The shopkeeper stood seven feet tall and wore a fantastic turban, a twist of ice-cream silk laced with pearls. He ran his hand along the bookcase until he found the volume he was looking for and extracted it with the deft flourish of a carnival magician. ‘This is the book you want,’ he said. ‘A Tapestry of Sex explores the art of seduction; it was penned by the greatest lover who ever lived.’ He paused in affected wonder. ‘Herein lie the secrets of Lord Herian Goodman – the methods by which he won the hearts of every man, woman and cauldron abomination he desired. Take it, read it, allow yourself to be seduced by it.’

Ida pressed the pages to her lips and breathed in odours of perspiration and exotic perfume. She could still hear the hubbub of commerce in the cavernous gloom around her, but the noise seemed suddenly distant. As her eye followed the neat printed words, her heart began to race. She had to buy this book.

The Trove Market had grown into a network of enormous brick vaults and sinuous passages that reached underneath the Imperial city of Losoto, its cluttered aisles defining tributaries through which endless streams of tourists flowed. They wandered through vast arched spaces, gaping at shelves ablaze with gold and silver trinkets, at glass orchids and jewelled clocks and alabaster birdcages, at endless stacks of boiled-black dragon bones. Painted saints and figureheads smiled back at them with eyes of candle-flame and lips like glazed cherries. Tiny brass machines chuckled and chirruped meaningless words, pulsing colourful lights to no apparent purpose. Old swords waited in cabinets for new owners. There were boxes of feathers and jars of colourful dust, bottles of jellyfish wine and cloaks woven from the hair of dead princesses. Manatee skulls lay next to miniature tombstones.