There was no name on it, only a symbol, a ring enclosing three clusters of leaves. It was flanked by two huge planters, big enough to hold a young tree each, which is pretty much what they held. It was a good thick wooden door, with no transom and no inset window. It did have a mail slot, though. I knelt on the floor, lifted the flap slowly, and put my eye to the opening. Nothing; the slot sloped down on the other side, and blocked my view. But the sound wasn’t bad.

A female voice I didn’t recognize was saying, “… here? You’re mad. Take your little murders back down into the slums. You said that’s where they’d stay.”

“This is different.” Hawthorn. The pull that had led me disintegrated.

“But on my doorstep? By the Crown, you promised me—”

“Why not? What better way to control all the evidence? Do as I say and you’re in no danger.”

“No. You’ve made a mull of the business. Our agreement—”

“You would find it… disagreeable… if I were to be taken, and made to testify.”

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the door.

“I certainly would,” said the one I didn’t recognize, and for the first time in my eavesdropping, I thought that, given a choice between being caught by Hawthorn and being caught by the woman he was talking to, I might as well flip a coin.

They’d been sitting down, which was all that saved me from having to make the flip; I heard the chairs scrape as they stood up. I let the mail flap down as slowly as I could force myself to do it, with all of my nerve endings screaming at me to run. If it made a noise, I hoped it was small enough to be covered by the sounds in the room. I scrambled behind one of the planters and made myself very small as the door opened and Hawthorn came out. The door shut behind him. He pushed through another door to the right of the service elevator, and after a moment, so did I. The sign on that one said “Roof.”

The stairs came up in a greenhouse. I realized that they came straight up into the greenhouse without any more enclosures or doors just in time to be able to keep my head down below the floor level. I could hear Hawthorn moving around, rustling, banging things, sliding things. I stretched my neck and stole a look between the stair railings.