The guild's main complex sat in the centre of Veldmoor as if it had always been there, which it hadn't — twenty years ago, it had been a civic centre with a car park and a modest events calendar. The Fractures had been good for real estate if nothing else. The building was twelve stories of glass and reinforced concrete with the guild crest above the entrance. The lobby had the particular atmosphere of institutional power that was comfortable enough to relax you and formal enough to remind you why you shouldn't.
He signed in at the front desk and was taken up to the eighth floor by an assistant who made polite conversation in the lift, which he matched with equal politeness and an equal absence of content.
Director Aldric Hane's office had a view of the river.
Hane himself was already s
