Those Who Ignore History

My part of the mission was over—mostly because my finances in my gloss glowed a shade of red so bright it could've been used to summon demons. That's how I knew it was bad. Will I be able to afford my taxes? Yes. Will I be able to afford food? Technically my governance is already self-sustaining, between the wool, mutton, and milk shipments. But books? No. No I will not. No luxuries at all. Forget rare tomes or the next stack of skillcube research. I'd be lucky to afford a pamphlet at this point.

The gloss pulsed with new messages as I slumped into the back booth, head tipped against the carved mahogany screen.

Bloody Winter: Welp — I'm out.
Eternal Equinox: Really? Already?
Bloody Winter: Their champion is a male named Griuss. He's clearly a beastkin judging from his ears and tail, but I can't tell if it's a foxkin, catkin, or wolfkin.
Unrelenting Summer: Could always ask?
Rising Spring: That would be an awful idea. Asking a beastkin about their blood would be…well, that would be a great way of starting a fight. Something we don't want to do. Yet.

You know it's a bad night when V was the one being reasonable. I sighed aloud and rubbed my temples, staring down at the empty space on the table where my coin pouch used to feel heavy.

The gloss flickered again.

Bloody Winter: Please tell me you got the ledger?
Eternal Equinox: Yeah. But it's encrypted, and I'm sending everything over the Network now.
Bloody Winter: Thank the moons. Unless it is a dummy one.
Cascading Sunset: Likely not. The only way she got in was through her biology.

I couldn't help the small smirk at that. So Fractal got in as a bird and, I assume, out as a bird. That wasn't the plan, but hey—she's small in that form. Most wouldn't notice her darting through the rafters of the Blue Ballet, not when everyone's eyes were on the spinning Chancellors and the stacks of glimmer.

Meanwhile, I'd spent the night bleeding coin into Ember's Cup matches to make sure eyes stayed on me instead. Chancellors screaming across the pit, mana trails flickering like molten ribbons, my thumb and forefinger cramped from constant launch rotations. And for what? Not glory. Not even a chance at a title. This was bait work, plain and simple.

I stared at the darkened gloss screen and muttered under my breath, "Books. No books. No luxuries. What am I, a monk now?"

The screen lit up again, Cordelia's text cutting through my whining.

Rising Spring: Stop sulking. We're almost out.

I exhaled through my nose and typed back.

Bloody Winter: I'm not sulking. I'm prioritizing my grief.

No reply.

The noise of the Blue Ballet roared around me—dice clattering against marble tables, laughter from drunken patrons, glimmer dust sparkling in the low light like fake starlight. And at the center of it all: Baron Dullgave, sitting at his dice table with his usual pile of white powder and his buyers lined up like a queue at confession. Brazen as a sunrise, the man.

We had the footage now. My gloss recorded every transaction, every face, every discreet exchange of coin and powder. Dullgave wasn't even pretending to hide anymore. The question wasn't if we had him—it was why he was letting us see it.

I thumbed another message into the gloss.

Bloody Winter: What's the status on the buyers?
Eternal Equinox: Sven has names. Not enough yet. Need another pass.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Cascading Sunset: Already clear on my end. Out of sight.
Rising Spring: Don't linger too long, Alex. We have enough to work with.

I sat there a moment longer, staring at the blurred reflection of my copper-tinged hair in the gloss screen. We'd made it this far. The ledger was encrypted but real. Fractal's infiltration had worked. Wallace's shields had covered our gaps at the entry point. V's salt tricks had jammed at least two scrying wards. Sven had chained enough intermediaries to start mapping the network.

And me? I'd been the distraction, the poor idiot bleeding coin into a rigged pit while Dullgave's eyes stayed fixed on the matches instead of the shadows above him.

Mission over. Finances gutted. Dullgave's face recorded in high definition, glimmer trades captured frame by frame. And yet, as I rose from the table and slipped my Chancellor back into its case, I couldn't help thinking how utterly brazen he'd been about it all.

Three possibilities had circled my mind all night, and none of them were good.

One: He's just the pawn in someone else's game. Cut him off, and the octopus just grows another arm to strangle me later.
Two: He owns the establishment outright, erases evidence at will, and is confident no one will challenge him.
Three: Someone higher up — maybe even Mother herself — wanted me here, wanted me to see this, to walk directly into some political trap dressed up as a mission.

My gloss pulsed one last time before I cut it off.

Eternal Equinox: You did good, Alex. Come home.

I shut the screen. The words "come home" stung more than I expected. Home wasn't a place for me anymore, not really. Just duties stacked on duties, walls wrapped in labyrinths, and no time for books.

Still, we'd gotten what we came for. And with Fractal already out and the ledger en route, the next phase of our plan could finally begin.

***

We all sat together in the low light of the tea room. The maids had stopped bringing in extras; Cordelia made a point of rationing the leaves. Tea was a luxury now. My gloss balance was flashing a sullen crimson, and for the first time in too long I could taste scarcity in every swallow. I watched the steam curl up from my cup and imagined it was an old friend, something I could visit when my ledgers were kinder.

"So. Any names?" I asked, trying to sound sharper than I felt.

Ten, who had been idly kicking an iron training ball with the toe of her boot, flicked a thumb at the air without looking up. "Only two we have right now. Both clearly aliases. One's literally called 'Moniker.' As if someone wrote an alias and forgot to add the proper noun."

The remark broke the tension enough to draw a snort from V. Cordelia, curled in her chair with the book she'd refused to put down, raised one dark brow and made a little sound that could have been amusement or pity.

Wallace folded his hands on the table and finished for Ten. "The other goes by Warden. That alias is common. Traditionally anyone who takes that name is the one who guards the product in question."

Sven, always efficient, had his pad open on his knee, ink scratching as though it might set our fates in permanent lines. He glanced up long enough to add, "Warden shows up in three registries in the city. Pseudonyms, all of them. Different districts. One match to a storage house on the West Quay. Another to a caravan ledger on the Shield Road. The third is a shell company."

"Perfect," I said. The word tasted acidic in my mouth. "We do not need to find the product. Dullgave has enough on him to sink a skiff. We need his buyers. Follow the buyers and you find the producers. Find the producers and you follow the chain to where the stuff is made."

Fractal had flopped down opposite me, feathered tail curling under her. She watched the steam like it was a small animal about to do something astonishing. "Why does anyone make it at all?" she asked. "It sounds terrible."

"It's profitable," Wallace said. His voice was blunt, like a hammer. "Glimmer is addictive. It changes perception. People buy altered dreams. They pay for the illusion of being someone other than they are. The production is criminal because it uses horn powder. Crystallized narwhal horn is a regulated material. Turning it into a powdered concentrate is a controlled process in three kingdoms. You can only legally handle it with a license held by marine guilds and certain approved apothecaries."

I watched faces. Ten's jaw tightened. Fractal frowned. V casually manipulated a glimmer of salt between his fingers and then let it evaporate. Sven's pen moved faster.

"It's not just addiction," I said. "It's cultural leverage. A lord who controls glimmer can buy loyalty, silence opponents, bribe courts, and build dependency in a region. Farms go under, taxes fail, and those who rely on the substance become malleable. That is the political game. That is why Mother put Dullgave on my list."

Cordelia folded her book closed with a soft sound and fixed me with her calm, clinical gaze. "We must treat this like a supply-chain problem. Not a moral argument. We're not saviors. We're auditors and interceptors. We find the buyers who funnel money upstream and cut the flow. No spectacle. No public confession. No noise that lets the higher-ups rewrite what happened."

I nodded. She was right, of course. Cordelia's tone carried that exact sharpness that turned courtrooms into chessboards. The last thing we needed was to pry a strand only to find it led to a noble who had the queen's favor. Mother gave the remit. Mother wanted quiet compliance. Mother had a ledger of priorities that did not concern itself with sentiment.

"Who's our contact on the ledger?" I asked. "Who has the decryption key? Fractal?"