Two-World Traders (progression fantasy)

"We come from different worlds, my love, and yet we've risked everything for what can never be. Out there, what am I to you but a simple shoemaker? Everything feels perfect inside these walls, like a shoe in a box before it has seen a single scuff, but we both know that you and I are not built to withstand the seasons. I am threadbare, and you—you are a cobbler's masterpiece."

The stage was a bedroom, an audience of several hundred watching on, watching as a poor, Lowtown cobbler bared his heart before his mistress, a well-to-do woman from Hightown. He lived in one world, she in another. He was married, and she was also married. They were not meant to be, and yet a love of shoes had "tangled them like a knot in a lace," as the shoemaker had put it on two separate occasions.

Now it was the woman's turn. "I am no masterpiece," she told her forlorn lover. "I feel rather like the scraps on the floor." He tried to protest, but she put a finger to his lips. "I know the rest is right. You and me. The love we share. It is the only I have ever truly known, and yet it is no less doomed. But listen here: I shall find no better shoemaker, for none exists. And every so often, when a heel snaps or the fashions change, I will come back to you. We will talk without talking, but our eyes will say everything, and in those stolen glances, I will feel our love again, for if that is all the love I shall ever know in this world, I will take it—like a beggar plucking coppers off the ground, I will take it. You think me rich, cobbler, but I am so very poor."

Elias thought he heard a sniffle to his right. He glanced over at Briley in the seat beside him, her eyes glossy, her jaw tensed, doing her damnedest, he could tell, to keep that dangling tear from falling. He turned back toward the stage before she could glance back, as silent as a secret. Perhaps the particulars of a logistically challenged relationship had struck a chord somewhere inside Briley's wound-up heart. He was not sure she would have extended him the same courtesy.

The Cobbler's Mistress ended somewhat abruptly, but Briley found a few seconds to recover as an infectious applause broke out inside the theater. Amara had procured them seats on the balcony, which provided a good vantage point not only for the show but also to observe the venue itself. The Elm Theater was, despite its singular name, three theaters inside a colossal complex, though one would never have guessed sitting inside. There were two balconies and hundreds of red-backed seats, every single one of them full tonight (as for their tickets, Amara had called in a favor).

As audience members rose from their chairs, still clapping, Elias rose with them—if not because he loved the play, then because he needed to stretch his legs. When the clapping finally ceased, they queued their way out and gathered in the grand lobby, a multistoried space with a distant skylight through which he spotted the full moon. Arched stairwells coiled around the lobby like threads on a screw, forming pathways to every balcony of every theater. It was a marvelous feat of engineering. If Azir's colosseum had been the biggest structure Elias had ever stepped inside, then The Elm Theater was the most intricate, most modern.

They lingered on the ground floor after acquiring some sherry, finding safe harbor on opposing chesterfields in a sea of candlelight amid waves of ambient laughter. Briley was stiff and focused on her drink, while Amara slinked into her seat as if she were one with the leather. Bertrand looked comfortable, whereas Elias—Elias had never quite discovered the meaning of comfort.

Still, he was mostly relieved after the events of their previous night. He had told Bertrand the short version, which ended when he had changed the contract and then exited back out the window, no one the wiser. His business partner still remarked that it was outrageously stupid, what they had done, though he said it with a smile.

For Bertrand was far too happy to be upset. He had broken the news just before the show, the timing of which possessed an unintended irony: celebrating love's triumph while watching a play dedicated to its tragic downfall. One of them was even a shoemaker of sorts, though in this case she represented the wealthier half of the equation.

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Still, nothing could break the spell of a new engagement.

"And I haven't even mentioned Bertrand's achingly romantic proposal," Amara said, swirling her wine, one knee crossed over the other. "What a wordsmith my wondrous betrothed is—a master cobbler of nouns and verbs, this one."

"Those words were for you and you alone, my dear." Bertrand was blushing.

"I want to hear them," Briley insisted, "line for line, on one knee if you don't mind."

Elias laughed first, though he kind of wanted to hear them too. "She's not wrong," he said. "Bertrand has penned many a fine flier for The Two Worlds Trading Company. Perhaps you should write a play, my friend. I dare say you could write something as good as what we just watched."

"Better, I imagine," Amara added with a sigh. "The play did not live up to the hype, though maybe I'm biased. Never watch an artist represent your trade, for they are bound to get it all wrong. I suppose if the poor cobbler had been a miner, I would be none the wiser, but the show was, alas, spoiled for me. My tolerance for shoe poetry isn't what it once was."

"Well, I for one thought The Cobbler's Mistress had an abundance of sole," Bertrand said. "That's sole spelled—"

"Yes, we know." Amara swatted his knee, lovingly, then pushed herself up off it. "If you would excuse me, everyone, I must visit the lady's room to make space for more mediocre wine."

"She seems happy," Briley noted in Amara's wake, "in spite of the play and the wine."

"Amara has refined taste," Bertrand explained on her behalf. "She dwells with disappointment like unchosen family. You learn to love it a little."

The situation struck Elias with a sudden wave of recognition. He recalled something Abigail had once said to him, back when they were wandering Azir on that perfectly tepid (if not perfectly ended) evening three years ago. "I am not a snob," she had said. "I merely appreciate quality, and one cannot appreciate quality without also recognizing mediocrity." He chuckled inwardly and then somewhat sadly.

His friends turned their attention to him, though perhaps they misread what was on his mind—or were merely taking advantage of Amara's absence. "I suppose you'll be leaving us for the Stone Academy in a couple of weeks," Briley said.

"The Gray Academy," Elias corrected her. "It will only be for a month. You'll manage without me. Not too well, I hope."

"Notwithstanding the obligatory nature of your attendance, it is kind of exciting, isn't it?" Bertrand certainly looked the part of excited on his behalf. "You've spent your whole adult life hiding this part of yourself, and now you'll be surrounded by people just like you."

"They're not just like me," Elias said.

"How would you know?" Bertrand rebutted. "You haven't met them yet."

"Experiences make a man. Mine are… my own."

"Very well." Bertrand eased into a correction: "People who… share your aptitude. Fellow special people. You may not even stand out for once."

"You'll be just another bush in the garden," Briley added.

"Fine by me," Elias said, putting up a shell against their words as they grated against him. He did not care. He should not care. This was a survival mission.

But, yes, he was rather excited about it all in spite of himself. He was excited to learn the ways of a people he had only read about and observed from afar. He was excited to hone his skills, to grow stronger not just through collection but through practice (Briley, once his sparring partner, could no longer keep up with him). He was excited to meet fellow collectors his own age—and one in particular, the young woman named Harriet, he was especially excited to see again. Hell, he was even excited to be tested.

"Well, I can't wait to hear all about it," Bertrand said.

* * *

Elias's next two weeks went by in a blur. They returned to Sailor's Rise the morning after the play with no intention of visiting Adelbury again anytime soon, Briley suggesting they "let the dust settle before showing their faces again." Back home, Elias wrapped up what needed to be wrapped up and packed his things a day earlier than necessary. He would miss his friends and business partners for the month he was away, he realized. It was a short spell in the grand scheme of things, but he had grown accustomed to seeing them like family. Their absence would be "like a month without sun," Bertrand had mused for him, "or a day without mail." Though most of all, Elias felt he would miss the cat. He spent his last evening in the Rise with Islet coiled on his lap, staring out the window of their second-story office, his mind in the stars.

Early the next morning—as a sea of fog flooded Sailor's Rise, reminding him of the day he won The Emerald Cup—Elias arrived at the same inconspicuous dock that Constance had led him to a season ago. As their golden ship appeared in the distance like a firefly in the mist, it was not so much dread he felt now but a nervous anticipation.