left Miss Temple at the town of Karthe. We became separated. We had quarreled. The Contessa was there, and Francis Xonck. If you have truly seen him—”

“I have seen him.”

“I believe he took me for the Contessa. He attacked me, with a sliver of glass.”

“Elöise,” muttered Charlotte Trapping, “really.”

But Elöise had already pried free the third button down between her breasts, and pulled the fabric open with her hands. Chang saw the bandage, and its coin-sized stain of blood.

“The Doctor found me—”

“What was Svenson doing in Karthe?”

“I have no idea. He left the fishing village not long after you yourself… we had quarreled—”

“Elöise quarrels with everyone,” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“When I woke I was on the train. The Doctor removed the glass. He saved my life.”

“Again,” said Chang.

“Again,” echoed Elöise, miserably.

“I found him rather weedy,” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“Charlotte, please!” cried Elöise, her voice a whisper.

“Francis Xonck was also on that train,” said Chang.

Mrs. Trapping looked up.

“And the Contessa,” sighed Elöise, “hiding in a freight car. When the train stopped at Parchfeldt, she fled and the Doctor and I went to find her. The last we saw, Francis was bent double on the trackside, sick as a sailor. The Contessa escaped into the park. Abelard insisted that we follow.”

“And what of you? Did you want to follow?”

“I believe I more wanted to die,” sighed Elöise, and she covered her face with both hands.

CHANG LOOKED down at the unhappy Elöise, whose dismay only inflamed his desire to cuff her face. Instead, he stepped to the bound bundle. He flicked the razor at the blanket and then ripped enough of an opening to see the vivid colors of the painted canvas beneath it. Charlotte Trapping had gone to Harschmort, burned the laboratory, taken the paintings, and captured Robert Vandaariff all by herself. He had taken her for a society ninny. He glanced up and met her fierce, determined gaze—the green eyes unpleasantly like her brother's— and recalled Xonck's story, that the second child had inherited the intelligence of their powerful father. From the conversation he had just overheard he knew she was whimsical, cruel, and insufferably proud—that she was here at all proved her bravery and determination … and that she was a Xonck meant she was also probably insane.

But he was not finished with Elöise Dujong.

“Where is the Doctor now?” he demanded, harshly.

“We left him at my uncle's cottage.”

“Struck on the head,” added Mrs. Trapping.

“He will be safe,” said Elöise quickly. “The cottage is warm and there is food and firewood and a bed—Lord knows he deserves an excuse to let all of this go, to let me go.”

“I'm certain he feels the same way,” said Chang.

“He is alive,” said Charlotte Trapping haughtily. “He need not be.”

“And how long will he stay there, do you think?” Chang ignored her, directing his words to Elöise. “And where will he go? The Prince is dead. The Doctor has been declared an outlaw by his own government—and our Ministries, presently in the hands of his enemies, are more than happy to capture or execute him. I do not imagine he has any money. A destitute foreigner hunted by the law? Your Abelard will be lucky not to be hanged on the spot by the first country sheriff to run him down!”

Elöise began to sob before he finished.

“You're an ugly fellow, aren't you?” observed Mrs. Trapping.

Chang took hold of Elöise's jaw, tugging her face up so their eyes met. “I've been to your room—I know. Were you Xonck's spy from the beginning? Or was it the Contessa?”

“Cardinal—”

“Of course, none of this was worth mentioning! When people were dying! When people were saving your life!”

He released his grip with a push.

“Caroline Stearne summoned you both to a private room in the St. Royale,” Chang went on. “Doing the Contessa's bidding—was it only blackmail, or something else? What did she demand in exchange? Who else did you betray?”

Tears streamed down Elöise's cheeks. He turned away from her to Mrs. Trapping.

“Why don't you tell me—there are no holes in your memory, are there?”

“I am completely capable of telling you about Caroline Stearne,” said Charlotte Trapping. “But I want you to tell me why I should.”

Ironically, Chang realized her blithe dismissal of his anger actually meant that, for the first time, she truly understood how dangerous he was. Was this her Xonck tenacity rising to—and there was the pity, perhaps only to—a mortal challenge?

“These are family matters,” she said coolly. “Why should you be part of it?”

“Clearly I am already.”

“But what is your stake, sir? Is it this Doctor? Is it revenge? Or—” she allowed her eyes to traverse his ruined habit—“merely a matter of money?”

With an effort Chang stopped himself from backhanding the woman across the face.

“I am here because people have tried to kill me. People like your brother.”

“But he has not killed you. I don't know what you're so afraid of— you must be very formidable to survive Francis. You must tell me where he has gone. What are his plans?”

“So you can assist him?”

She smiled almost girlishly. “O I do not say that…”

The woman was insufferable.

“When did you last see your children?” asked Chang.

Mrs. Trapping did not answer, realizing at once what the question meant.

“It is that terrible man!” she whispered. “Noland Aspiche. Always watching, disapproving—he never accepted Arthur as his rightful commanding officer.”

“He hired me to kill your husband, actually,” said Chang dryly.

“What?”

“Chang did not kill Arthur,” said Elöise quickly.

“But—but that man—he hired you.”

Chang smiled. “Your husband was loathed.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Your husband was an undeserving ass.”

“But—the arrogance—the presumption—”

“Charlotte!” Elöise cried. “Your children! Could they have been taken by Francis?”

“Of course not! Why would he endanger—”

“Charlotte!”

“I do not know!”

Both women turned to Chang. To tell them what he knew was to step away from interrogation and toward alliance. Did he want that? Did he care? What was his stake? Had he not been wrestling with Charlotte Trapping's question since the first night in the fisherman's hut? Why was he still involved in this business? He thought of the Doctor, with a broken head and a ruined heart, and of Miss Temple, running for her life, a captive, or already dead. He looked at the two women, their bundle of paintings, their idiot tycoon, squatting in a shambles like the meanest gypsies.

“At the command of the Privy Council, your children were put on a train to Harschmort House, under the immediate authority of a Captain Tackham.”

Charlotte Trapping's eyes narrowed. “David Tackham made advances to me at a regimental function. He was not even drunk. He is an adder.”

“Are they still at Harschmort?” Elöise asked Chang.

“Am I?”

“Did Francis see them?”

“I do not know.”

“Did he speak of them?” pressed Elöise. “You said the two of you talked—did he speak of them?”