Down in the palace's sub-level the air was cooler, the light harder. The anterooms smelled of cold metal, antiseptic, and the faint ozone sting of equipment recently plugged in. Caelan sat behind a pane of tempered glass in the observation bay, one elbow resting on the steel arm of his chair, watching the man in the interrogation room below.
Alexander Stone, Odin to his devotees, looked smaller without the tailored suits and the careful lighting. The hood had been pulled back, his wrists cuffed to the table, and under the flat LEDs he had the grey cast of a man who'd lived too long on adrenaline and narcotics. His eyes flicked to the mirrored glass once, trying to gauge where the Emperor might be. Caelan didn't blink.
