Chapter 3: Empires Aeron Has Personally Watched Rot

The rain had settled into its working rhythm by the time Aeron spoke again — not the dramatic percussion of a storm announcing itself, but the patient, professional rain of a city that has made its peace with the condition and moved on. Through the window it rendered Edinburgh in watercolour, the grey stones softened and the tourists hunched and the pigeons performing their small, undignified negotiations with the cobblestones.

Margaret had put something on the radio. A man was explaining, with considerable confidence, why interest rates would do a particular thing by March. Aeron listened to roughly fifteen seconds of this before setting down his cup with the careful deliberation of someone choosing not to respond to a provocation.

"The Sixth Age," he said.