At the heart of the sixth floor was a tall sculpture within a cylinder of transparent Elderglass. Though the glass could not be worked by human arts, there were literally millions of cast-off fragments and shaped pieces scattered around the world, some of which could be conveniently fitted to human use. There were Elderglass scavenging guilds in several cities, capable of filling special needs in exchange for exorbitant fees.

Within the cylinder was something Locke could only describe as a copperfall — it was a sculpture of a rocky waterfall, taller than a man, in which the rocks were shaped entirely from silver volani coins, and the "water" was a constant heavy stream of copper cenrira, thousands upon thousands of them. The clatter within the soundproof glass enclosure must have been tremendous, but for those on the outside the show proceeded in absolute silence. Some mechanism in the floor was catching the stream of coins and re-circulating it up the back of the silver "rocks". It was eccentric and hypnotic… Locke had never before known anyone to decorate a room with a literal pile of money. "Master? You presume that I have one." "You know I mean Requin." "He would be the first to correct your presumption. Violently."

"A private audience would give us a chance to clear up several misunderstandings, then."

"Oh, Requin will certainly speak to you — very privately." Selendri snapped the fingers of her right hand twice and the four attendants converged on Locke. Selendri pointed up; two of them took firm hold of his arms, and together they began to lead him up the stairs. Selendri followed a few steps behind.

The seventh floor was dominated by another sculpture within an even wider Elderglass enclosure. This one resembled a circle of volcanic islands, again built from silver volani, floating in a sea of solid-gold solari. Each of the silver peaks had a stream of gold coins bubbling from its top, to fall back down into the churning, gleaming "ocean". Requin's guards maintained a pace too vigorous for Locke to catch many more details of the sculpture or the room; they passed another pair of uniformed attendants beside the stairwell and continued up.

At the heart of the eighth floor was a third spectacle within glass, the largest yet. Locke blinked several times and suppressed an appreciative chuckle.

It was a stylized sculpture of Tal Verrar, silver islands nestled in a sea of gold coins. Standing over the model city, bestriding it like a god, was a life-sized marble sculpture of a man Locke recognized immediately. The statue, like the man, had prominent curving cheekbones that lent the narrow face a sense of mirth — plus a round protruding chin, wide eyes and large ears that seemed to have been jammed into the head at right angles. Requin, whose features bore a fair resemblance to a marionette put together in haste by a somewhat irate puppeteer.

The statue's hands were held outward at the waist, spread forward, and from the flaring stone cuffs around them two solid streams of gold coins were continually gushing onto the city below.

Locke, staring, only avoided tripping over his own feet because the attendants holding him chose that moment to tighten their grip. Atop the eighth-floor stairs was a pair of lacquered wooden doors. Selendri strode past Locke and the attendants. To the left of the door was a small niche in the wall; Selendri slid her brass hand into it, let it settle into some sort of mechanism and then gave it a half-turn to the left. There was a clatter of clockwork devices within the wall and the doors cracked open.

"Search him," she said as she vanished through the doors without turning around.

Locke was rapidly stripped of his coat; he was then poked, prodded, sifted and patted down more thoroughly than he'd been during his last visit to a brothel. His sleeve-stilettos (a perfectly ordinary thing for a man of consequence to carry) were confiscated, his purse was shaken out, his shoes were slipped off and one attendant even ran his hands through Locke's hair. When this process was finished, Locke (shoeless, coatless and somewhat dishevelled) was given a less-than-gentle shove toward the doors through which Selendri had vanished.

Beyond them was a dark space not much larger than a wardrobe closet. A winding black iron staircase, wide enough for one person, rose up from the floor toward a square of soft yellow light. Locke padded up the stairs and emerged into Requin's office.

This place took up the whole of the ninth floor of the Sinspire; an area against the far wall, curtained off with silk drapes, probably served as a bedroom. There was a balcony door on the right-hand wall, covered by a sliding mesh screen. Locke could see a wide, darkened sweep of Tal Verrar through it, so he presumed it looked east.

Every other wall of the office, as he'd heard, was liberally decorated with oil paintings — nearly twenty of them around the visible periphery of the room, in elaborate frames of gilded wood. Masterworks of the late Therin Throne years, when nearly every noble at the Emperor's court had kept a painter or sculptor on the leash of patronage, showing them off like pets. Locke hadn't the training to tell one from another by sight, but rumour had it that there were two Morestras and a Ventathis on Requin's walls. Those two artists — along with all their sketches, books of theory and apprentices — had died centuries before, in the firestorm that had consumed the imperial city of Therim Pel.

Selendri stood beside a wide wooden desk the colour of a fine coffee, cluttered with books and papers and miniature clockwork devices. A chair was pushed out behind it, and Locke could see the remnants of a dinner — some sort of fish on a white-iron plate, paired with a half-empty bottle of pale golden wine.

Selendri touched her flesh hand to her brass simulacrum, and there was a clicking noise. The hand folded apart like the petals of a gleaming flower. The fingers locked into place along the wrist and revealed a pair of blackened-steel blades, six inches long, previously concealed at the heart of the hand. Selendri waved these like a claw and gestured for Locke to stand before the desk, facing it.

"Master Kosta." The voice came from somewhere behind him, within the silk-curtained enclosure. "What a pleasure! Selendri tells me you" ve expressed an interest in getting killed."

"Hardly, sir. All I told your assistant was that I had been cheating steadily, along with my partner, at the games we've been playing in your Sinspire. For nearly the last two years." "Every game," said Selendri. "You said every single game."

"Ah, well," said Locke with a shrug, "it just sounded more dramatic that way. It was more like nearly every game." "This man is a clown," whispered Selendri. "Oh, no," said Locke. "Well, maybe occasionally. But not now."

Locke heard footsteps moving toward his back across the room's hardwood floor. "You're here on a bet," said Requin, much closer. "Not in the way that you mean, no." Requin stepped around Locke and stood before him, hands behind his back, peering at Locke very intently. The man was a virtual twin of his statue on the floor below; perhaps a few pounds heavier, with the bristling curls of steel-grey hair atop his head receding more sharply. His narrow frock coat was crushed black velvet, and his hands were covered with brown leather gloves. He wore optics, and Locke was surprised to see that the glimmer he had taken for reflected light the night before was actually imbued within the glass. They glowed a translucent orange, giving a demonic cast to the wide eyes behind them. Some fresh, expensive alchemy Locke had never heard of, no doubt.

"Did you drink anything unusual tonight, Master Kosta? An unfamiliar wine, perhaps?"

"Unless the water of Tal Verrar itself intoxicates, I'm as dry as baked sand."

Requin moved behind his desk, picked up a small silver fork, speared a white morsel of fish and pointed at Locke with it.