"Does Valerena know she's not the first Valerena?"

"I think not. You indulge her too much, Lord."

"I have no other heir."

"It's your funeral."

"If I become so lax as to let her reach me here, then House Tregesser deserves more alert, more aggressive leadership anyway."

"Such is the custom."

"Watch them. See their every hair fall."

"And the woman they send you?"

"Yours, if you want her."

"Grace, Lord."

Simon Tregesser's bell clouded. Outside, the show ached up toward a shattering crescendo. Lightnings and coils of darkness slithered around the bell till no eye could have pieced it out of the chaos.

The bell rose into the belly of the machine. Chaos died. Silence took mastery of the cavity. A lone winged form glided the stillness.

Simon Tregesser's prosthetic eyes stared through the bell wall at his special secret. The thing had adopted an especially repugnant arrangement, almost demonic, perhaps in response to the show outside. Tregesser smiled as much as he could with ruined lips. Valerena did not know, but this thing from Outside would give House Tregesser its Guardship.

He hoped.

Down in the shadowed heart of him he nurtured the very doubts his daughter had flung in his face.

And he did not trust this emissary from Yon, this ally whose urgings had led him to push House Tregesser's plans beyond endless preparation to considered action. Simon Tregesser did not trust anyone or anything he did not own completely, excepting Lupo Provik. Lupo was his good arm and good body and, sometimes, his brain.

An infantile display, Simon Tregesser. What do we gain by spawning machinations within machinations? There is but one goal. Let us devote ourselves with an appropriately holy fervor.

Tregesser sensed its contempt. The disgusting monster. A shot of oxygen into that methane murk would set it dancing in the fires. Someday ... the moment the Guardship surrendered. "You heard my daughter. Here, in private, between us, I second her doubts. You want me to dice with fate depending entirely upon your screens."