CHAPTER 43: PUDDLING REGRET

  “Are you a fucking idiot?”

  While Bertrand looked more aghast, Briley had always been the blunter one.

  “Briley, language.” A certain decorum needed to be maintained at family dinners, and someone—and that someone happened to be Mable Fairweather—had to be the lone enforcer of decency.

  “I thought you were finding us an investor,” Briley went on, “not publicly gambling away everything we’ve built. We finally cobble together a solid foundation for this company, and you just couldn’t resist running for the dynamite.”

  Bertrand gradually recovered and found his voice: “The entry fee alone is—”

  “All that we have, I know,” Elias finished for him. “Look, I didn’t actually sign us up for anything. I just… said some words in a public place in front of some important people.”

  “That was pretty dumb, Elias.” Irvin, whose guiding philosophy was to let these young entrepreneurs learn from their own mistakes, took a stronger position than was usual for him. More than anyone else’s, his disapproval stung. And for the foolhardy chief proprietor who had earned it, self-doubt melted into something less: a puddle of pure regret.

  “I know I fucked up, everyone,” Elias admitted.

  “Language,” Mable insisted again.

  “But I have a plan.”

  “Don’t you always,” Bertrand said. He sighed. “Let’s hear it.”

  “I’m glad you said that, Bertrand, because my plan sort of revolves entirely around you.”

  “Me?” Needless to say, there were no other Bertrands at the table. “This is your scheme. Why must I do the work?”

  “Because you’re the best Sirens player among us. Probably the best I’ve ever seen.” Elias may have been buttering him up (he was doing likewise with a steaming biscuit he cut in two), but there was no need for exaggeration. Bertrand really was phenomenal (as was the biscuit).

  “I think I know where this is going,” Bertrand replied, a little too flattered to sound entirely annoyed.

  “As I’m sure you all know, The Emerald Cup is the season’s main event, but with the world gathered in the Rise starting next week, it’s not the only competition in town,” Elias explained. And then, without further ado, he reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a water-stained flyer he carefully rolled open over the dinner table.

  The colorful flyer, while looking a little worse for wear, showed a vibrant if faded scene of two handsome men in top hats sitting alongside an attractive woman with gravity-defying hair, each of them holding a hand of cards. One man appeared rather pleased with what fate had dealt him, while the other looked like he had received a life-threatening diagnosis. The woman smirked a secret smirk as cigar smoke wafted around them like mist in a dream.

  Hear the Siren’s call, the flyer read. Her voice reaches the best card players across the Great Continent. In smaller print below this proclamation were the logistical details: a date, a location (a luxury airship that would be circling Sailor’s Rise for the duration of the event), the prize money, and, of course, the entry fee.

  The winner of the card competition would receive ten thousand relics, but those who made it to the final table—in this case, four players—would walk home with at least five thousand to their name. The entry fee was five hundred relics, or one-tenth of what it would cost to enter The Emerald Cup. It still was not cheap.

  “We can’t yet afford a place in The Emerald Cup,” Elias said, “but we can afford Bertrand’s ticket to this Sirens competition. He only needs to make it to the final table, and I’ve never seen the guy lose. Make it that far, my friend, and we have our entry fee for the race.”

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  “Or we pocket the prize money instead of immediately gambling it all away again,” Bertrand countered.

  “Yeah, but…”—Elias should have prepared himself better—“this is my idea. Look, if you don’t walk away with at least five thousand relics, I will accept that we can’t enter the race and thus cannot buy your friend’s company, Briley. I’ll look like an idiot, but I shall wear my shame for as long as it hangs over me.”

  Their relentless retorts ceased for a spell. Elias was not sure he had won them over, but in their silent stares, he sensed a small victory.

  “Five hundred isn’t nothing either,” Briley eventually said. “I know we’re in decent financial shape right now, but if things took an unexpected turn for the worse, it’s money we could use.”

  This one, Elias had prepared himself for. “I’ve been saving a portion of my cut every week, hoping I might rent someplace a little nicer than that trashcan in Lowtown I currently call home. I will contribute a hundred of my own relics to this, meaning we only need to pull four hundred from our Trader’s Bank account. Naturally, I’ll want it back,” he added, “if my plan works out.”

  “You mean, if Bertrand places in this card competition, we somehow manage to win The Emerald Cup, and Grayson hasn’t already sold his company in the meantime,” Briley clarified.

  “Maybe mention to him that we’re putting together an offer,” Elias suggested.

  “That’s a stretch.”

  “Just say something.”

  Briley reached across the table for the last biscuit. “I suppose I could find the right words,” she said, “assuming Bertrand agrees.”

  “Why does it always come down to me?” Bertrand searched the ceiling for guidance before returning his gaze to friends and family, their eyes ticking toward him from their empty dinner plates. “Fuck it.”

  “Bertrand!” Mable had had it.

  * * *

  Eighty-seven. Eighty-seven relics Elias had now consumed and carefully tracked in his notebook. He was counting each one with its own tally mark, and at some point in the future he would jot down the number of tallies indenting each page. He was still very much on page one.

  This was somewhat by choice. Elias hadn’t lied about the hundred relics stowed away in his cupboard, though whether he had set them aside for nicer accommodation, eventual collection, or another wild gamble, he had not really known for certain until he found himself volunteering them for option three.

  His former employer, Mr. Humbledon, had been a soft soul, but in his slow and gentle manner he would impart lessons too. When Elias had one day earned more than expected, and more than he’d ever earned as a recently orphaned sixteen-year-old, Mr. Humbledon had told him, closing the boy’s fist over his coin, “Poor men count their coppers. Wise men invest them.”

  Elias had not imagined those words would stick with him, and yet four years later they were still sitting on his mental shelf, imbued as they were with the magic of good intentions. He only later realized that Mr. Humbledon had probably cared more about him than a shattered teenager could have possibly recognized.

  He sometimes wondered the same about Jalander, and maybe this was the unspoken power Elias held over his father’s old friend. It was not a power he ever intended to abuse or even test, and yet what man doesn’t play the hand he is dealt, whether or not he admits it to himself?

  After dinner at the Fairweathers, Elias swung by the old Serpent Moon School headquarters to see him in person for the first time since their secret job in Saint Albus. Jalander was surprised to see him, slightly annoyed he came unannounced, and ultimately welcoming of his company. He poured tea as Elias shared recent updates from his life, most of which did not seem to surprise the perceptive collector.

  “I’m pleased to hear you and your business are growing up,” he said. “You should focus on that. Not on… this.”

  “You can stop worrying about me. I’m being careful.” Elias accepted his tea, blowing it before sipping as if to prove the point. “I’ve only consumed eighty-seven relics so far. Eighty-seven. That’s it. You said ascension takes a few thousand. I’m investing in the business.”

  “Good.” Jalander took a seat.

  “Obviously, I’ll never save a few thousand relics one relic at a time. I need to invest in the company. I need to invest in making real money. Then I can ascend.”

  Jalander sighed. “So, nothing has changed since last we spoke. Certainly not your mind.”

  “I know what I want.”

  “You clearly think you do.” He reached for his pipe and began packing. “I spoke with Constance. It’s preferable you didn’t tell her anything. I actually trust the woman, but… it is easier this way. She told me about the race. She said you drew something of a crowd the other night.”

  “I wasn’t trying to,” Elias said. “I was just defending myself. This guy, Edric, he’s—”

  “A little shit, I know. Many of them are. But you need to be smarter than them, lad. The Valshynar have eyes and ears everywhere, including The Emerald Cup. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “That’s exactly what Constance said,” Elias recalled.

  “She’s a wise woman.” Jalander paused momentarily to get his pipe going, puffing quickly before savoring a long inhale, the embers inside smoldering like lava. “When she wants to be.” He exhaled the smoke.

  “We might not even enter the race,” Elias admitted. “It’s a pricy ticket. Bertrand is going to try something. We’ll see. And even if we do enter and actually win the thing, that money is going straight into an acquisition. I’m still just investing in the business.”

  Jalander did not ask for details. He only said, “Your freedom is a prize, Elias. If ever you lose it, you will realize that.”