The twins appeared in the doorway before Harvey finished the sentence.
Lily’s face had already made up its mind. "A tour? Can we see everything?"
"Most of it," Harvey said.
"Can we see where the money is?"
"There isn’t a room full of money. That’s a film thing."
"Oh." Lily turned this over. "Then what do you actually do here? The people upstairs were just looking at screens."
"I’ll show you."
Aunt Estella settled deeper into her chair. Lexx was asleep in his stroller beside her. "You all go," she said, waving a hand. "I’ve found a drama I want to watch."
"What drama?" Franz asked.
"A family that runs a restaurant. There’s a love triangle. I’m very invested."
Franz decided not to ask follow-up questions.
Harvey led them to the floor directly below the executive level first: the investment division, a wide open-plan space full of desks, monitors, and the low hum of concentrated work. Screens showed market data updating in real time. The twins pressed their faces to the glass wall of a conference room where a team was mid-presentation, their gestures emphatic, their voices swallowed by the walls.
"This is where we decide what to invest in," Harvey said. "Analysts study markets across the world. They find companies with potential, projects that need funding. Then they make recommendations."
"And you decide?" Lily asked.
"Ultimately the chairwoman decides. I help."
"What kinds of companies?"
"All kinds. Technology. Energy. Healthcare. Real estate. We have investments on four continents."
Leo typed on his tablet: HOW MUCH MONEY?
Harvey looked at the screen. "That’s confidential, Leo. But it’s a great deal."
Leo nodded, satisfied.
They moved through the legal department: where everything was kept above board. The communications wing: where they talked to the world. The research library, which Lily declared was "just boring books, not story books."
"The boring books are how we make money," Harvey said. "So we can buy the story books."
"That makes sense. But they’re still boring."
As they moved from floor to floor, Franz noticed employees looking up from their desks, eyes widening. A few drifted toward them with phones raised, but pulled back when they saw Harvey at his side. The CEO of Mythos Group, with his tattoos and his unhurried authority, was apparently deterrent enough.
Harvey noticed. "You’re popular."
"It happens."
"They want autographs. Selfies."
"Probably."
"Would you be willing to do a signing session this afternoon? In the cafeteria. Third floor." Harvey paused. "The chairwoman’s people work hard. A visit from Noah Hart would do them good."
Franz had no plans for the afternoon. Arianne would be in meetings until at least three. "I don’t mind."
Harvey nodded. "I’ll arrange it. Two o’clock."
"You have a cafeteria?"
"We have three. The third floor one is the largest."
"Of course it is."
The tour continued. The IT department: where they kept the computers from catching fire. Human resources: where they hired the people who kept the computers from catching fire. A floor of conference rooms, each named after a city.
"Rohan, obviously," Harvey said. "Montclair. Solvaine. Aldenmere. Veyport. The chairwoman named them all."
"She’s very literal," Franz said.
"She’s very efficient. The Montclair room is the one she uses for video calls with Rochefort Group."
The executive dining room: private, with a view that matched Arianne’s office. The fitness center, which Harvey admitted he used more than anyone else in the building. The archives, where Leo wanted to linger and had to be coaxed away with the promise of the stress ball Harvey had seen in the marketing department.
By the time they returned to the executive floor, the twins were tired but happy, pockets full of small things Harvey had gathered on the way: pens with the Mythos logo, a small plush dragon from the marketing team’s mascot shelf, the stress ball shaped like a globe.
"Can we come back tomorrow?" Lily asked.
"Tomorrow we’re doing other things," Franz said.
"What things?"
"I don’t know yet. Your Mommy Aria hasn’t told me."
"She always has a schedule."
"She does."
Harvey walked them back to Arianne’s office. Aunt Estella had not moved. Lexx was asleep. Mildred appeared with juice for the twins and coffee for the adults, and informed them the chairwoman’s meeting had run over but would finish within the hour.
"The signing session is set," Harvey said, taking his cup. "Third floor cafeteria. Two o’clock."
"Thank you," Franz said. "For the tour. For all of it."
"The chairwoman is my oldest friend. Her family is my family." He paused. "Besides: people who come here usually want money. They don’t look at the building. It’s good to show it to someone who does."
"The view is worth looking at."
"It is." Harvey glanced out at the city. "She built this. Her vision, her strategy. I helped, but she’s the one who saw what it could be before it was anything."
Franz said nothing. He looked out at the skyline: the towers, the port, the streets too far below to make out individual people. He had walked some of those streets with her. He hadn’t known, then, what she was building above them.
Harvey set his cup down. "The session’s at two. Don’t be late—the third floor cafeteria seats about two hundred people and I suspect they’ll fill it." He said it without inflection, as if two hundred people turning out on a Tuesday afternoon was a perfectly ordinary thing.
He left, Angelika a step behind him. Franz sat beside Aunt Estella on the couch. The twins were at the window again, pointing at things too small to name.
Lexx stirred in his stroller. Franz reached over and tucked the blanket back into place.
Aunt Estella turned a page of her program guide without looking up. "She built all of it," she said. "Every floor. Every room."
"I know," Franz said.
A beat passed. The twins murmured to each other at the window. Outside, the city went about its business, enormous and unhurried, the way cities do when they have nothing left to prove.
"Good," Aunt Estella said. And went back to her drama.