As Casqat and her young charges began work on the door that had all of them trapped on the sumptuously appointed top floor of the Tower ViPADua, Semina walked around the Great Table toward the south facing windows. To the east she could still see the massive circular structure that had so unnerved the woman–its inescapable bulk dominated the view from four windows–but its sheer size already told her what she needed to know about the state of the city in that direction: it was gone. What she wanted to know, what she needed to see, was how much of the city remained south of the Tower.

How many neighborhoods were left? How many people?

Standing in the north facing window next to Victra she had seen that the most densely populated sections of the city were largely undamaged, if somewhat transformed. And as she made her way across the room she could already see that the green and gold of the idyllic southern hinterlands–the forests, the meadows, the scattered villages and secluded cottages, the Logister estates and the hillside vineyards–were gone, replaced by an unbroken sea of vibrant red. But what remained nearby, in the shadow of the Tower ViPADua itself?

Semina had taken only a few steps toward the shattered southern windows when she heard a shout from behind her.

“Melia! Bia!”

Startled, Semina whirled to see Victra turning away from the window. Wild-eyed, he stood watching Casqat and her two charges struggle with the door. He glanced at Semina.

“They could be down there.”

They could be, Semina thought, as a chill passed through her. The storm that had swallowed the world and transplanted buildings into the heart of their city could also have transported Victra’s wife and daughter to within shouting distance of the Tower. For Victra’s sake she hoped they had been. And if the rest of the world had perished, she hoped every new building that had appeared in the city was full of people from the hinterlands.

But if they were people in these buildings, bringing Victra’s family and their attendants along with them, what had happened to the people in the buildings that had been replaced?

Semina watched Victra stare despairingly at the stuck door leading to the Tower's staircase. With a low moan he turned back to the window and leaned so far out Semina took a half step toward him, ready to rush and grab him by the immaculately tailored pants if he began to fall.

“Melia!” he shouted again, then hesitated, listening. “Bia! Bia, darling, can you hear me?”

Victra moaned again, then turned from the window apparently unaware that the shards of colored glass had torn little rents in his silk shirt. He rushed past Semina to the great doors that led to the stairs. He shouldered past the young men who had been tugging ineffectually at the door handle, wrapped both of his hands around the golden knob and heaved backward with all the strength in his slight frame. When the door only creaked slightly, he adjusted his grip and threw himself backward. The door didn’t move before his hands slipped from the knob and he stumbled backward.

Victra turned, scanning the room, and Semina could feel every eye around them turn to fix on the desperate man.

Semina drew a breath.

“Victra,” she said, keeping her voice low and steady. “Please. They’re working on the door. We’ll have it open shortly.”

He ignored her and rushed toward a chair that lay on its side nearby. Unlike the few chairs placed around the Great Table for Semina’s lieutenants, the chair Victra selected had a beautiful but more restrained construction. It was one of the more utilitarian chairs that had been set around the periphery of the room so that Semina could invite visitors to sit by the windows and admire the views of Siana. Victra seized the nearest of them and rushed back to the door. Scattering Casqat and the two young men before him, he raised the ornate chair over his head, aimed, and brought it down on the handle. The sharp report of splintering wood drew a scream from Casqat and she stumbled a few steps backward, eyes still fixed on the wild man. Victra raised the chair over his head again and brought it down a second time. The force of the strike wrenched the chair from his grip, but as it fell to the floor the golden door knob fell with it.

As Victra shoved his hand into the hole where the doorknob had been, clearing away the remains of the locking mechanism, Semina straightened slightly and considered her options. Victra’s hysteria could be infectious, she knew, and she didn’t want every Logister trapped there with them to fall to pieces as Casqat nearly had. She could try to reason with him, appeal to his sense of duty and remind him that he stood as a role model for the younger Logisters all around them, but when Victra looked over his shoulders and she saw his round eyes and his white-faced, frantic expression, she changed her mind. Nothing but Melia and Bia occupied his mind. He was a devoted husband and doting father and Semina wouldn’t be able to redirect his energy until he could escape that room and verify for himself whether his family had landed in Siana along with his ancestral estate. Better not to struggle against his emotional or his physical momentum.

Stepping to the side so she could see the hole in the door where Victra had thrust his arm, she realized that there was also a narrow space between the two heavy wooden doors. The two younger men had begun forcing the door open and eventually they would have succeeded, but now with the door knob gone they had no leverage. Semina frowned at the door.

Maybe if we could pass something through the hole where the door handle had been, and secure it so that more of them could pull at it together–

Semina turned back to the Great Table and pointed at the beautifully embroidered table runner that ran down its center and was now stained with the ruins of their untouched, symbolic last meal.

“Mika,” she said, looking at the young, broad shouldered dressmaker standing on the other side of the Table. “Take the table runner to Victra and secure it to the door. I think it’s nearly open, we just need more leverage.”

Mika stepped quickly to the Table and took hold of the end of the runner that had slid out of place and begun to puddle on the floor. He began pulling at it gingerly, looping it over his arm and wincing as cups and forgotten cheeses rolled across it.

Semina sympathized with him. It was a beautiful fabric and the intricate embroidery had taken multiple craftspeople weeks of individual work to complete. But, Semina knew, now was not the time to be precious.

“Now, Mika,” Semina said.

Mika glanced at her then looked back at the table runner. Nodding reluctantly, Mika yanked the runner off the table. Cups clattered to the floor as he ran to the door and began threading the fabric through the hole Victra had made. The older man stood just behind him, his fingers moving sympathetically as Mika yanked a corner of the runner back through the crack between the doors and began tieing the loop closed with sharp tugs.

When it was secure, Victra picked up the middle of the runner and held it with both hands as he glanced over his shoulders at the watching Logisters. “Help me pull!”

Semina watched as finely dressed perfumers, seamsters, watchmakers, and vintners rushed to form a line and pick up the repurposed table runner. Lifting it, they stepped back until the fabric they held was taut.

Victra counted back from three, then threw himself backward again. “Pull!”

The door groaned as the line of Logisters leaned backward. The groan rose to a shriek, then the door gave way all at once and swung inward. As the other Logisters stumbled backward, Victra stepped over the slackened table runner and rushed through the open door. He disappeared down the stairs beyond. A moment later two of Victra’s own lieutenants, Brega and Seshine, exchanged glances and before rushing after him. Following their lead, the rest of the room’s occupants surged toward the door singly or in groups.

Semina watched them go, wondering with a detached corner of her mind where they hoped to run and what they hoped to find. Loved ones? Or their own workshops, or wineries, or all their material wealth suddenly transplanted into the city like Victra's may have been?

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Depends who you ask.

It wouldn't matter what they found if the disaster that had descended on them was still underway. The earthquake had ended only minutes ago. The sky could begin boiling again at any moment. Rushing from shelter so eagerly seemed like madness. But Semina let them go.

Where would I and then instead?

As her Logisters and their retinues finished streaming out the door in a panicked rush, Semina wrapped her arms around herself and imagined what it would be like to be on the edge of what remained of the city when that mind numbing fog rolled down out of the sky again. How many of them would wish they’d stayed in the Tower instead?

But then if the earthquakes returned, the streets could certainly be safer than a Tower that had felt like it was on the verge of collapse. Especially if they moved far enough away before it crumbled and flattened all the buildings around it.

Maybe the streets would be a safer place if some new kind of catastrophe descended on them.

But even if it didn’t, if nothing did, what then?

In less than a minute the room was nearly empty. Only a few managers and retainers remained, forgotten by their Logisters or unwilling to follow them down into the unknown dangers of a transformed Siana. They stood loosely huddled on the opposite side of the Great Table and as Semina considered their anxious, fearful faces, she regretted that she knew none of them by name. Two of the women were older than she was, almost elderly, but the rest were men and women enjoying various stages of youth. Semina knew she had seen each of them before, but none of them had risen to positions of importance that would warrant any kind of personal relationship. She couldn’t even be sure which of her Logisters they’d been attached to.

The only House Logister that had stayed behind was Granday, the ambitious young founder of a cosmetics enterprise. She’d been recommended to Semina by Dualine, and her house had been the most recent of ViPADua’s acquisitions.

And now the last, Semina thought.

The woman stood with her back to the room, looking out of one of the empty windows that faced northeast.

As the noise on the stairs died away, Semina turned toward one of the shattered windows, anxious to see what lay to the south. She had only taken a few steps when one of the remaining attendants cleared his throat.

“Logister Semina?”

Semina glanced again at the small group and paused. She recognized the expectant look in their eyes.

“Logister, what should we do?”

Semina stared at the man. What should we do? It was the kind of question she’d been answering for decades in one form or another.

Where should we build? When should we plant? Which wine should we age? Which gold seam should we sell off now that predictions indicate lovers’ lockets will be less desirable next season?–it was her prerogative to answer these questions and thousands of others, both when they were asked and before they were raised. It was her responsibility to transform each ViPADua enterprise into a truly wealthy house, whether it began in obscurity or had already seen moderate success.

What should we do?

It was such a banal question. Now, here, at the end of the world, how should she answer it? How could they expect her to?

“If you don’t wish to leave you are welcome to stay here,” Semina said, spreading her hands to gesture vaguely at the room around them. “Here or on the lower floors.”

She knew the offer was an empty echo of the hospitality she would normally offer guests–if the world continued to descend into madness it wouldn’t matter if they stayed here, or on the lower floors, or moved out into the streets–but a formulaic nicety was all she had to offer.

As she began to turn back toward one of the windows she expected the group to make their way to the doors or toward any of the overturned chairs, but none of them moved. Most of them stared mutely at her. A few exchanged glances or looked uncertainly at the broken windows.

“Logister Semina, do you think the Tower is safe?”

Semina clenched her jaw so that the sharp words rising in her throat would pile behind her teeth rather than cut into these hapless, directionless middle managers. It was another habit she’d cultivated over decades of managing men and women who chose not to think for themselves unless there was no one in the room who might do it for them. It gave her time to formulate a helpful response that also encouraged the questioner to help themselves. But this was different.

How should I know whether the Tower is safe? How could I know any better than you, when we’ve all been standing here together, waiting for the roof to fall in?

The man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Do you think we should leave with the others?”

Semina shut her eyes.

“I suggest–”

“Go downstairs,” Granday interrupted.

Semina opened her eyes to see that the other Logister had turned from the window to look at the anxious man.

“We were fortunate no one was hurt when the Tower began to shake. The people below may not have been so lucky. Go see if anyone needs help.”

“Right. Of course.” The man looked uncertainly from Granday to Semina.

Semina knew what the man was thinking: ‘And then? And then? And then?’

Who could possibly know, Semina thought. We could all be dead in twenty minutes. Melted into nothingness by a gray mist that seeps out of the ground without warning or crushed into paste when the Tower collapses.

Granday turned her head only slightly to watch Semina with a heavy lidded gaze.

Semina couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw just the hint of an ironic sneer beneath those delicately arched brows.

Frowning, Semina straightened her shoulders slightly and met the man’s anxious gaze. She gestured at the door with one elegant hand.

“One step at a time. If you're able, come back after you’ve surveyed the Tower.”

By then she might have seen something from the windows that would help her formulate a better answer.

Unlikely.

Semina watched the man shepherd the others toward the stairs with a new, businesslike air now that he had a task to guide him. When they were gone Semina moved around the Great Table to join Granday, who had turned again to look out the shattered window. Semina looked out at what remained of the city, pausing in her survey each time she saw another building that didn’t belong.

There are so many… What happened to the buildings that used to be there? There must have been people in some of them. Where have they gone?

She would go down into the city herself soon, but first she wanted to see what she could of the landscape that lay beyond Siana.

Semina glanced sideways at Granday. Seeing that the young woman still stood with a rigid, uninviting posture, Semina turned to her left and began to work her way slowly around the room.

“They were frightened,” Granday said after a few minutes. Her voice was flat.

Semina paused and turned back to face Granday. She frowned. Was that disdain she’d just heard in Granday’s voice? Contempt?

“Who?”

“Benny. The group I sent downstairs.”

“Ah. Shouldn’t they be? Aren’t you?”

Granday said nothing as she stared out at the red horizon beyond the city.

Semina stood quietly for a moment and tried to make sense of Granday’s tone. While she didn’t know Granday especially well, she had never known the woman to treat her managers or laborers with anything approaching contempt. It was such an ungracious, uncharitable response. It would be beneath her.

Semina remembered the anxious, frightened man–Benny…I’ll remember–and she felt another surge of irritated frustration when she remembered the expectant look on his face. Then she felt a brief moment of embarrassment.

Would I have sounded any less frustrated if I'd spoken first?

Semina sighed.

Possibly.

She wouldn't press Granday and would forgive her the uncharitable tone. It was unreasonable to expect a woman so young to provide flawless leadership during the end of the world.

Semina drew a deep breath as she remembered the panicked scramble of the other Logisters as they rushed through the newly opened door and down the Tower's stairs. Semina would do her best to provide a better example. Who else could?