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.
"So, if I'm to believe you, you" ve been successfully cheating here for two years, and aside from the sheer impossibility of that claim, now you just want to give yourself up to me. Case of conscience?" "Not even remotely." "An earnest wish for an elaborate suicide?" "I aim to leave this office alive."
"Oh, you wouldn't necessarily be dead until you hit the cobblestones nine storeys below." "Perhaps I can convince you I'm worth more to you intact."
Requin chewed his fish before speaking again. "Just how have you been cheating, Master Kosta?" "Fast-fingers work, mostly."
"Really? I can tell a card-sharp's fingers at a glance. Let's see that right hand of yours." Requin held out his gloved left hand and Locke hesitantly put his own forward, as though they might shake.
Requin snatched Locke's right hand above the wrist and slammed it down atop his desk — but rather than the sharp rap Locke expected, his hand tipped aside some sort of disguised panel and slid into an aperture just beneath the surface of the desk. There was a loud clack of clockwork and a cold pressure pinched his wrist. Locke jerked back, but the desk had swallowed his hand like the unyielding maw of a beast. Selendri's twin steel claws turned casually toward him, and he froze. "There now. Hands, hands, hands. They get their owners into such trouble, Master Kosta. Selendri and I are two who would know." Requin turned to the wall behind his desk and slid back a lacquered wood panel, revealing a long, shallow shelf set into the wall.
Within were dozens of sealed glass jars, each holding something dark and withered… dead spiders? No, Locke corrected himself — human hands. Severed, dried and stored as trophies, with rings still gleaming on many of their curled and desiccated fingers.
"Before we proceed to the inevitable, that's what we usually do," Requin said in a lightly conversational tone. "Right hand, ta-ta. I" ve got it down to a pretty process. Used to have carpets in here, but the damn blood made for such a mess."