‘I’m a piece of architecture, Detective. How should I know how humans are like to die?’ Architect Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with. A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing; a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every load-bearing beam and fine marble tile with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. But now Deniau’s been dead a year, and his masterpiece, Rose House, is locked up tight. Dr Selene Gisil, a former protege, is the sole person permitted, once a year, to enter Rose House. But now, there is a dead person inside. It is not Deniau, and Rose House refuses to speak. Dr Gisil can enter, but she wasn’t there when Rose House called in the death. Yet someone was. Someone died. And someone, or something, may be there still.
