CHAPTER 57: FRAGMENTED BUSINESS

  Hamford was the second-largest town in the Broken Isles, which, as Briley had pointed out earlier, really wasn’t saying a whole lot. The Isles had always been a decentralized country, she explained, a fragmented nation full of fragmented people. Its remote industries meant they often worked miles apart, many in logging and its adjacent businesses—such as Grayson’s paper mill—or otherwise out at sea, fishing it clean. Indeed, the Broken Isles was home to many sailors. Sailors like the man Elias once believed his father to be, like the fake surname he tossed overboard almost two years ago now, leaving him to wonder if it would ever wash back ashore.

  The crew pulled into the docks and found an empty space suitable for The Sapphire Spirit. Elias could see other isles in the distance and the ocean between them, though it looked so different from the ocean of Saint Albus. It was hard to believe that this one belonged to the same expansive body. It was the other sea that connected the world, running around it rather than through.

  The torrent of rain had calmed to a more manageable pattering, not that it did them any favors at this point. They were already as soaked as sailors could be as they walked together down the docks into town.

  “Welcome to Hamford,” Briley said with constrained enthusiasm. “It’s lovely when the sun comes out, which is pretty much never.”

  Elias felt that Briley was underselling her hometown, perhaps because his version had the opposite problem—there had never been enough rain in Acreton. Owing to its temperate, wet weather, the Broken Isles was eternally lush and green, its tall, wind-dancing forests interrupted only by the ocean’s intrusion and the rare settlement. Even standing at the edge of Hamford, it seemed that nature was never far away. Most buildings in town were timber-framed, but where stone had been laid, moss inevitably encroached.

  “We need to hurry,” Elias said, clutching to the belief that they might still salvage their situation. “Can you take us to Grayson, Briley?”

  “I can take you to his mill, where I suspect Grayson will be,” she replied, then skipped into a steady gait. “Follow me.”

  They walked across town with more ease than they were accustomed to, for the streets of Hamford were anything but bustling. Elias did not feel as out of place here as he often did in other foreign countries. Rather, Hamford felt almost like a ghost town, though as Briley had already told them, it was simply a fragmented one. People were at work, and work pulled them apart.

  The industrial part of town, a staggered assemblage of blocky buildings along the coast, proved to be the exception to that rule. Tired-looking men loitered outside various mills, smoking their pipes as if paying tribute to the smokestacks belching plumes overhead. Briley led them to the third, and by far smallest, building they passed and said, “This is it.” She put a hand on Elias’s shoulder as he stepped inside and whispered, “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  But Elias was holding onto neither hope nor despair, for he knew one was as dangerous as the other. He was treading purgatory’s cool water, breathing shaky breaths, head bobbing just above the surface. He had not spoken one word the entire trek over.

  And yet even Elias lit up a little as they toured the modest facility, marveling at its machinery. The advent of steam-powered airships had triggered a technological revolution that now spanned almost every industry, and papermaking was no exception. Pulp and water were pressed into wide, continuous sheets, boundless blank canvases awaiting their printed destiny—to be a great novel sitting on a shelf in Azir or, perhaps more likely, a silly flyer blowing down the streets of Sailor’s Rise.

  They stopped in front of a small office at the back of the mill, Grayson’s name etched on the door’s frosted glass window. Briley knocked, waited, then knocked again.

  A minute ticked by before a man approximately their age opened the door, first looking surprised and then, to Elias’s great dismay, stricken with guilt. “Briley,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you were going to show up.” He hesitated before opening the door wider. “Come in.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The four of them stepped into Grayson’s office, even Iric and Gabby, who had nowhere else to be. A short, heavily made-up woman in her forties or fifties was leaning cross-armed against an old maple desk, observing them as they filed inside. The woman was dressed in an impeccable gray suit, her silver-streaked hair tied in a neat bun.

  Grayson, meanwhile, was clinging to himself uncomfortably. “I would offer you a place to sit, but—” There were not enough seats.

  “We’re too late, aren’t we?” Briley said the hard part for him.

  “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I signed with Mrs. Bane just thirty minutes ago.”

  “Victoria Bane,” the woman in question introduced herself, removing her glove and reaching forward. “Bane Industries.”

  Briley shook hands on the company’s behalf. “Briley,” she said. “This is Elias, Iric, and Gabby.” She gestured toward them. “We are The Two Worlds Trading Company, or most of it.”

  “What sort of business is Bane Industries?” Iric asked bluntly.

  “We are every kind of business,” Victoria answered. “We are large and diversified. We own half the mills in Hamford. Efficiencies of scale, you see.”

  “It also helps to buy your competition,” Elias commented.

  Victoria chuckled. “That too. You four are traders, I presume. If I may be honest, you’re not what I imagined. I mean no offense. I’m simply surprised that a small trading venture would have the coin to purchase Grayson’s paper mill, even at a discount—and modest though it is.”

  Modest was one word for it. The mill employed only about a dozen people, and its profit margins were, like the paper it peddled, rather thin. With salaries, materials, shipping, and everything else that burdened a business, the mill generally ended its year two or three thousand in the black. It was a stable company, and it kept its men and women employed, but there were reasons Grayson was willing to part with it for a mere thirty thousand relics. Elias and Briley had run the numbers countless times, concluding they could double profit margins by bringing shipping in-house. At that rate, it would have taken them seven or eight years to pay off the initial investment, assuming they did not expand the business. It was a promising payback period—Elias wouldn’t have even been thirty yet. It was, it had been, a nice dream.

  “We acquired our money rather recently,” Briley explained.

  “Pray tell, how does one acquire thirty thousand relics rather recently?”

  “We won The Emerald Cup,” Gabby stated proudly.

  This time, Victoria fully guffawed.

  “She’s not kidding,” Elias added. “We won the race, gathered our prize money, and flew here as fast as we could.”

  There was a moment of silence, an opportunity for someone to admit the jest or crack an inadvertent smile. When no tell transpired, Victoria’s eyes widened. “You’re serious? You just won The Emerald Cup?”

  “By a hair,” Briley said. “I suppose we’ll have to invest our prize money elsewhere.”

  Victoria appeared contemplative, staring at each of them through her silver-framed spectacles. “So, you’re traders with a fast ship, a good pilot, and a whole lot of gumption. Interesting.”

  “What’s interesting about it?” Elias inquired, still sounding defensive, not that there was anything to defend against, save for his own disappointment.

  “My company has made a number of new acquisitions over the past few seasons,” Victoria said. “It has been a banner year for Bane Industries, but growth spurts invite growing pains. The traders I presently employ have been slow with shipments lately. Overstretched, they say. I could use the help of another business, and you could still deliver shipments from this mill. I know it’s not exactly what you came for, but it is an offer. How many ships do you have?”

  “Just the one,” Briley said, “but we’re fast, real fast.”

  “I believe it,” Victoria replied. “One is fine for now. But who knows? If things go well between us, maybe you will need that prize money for a second airship. I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s a habit of mine. The imagination loves to run wild.”

  “Then you and Elias will get along splendidly,” Briley said. “Isn’t that right, Elias?”

  He nodded half-heartedly.

  Briley jolted some life into him with the bolt of her elbow.

  “Yes,” he said, “I am sure we will get along great. Thank you for the opportunity, Mrs. Bane.”

  “Victoria is fine.” She approached him as if to inspect a familiar ailment, a visible deformity marring his face that only she could see. “You’re clearly clever young entrepreneurs, having achieved so much so young,” she said. “But I have been doing this for two decades longer than you, and time has taught me a few lessons I may impart. Take the deal life gives you, boy. Don’t obsess over the one you imagined.”

  Elias exhaled through his nostrils and bobbed his head. “I know,” he said, still staring at the ground. “I do. It’s just… taking me a moment.” He lifted his gaze in stages, and when he eventually founds hers, he thanked her again. “We won’t disappoint you, Victoria. Not everyone knows it yet, but we’re the fastest traders on the Great Continent. We already have some impressive clients, and we would love for you to be among them.”

  And with that, Victoria appeared satisfied. “I’m glad we could do business together,” she said, smiling. “I shall draw up a contract.” Not wasting a second, she retrieved a stack of papers from her leather handbag and asked, “Any other plans while you’re on this side of the continent?”

  “I suppose I should catch up with a few old friends.” Briley was extending the proverbial olive branch to a still emotionally recovering Grayson.

  Iric and Gabby shrugged at Elias as their chief proprietor said on everyone’s behalf, “I think we might take a moment to relax.”