Chapter Fourteen

  Delectable Schemes

  Abigail Graystone. It could be, indeed, and it was. Abigail’s brother was Edric bloody Graystone. Whereas she had welcomed his attendance tonight, her sibling had recoiled at the very sight of him. To be fair, Elias had punched the man into an evening’s worth of egg tarts.

  “I’ll see you around,” Abigail told Elias, floating back into the ocean of gowns.

  “See you around,” he mumbled, watching her walk away.

  A familiar hand squeezed his shoulder. “There you are! What’s that you’re ogling so intensely?” Bertrand inquired.

  Elias snapped out of it. “Cheeses. Just went for some cheeses. How are you two faring?”

  “Noah was just telling me about the Graystones and their latest relic-skimming racket,” Bertrand informed him. “Goddamn schemers, all of them, but who can stop the criminals when the criminals write the laws?” Bertrand downed his drink and reached over a woman’s shoulder to acquire another.

  “My father works with them,” Noah explained to Elias. “Basically, they’re adding another airship to their fleet without paying a copper in tax.”

  Elias wouldn’t pretend to understand the intricacies of Trader’s Guild law, but that certainly sounded ridiculous. If The Fairweather Company paid its taxes, surely The Graystone Company ought to contribute its fair share. “How is that possible?” he wondered.

  Noah looked glad he asked. “Well, the Graystones have been helping this other company, you see, cutting them deals, that sort of thing. Except they’re not actually helping this company. What they’re really doing is buying an airship from them. Tell me, Elias—Elias, right?”

  Elias nodded.

  Noah scanned their immediate vicinity and, seeing no eavesdroppers, said, “How do you sell an airship without anyone paying tax?”

  Elias scratched his jaw and racked his brain. This was the sort of puzzle he loved. “I suppose you could give it to them as a gift,” he eventually guessed.

  “You could,” Noah said, “or at least you used to be able to. The Trader’s Guild cracked down on that.”

  Elias shook his head. “What if the ship didn’t belong to anyone?”

  Noah looked impressed and said as much. “You’ve got a smart friend here, Bertrand. Where did you say he was from?”

  “Sapphire’s Reach,” Bertrand said, his new glass of sherry already half empty.

  Noah looked even more impressed. Elias couldn’t decide if he ought to be flattered or slightly insulted.

  “After the restrictions on gifts came into effect, our city’s creative tax dodgers headed to the mountains,” Noah went on. “An abandoned item need not be gifted. It can merely be found by an interested party. Needless to say, this new practice attracted new pirates. Something had to be done, and The Graystone Company had a solution.”

  This time, Elias couldn’t muster a guess.

  “The Graystones opened a junkyard at the edge of town,” Noah said. “As decreed by the Trader’s Guild, registered companies could no longer forfeit ownership of property without the appropriate paperwork, requiring they abandon the asset in question at the only council-approved junkyard in town. No more pirates. No more easy tax evasion. Problem solved, right?”

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  “I’m guessing wrong,” Elias surmised.

  “That depends on whom you ask,” Noah replied. “Abandoned property is still abandoned property. The only difference now is that it sits within a walled-off junkyard owned by The Graystone Company. For most of us, it’s just a junkyard. But for the Graystones and their friends on council, it is a fucking buffet, my friend.” Noah made a pistol with his fingers and aimed it at Elias. “And that is how you procure an airship without paying a copper in tax.”

  Duly noted, Elias thought to himself.

  “Speaking of absurd wealth.” Bertrand pointed his drink toward the ballroom entrance. “It appears Mr. Grimsby has finally graced us with his presence. Despite hosting the event, the old man usually only joins for an hour or two.”

  “How old is he exactly?” Elias asked.

  Bertrand shrugged. “Old. He began his tenure as council chair around when I was born, and he was already old then, or so I hear. He’s a secretive man—always has been.”

  As Bertrand and Noah picked up the threads of an earlier conversation Elias couldn’t quite follow, the newcomer excused himself and headed once more to the dessert table. He kept an eye out for Abigail, failing to find her rose-colored gown amid the room’s verdant forest of much bigger, brighter dresses.

  He did find the cheeses again, at least. And, to his surprise, the host of the evening’s event.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met, young man.” Bartholomew Grimsby spoke in a soft voice that betrayed his reputation. This was the voice of council chair, and yet it barely bridged the few feet they stood apart.

  “Elias,” Elias said. “Elias Vice.”

  Mr. Grimsby went for the blue cheese and savored his first bite. “I try not to eat too much cheese at my age, but I do love… I do love a good cheese. I don’t believe I’m familiar with the Vice family. Are you new to Sailor’s Rise?”

  “Very new, sir," Elias confirmed.

  “Then welcome to my party, Mr. Vice. I hope you’ve been enjoying the music and the merriment and the cheeses.”

  “It’s quite the spectacle. I certainly never attended any parties like this in Acreton.” Elias added, “That’s in Sapphire’s Reach.”

  “I am familiar with Acreton.” It was the first time anyone outside his immediate household had said as much. “A quaint little town on the river, if I recall. Why did you leave?”

  “There was nothing for me in Acreton,” Elias said. “I had ambitions. I have ambitions.”

  “Ah, yes. Ambition.” Mr. Grimsby reached into his inner coat pocket and retrieved a single relic. The ancient coin looked almost youthful in the old man’s worn-leather palm. He gazed at Elias with eyes of an uncommonly pale gray, as if—like his snow-white hair—they had lost the brighter color of their youth. “The price of ambition,” he said, holding up the relic, “and the reward for it. Not so much a ladder as an endless cycle.”

  On that enigmatic note, Mr. Grimsby closed his fingers into a fist. He opened them a few seconds later, one digit at a time, until Elias realized the shiny relic he once held had disappeared.

  “Enjoy the ball, young man,” he said. “You’ve earned your place here.”

  Mr. Grimsby was halfway gone before Elias remembered to thank his gracious host. He’d been too distracted by what he had just witnessed. Making a relic disappear was not an uncommon magic trick, but Elias had recently learned that trickery wasn’t always required.

  Who was Bartholomew Grimsby, he wondered? He was an eccentric man, according to Mable, but eccentricity was only another costume. Underneath it, Mr. Grimsby was undoubtedly a man with many stories to tell.

  Elias grabbed two slices of cranberry pie on his way back from the dessert table, intending to give one to Bertrand. Perhaps it was because he was in his head, where he so often resided, or perhaps it was simply bad luck. Regardless of the reason, Elias didn’t see the familiar man who stepped out suddenly from behind a crowd.

  Edric Graystone glared down at the red-stained canvas that had been his white shirt, as chunks of pie crust fell to the floor. He looked up at Elias. “Pastries again, you fucking twat.”

  Elias couldn’t decide if he ought to apologize or own the moment. Edric stormed off before he could say anything. Elias spun himself around to see whether anyone else had witnessed this social calamity, but the only person who met his spinning gaze was none other than the stained victim’s sister.

  Abigail’s chuckle escalated into outright laughter as she watched on, covering the curve of her mouth. Elias smiled back, holding up the plated remains of his cranberry pie. She disappeared again, still giggling.

  And as he lost sight of her, Elias took in the room around him: the tree that shone with as many lights as the sky had stars, the few-hundred faces he didn’t recognize, and the few he did. In only a handful of months, he had gone from shooting scrap metal on the outskirts of Acreton to dancing with Abigail Graystone at the Solstice Eve Ball. He had come a long way in a short time, Abigail had said, though Elias wondered if that were really true.

  Was this the start of new beginnings, or was this but a sample—a sip of the life he would never be able to afford? Not all mysteries could be solved in a single evening, and such was the mystery of his future.