“I’ve thought the same thing,” Celeste murmured. “How do I get in to see the judge?”

“The Order of Chamuel?” The reporter gestured toward the far end of the room with a toss of her head. Celeste hadn’t noticed it before through the crowd, but there stood a Virtue all in white, an olive branch painted across his white mask, guarding a door.

“Best of luck, but he won’t talk to you,” Grace said with a derisive snort. “He won’t talk to anyone. Believe me. We’ve all tried.”

Celeste’s tone was grim. “He’ll talk to me.”

Grace cocked her head, eyes narrowing, as if seeing something new in the woman next to her. “What law office did you say you worked for, again?”

“I didn’t.” Celeste offered her a tight smile. “Thank you,” she said, and walked away, the question unanswered.

Despite her professed optimism, once she was standing in front of the Virtue, doubt rushed upon her like a rising river. But she had thought about what to say on the walk over and was prepared.

“I need to speak to someone in the Order of Chamuel. I’m a witness to a crime, the murder last night. On Perdition. At the Eden.” She was stumbling over her words, nervous as a virgin in a whorehouse. But why wouldn’t she be, having witnessed a murder? She started again. “I’m here to speak to the Virtue in charge.”

The Virtue was still as granite and as cold. She repeated herself, with the same lack of results. But she refused to give up. She was about to inquire yet again when the Virtue moved. Behind him was an elaborately carved door with the now-familiar flaming sword upon it. He opened the door and then stepped aside, waving for her to enter.

She expected to see another room or a hallway but instead faced a lacy metal gate and, behind it, a box. The box looked big enough to fit three grown men, and it was connected to a series of visible ropes and pulleys. She glanced down through the grate at the bottom of the box, and there, far, far below, glowed a golden chunk of divinity.

She had never ridden in an elevator but knew this to be one, and the divinity below must be the beating heart of the mechanism that moved it.

She looked back briefly toward the courthouse lobby. Grace Walter met her gaze, her mouth open in shock.

“Step all the way in, Miss.” There was a man just inside dressed in a simple coat and trousers. Short in stature and thin as a settler’s soul, his hands rested on the lever that worked the machine. Celeste hesitated at the threshold, unsure, until the man looked up. Golden rings wreathed his brown eyes.

It was enough to move her forward.