They walked down the nighttime street to the sound of falling water, perhaps from one of the canals. Tien took the lead, followed by Nina and Firth, who walked side by side. On Firth’s back was the carrying frame to which the magic item was strapped. He was the very picture of a traveling merchant, looking far less unnatural than a maid, a mage, or an inventor ever could have.
Behind them, walking at a slight distance, were Emily and Astrid.
“It’s not like you to get all worked up like that,” said Emily.
“Who, me? I was just being cautious in case he wanted to take advantage of Nina.”
“Uh-huh...”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing!” Emily said. Astrid, it seemed, was back to her old self.
Well, I’m sure she has her reasons. Emily wasn’t going to pry. One day, Astrid would probably tell her herself.
In the end, they had told Firth everything. It was too much trouble to try and keep it a secret, and as a merchant himself, Firth wasn’t totally unconnected—though the biggest reason was to keep him from trying to stop them.
So, they told him about the Golding Merchant House, their theory that Kett was a traitor, and why they needed the recording device to get proof. At first, Firth listened with an air of nonchalance, but as they came to the heart of the matter, his expression grew serious.
“I did hear the Rondats were selling magic items at absurdly low prices,” he had said.
Selling magic items cheaply wasn’t itself a crime, but at that price point, they couldn’t have been making much profit. Customers rushed to buy them up until everyone who wanted one had one, leaving them with a small amount of leftover stock.
“Doing that makes no sense—unless they were trying to undercut another merchant house.”
While the Golding Merchant House got their new products ready for sale, the Rondats released the same product a little ahead of them to eat up all the demand. That left the Goldings with all the items they’d produced sitting around gathering dust.
“But it can’t be that the Rondats stole the designs to make their own version. The merchant house that did the original design would still be able to manufacture it faster. Rather than assume that the Golding design was leaked, it’s more likely that the Rondats fed the Goldings the information so that they’d manufacture the items at a loss.”
With that, Firth announced that he was coming too. Astrid tried to veto this, but he said, “It’ll help your case to have an unconnected merchant on your side to testify about this.” She couldn’t think of an argument against that.
Also, Nina immediately said, “We’re glad to have you, Firth!”
The long and short of it was that Astrid couldn’t stand Firth. Worst of all was how pleased he’d looked at being thanked by Nina.
The five of them followed Tien through the main streets of Central Fontain, then down a number of back streets until at last they reached a dimly lit alley. It was the sort of place you definitely didn’t want to be alone in. The gloom was too much for Astrid’s eyes, but apparently, Tien could see just fine because she set a brisk pace.
“Could you—” Just as Astrid was about to ask her to wait up, light blossomed from Firth’s hand as he produced two small, portable magic lamps.
“Here,” he said.
Astrid took it with a scowl and muttered, “Thanks.” The lamp was small but gave off more than enough light. This was a highly efficient magic item that she knew had only just been released in the Freja Kingdom. She couldn’t stand that Firth had them.
Tien came to a halt. “It is that tavern with the red door,” she said. Ahead of them, a small lamp illuminated a faded red door with a brass sign that read The Redrib Rooster’s Perch. That had to be the name of the tavern.
According to Tien, Kett had left the Golding Merchant House and come here about an hour ago.
“All right, I’ll go take a look around,” said Firth.
“Why you?” said Astrid. “From here on out, this is our business.”
“Well, Kett doesn’t know me, and if it’s a Rondat merchant he’s with, I’ll recognize them. And above all, no one will look twice at a man walking into a tavern—I’ll stand out less than a female inventor.”
“I used to go out to drink by myself all the time back in Freja,” Astrid protested.
“Dude, that’s just sad,” Emily muttered, even though no one asked her.
“Okay, fine,” said Firth. “Then how about everyone except you come with me?”
“Why can’t I—”
“Because Kett knows what you look like, duh,” said Emily.
Astrid gritted her teeth.
“I’ll go with Firth,” Emily went on. “It’d be weird for a maid to be in a tavern, and Tien’s still too young. Although, maybe leave the magic item? That’ll definitely draw attention.”
“Ah, hold on,” Astrid said. “I could rejig the circuitry to make it sensitive enough to record from outside.”
Firth looked taken aback. “This is a complicated piece of machinery. Building it gave our inventors a lot of trouble.”
“Excuse me.” Astrid held her index finger up to Firth’s nose. “How about you leave the inventing to the inventor, merchant boy?”
Firth flinched.
There was a long pause, then Emily said, “Okay, how about this, Astrid? If they’re by the wall or in a private room, I’ll get as close as I can then clap twice. Then you come around the outside to that spot. If I clap three times, they’re in the middle of the tavern.”
Firth protested. “But they won’t be able to hear you clap from out—”
“Understood,” Tien said, cutting him off. “If they are in the middle, Chi will go in with the recording device from the roof.”
She took the carrying frame from Firth, shouldered it, then nimbly leaped her way up to the top of the neighboring building. She quickly identified a way to climb up, then returned to the ground.
“It will be easy,” she concluded. Through all of this, she hardly made a sound.
“This girl isn’t normal either,” Firth said under his breath.
After Firth and Emily disappeared inside The Redrib Rooster’s Perch, Nina, Tien, and Astrid went into the narrow alley that led behind the tavern. Even here, there was a waterway, but in the absence of light, the surface looked black. Rats scurried away as they illuminated their surroundings with the magic lamps that Firth had left them.
“Erm... Astrid?” Nina said.
“Hm?”
“I... I’m sorry.”
Astrid blinked in confusion at the sudden apology.
“It’s just, well, this all happened because I wanted to say thank you to the Golding Merchant House,” Nina explained. “Then I decided on my own to contact Firth. You...don’t like him very much, do you?”
“That’s not true,” Astrid lied. There was no getting around the fact that she couldn’t stand him, but if she could just get through today, he’d go away and she might never have to see him again. She was enough of a grown-up to want to keep things amicable until then, even if it meant lying.
“Firth is a very good person.”
“Mm.”
“Like I said before, if it weren’t for him, we never would have met.”
“Mm, I know.”
“I’d be very happy if the two of you could be friends.”
Astrid bit her tongue. Why? Why is she so hung up on what I think of Firth?
Her vague misgivings rapidly multiplied. For that matter, what about Firth did she find so objectionable? She’d almost never had such a strong reaction to anyone else before—even the inventor women back in Freja who’d said nasty things about her.
“Firth is a trustworthy merchant,” Nina went on. “Once you go back to being an inventor, I’m sure he’d be a great help to you.”
Oh... So that’s it! Astrid thought as it all clicked into place.
Nina had gone to the Vick Merchant House because they were known for selling magic items, but that wasn’t the only reason.