“The bank’s walls are at no point less than twelve feet in thickness. There is only one entrance, guarded by a dozen well-armed men during the day, sealed at night with three locks, made by three different locksmiths, the keys kept by three separate employees. Two parties of men constantly patrol the exterior of the bank until morning. Even then the interior is kept under watch by a most sharp-eyed and competent guard.” He gestured towards a bored-looking man in a studded leather jerkin, seated at a desk to the side of the hallway.

“He is locked in?”

“All night.”

Morveer worked his mouth with some discomfort. “Most comprehensive arrangements.”

He pulled out his handkerchief and pretended to cough daintily into it. The silk was soaked in Mustard Root, one of an extensive range of agents to which he had himself long since developed an immunity. He needed only a few moments unobserved, then he could clasp it to Mauthis’ face. The slightest inhalation and the man would cough himself to bloody death within moments. But the clerk laboured along between them with the strongbox in his arms, and not the slightest opportunity was forthcoming. Morveer was forced to tuck the lethal cloth away, then narrow his eyes as they turned into a long hallway lined with huge paintings. Light poured in from above, the very roof, far overhead, fashioned from a hundred thousand diamond panes of glass.

“A ceiling of windows!” Morveer turned slowly round and round, head back. “Truly a wonder of architecture!”

“This is an entirely modern building. Your money could not be more secure anywhere, believe me.”

“The depths of ruined Aulcus, perhaps?” joked Morveer, as an overblown artist’s impression of the ancient city passed by on their left.

“Not even there.”

“And making a withdrawal would be considerably more testing, I imagine! Ha ha. Ha ha.”

“Quite so.” The banker did not display even the inkling of a smile. “Our vault door is a foot thickness of solid Union steel. We do not exaggerate when we say this is the safest place in the Circle of the World. This way.”

Morveer was ushered into a voluminous chamber panelled with oppressively dark wood, ostentatious yet still uncomfortable, tyrannised by a desk the size of a poor man’s house. A sombre oil was set above a looming fireplace: a heavyset bald man glowering down as though he suspected Morveer of being up to no good. Some Union bureaucrat of the dusty past, he suspected. Zoller, maybe, or Bialoveld.

Mauthis took up a high, hard seat and Morveer found one opposite while the clerk lifted the lid of the strongbox and began to count out the money, using a coin-stacker with practised efficiency. Mauthis watched, scarcely blinking. At no stage did he touch either case or coins himself. A cautious man. Damnably, infuriatingly cautious. His slow eyes slid across the desk.

“Wine?”

Morveer raised an eyebrow at the distorted glassware behind the windows of a towering cabinet. “Thank you, no. I become quite flustered under its influence, and between the two of us have frequently embarrassed myself. I decided, in the end, to abstain entirely, and stick to selling it to others. The stuff is… poison.” And he gave a huge smile. “But don’t let me stop you.” He slid an unobtrusive hand into a hidden pocket within his jacket where the vial of Star Juice was waiting. It would be a small effort to mount a diversion and introduce a couple of drops to Mauthis’ glass while he was—