The night was interminable and unforgiving. Lin could hearfeel vibrations in the air, the tremulous cries and howls of disturbed sleep rocking the city all around her. Her own head felt heavy with portent and menace.

Lin rocked back a little and rubbed her headscarab wearily. She was afraid. She was not so stupid as to not know that something was wrong.

She had arrived at Motley’s some hours before, in the late afternoon of the previous day. As usual, she had been instructed to make her way to the attic. But when she had entered the long, desiccated room, she had been alone.

The sculpture loomed darkly at the far end of the room. After she had looked around, idiotically, as if Motley could be hiding unseen in the bare space, she had walked over to examine the piece. She had supposed, a little uneasily, that Motley would join her soon.

She had stroked the khepri-spit figure. It was half finished. Motley’s various legs had been rendered in curling shapes and hyperreal colours. It terminated about three feet from the floor in drooping, liquid undulations. It looked as if a life-size candle in Motley’s shape had been half burned.

Lin had waited. An hour had passed. She had tried to lift the trapdoor and open the door to the passageway, but both were locked. She had stamped on the one and thumped the other, loudly and repetitively, but there was no response.

There’s some mistake, she had told herself. Motley’s busy, he’ll be along shortly, he’s just tied up, but it was totally unconvincing. Motley was consummate. As a businessman, a thug, a philosopher and a performer.

This delay was no accident. This was deliberate.

Lin did not know why, but Motley wanted her to sit, and sweat, alone.

She sat for hours until her nervousness became fear became boredom became patience, and she drew designs in the dust and opened her case to count her colourberries, again and again. Night came, and still she was left.

Her patience became fear again.

Why is he doing this? she thought. What does he want? This was quite different from Motley’s usual playing, his teases, his dangerous loquacity. This was far more ominous.

And finally, at last, hours after her arrival, she heard a noise.

Motley was in the room, flanked by his cactacae lieutenant and a pair of hulking gladiator Remade. Lin did not know how they had entered. She had been alone seconds before.

She stood and waited. Her hands were clutching.

“Ms. Lin. Thank you for coming,” said Motley from a tumorous cluster of mouths.

She waited.