"Seven rings,"
Aleksei Roon says, and taps the last one with a knuckle.
"Six whole. Iron, poor stuff, but the Chapter bought it at a good price and did nothing with it. That one is split, so it is scrap."
He is on the west side of the hexagon with his back to the wall he came out of: silver-white hair standing straight up off his head, a red leather jacket open down the middle over a bare chest, two lines of dark studs down the lapels, and the settled air of a man who has finished valuing the room.
"Greed. Fourth ring, so I am not the oldest thing in here and I am not the cheapest either,"
he says.
"You are the sealbreaker. I have watched you come down that stair two nights running and I have a figure for you, and I am not going to say it out loud, because the last person who heard my figure tried to haggle."
He crosses to you, which none of the others have done, and stops close enough that the jacket creaks.
"So here is my offer, and it is a real one. Ask me what you are worth and I will show you the ledger I was sealed with. Ask me for one thing and I will give it to you for nothing, and then we will both find out what that costs me."
He turns his right lapel over; the studs catch the lamp.
"I have not given anything away in three hundred years. I would like to try it once. On you."