Chapter Three: Everday Screening

Shang Xian led them past the line through an unmarked side entrance. Beyond it waited not a lobby, but a brass elevator traveling downward. “The heart of the tower is underground?” Jianyue asked. “The taller the tree, the deeper its roots.” “Is my brother down there?” “Lin Zhou has been down there.” The ancient Kin could not tell a direct lie. Verb tense was his trap. The elevator stopped at level minus thirteen. Beyond it lay a ballroom of almost antique splendor. Men and women in formal clothes talked over glasses of dark red liquid, their eyes occasionally flashing scarlet beneath the chandeliers. Colored ribbons encircled their wrists.