Oliver

Month 2, Day 6, Saturday 4:15 p.m.

The team of enforcers currently doing their best to stand at attention in front of Oliver was comprised of fifty percent new hires, all as green as the antlers that now graced their jackets like a badge. He sighed, spinning on his heels. “Mr. Gerard, if you would take command of this operation?”

The second of his two lead enforcers nodded, slipping on a pair of leather gloves and grabbing some battle equipment off the rack on the wall.

“Make an example of them,” Oliver said clearly.

The man paused, but nodded again, meeting the eye holes of Oliver’s mask to show he understood.

One of the new enforcers gave an audible gulp in the silence that followed, but when Gerard led the way out of one of the Verdant Stag’s side entrances, they all fell in behind him.

Oliver turned to the woman sitting in a chair near the door.

She wore a cloak clutched tight over a low-cut dress that clung to her body, obviously meant to look enticing rather than ward off the cold. She met his gaze with a belligerence that reminded him of Siobhan, one eye partially obscured by the swollen, purple bruise blooming across it. Her lip was split, dried blood crusted in her nostrils, and her makeup had run and smeared, a painting of violent colors spread across the canvas of her face.

The woman probably wasn’t particularly pretty, even without her injuries, nor was she particularly young or innocent. But that didn’t reduce his anger. His mouth tightened.

She raised an eyebrow, uncowed by his mask. “What’s to be done with me, then, my lord?” she asked, her tone jaded and tired. She had been skeptical when she arrived with the enforcer who had helped her escape from the Verdant Stag’s newly acquired brothel, formerly owned by the Morrows. Her chin high and her eyes skeptical, she had watched to see what he and his people would do. Now, she gave him the tiniest quirk of a smile.

Though he knew the expression held no real joy, Oliver could respect her resilience. “You’ll stay here, at least for the evening. Longer, if needed.” He turned to the enforcer that had helped her. “Take her up to Alice in the apothecary, and then find her an empty bed for the night.”

When they had gone, Oliver let out a weary sigh, allowing his shoulders to sag. The brothel’s manager and some of the patrons hadn’t been following his new rules about acceptable treatment of their employees. Perhaps they had thought the regulations about health and safety weren’t in earnest. They had made a fatal error. The workers might have chosen to be prostitutes, as much as such a thing really was a choice in a place like the Mires, but they had not chosen to be mistreated while doing their job. Thankfully, this woman hadn’t accepted it in silence, so now they could do something about it—swiftly and brutally.

If he could set a good enough example here, perhaps it would cow some of the other troublemakers that plagued this takeover into ducking their heads.

Another young enforcer stepped into the room, leaning close to murmur to Oliver. “A Tanya Canelo is here to see you. She says she has an appointment to ‘be guided to your location.’”

Oliver squared his shoulders again and checked his pocket watch. “She’s late.” She had requested this meeting a few days before, a move he had been anticipating since he first heard that she’d been asking questions about the Raven Queen. Oliver was curious to learn if the request for contact was on her own initiative or done at the behest of the University. Either way, it was an opportunity for him. “Take her to the processing room, then bring her up to my office once she’s been searched and questioned.” He was tired and hungry, but there wouldn’t be time to eat or rest.

Oliver took a small outer hallway and the attached stairs back up to his office on the third floor. The room was less than pristine since he’d been spending quite a bit of his time working there rather than using it only for meetings. He organized the desk, putting away papers and tossing out a half-eaten sandwich he'd been unable to finish before he was called away. 

When he was younger, his sister had mashed together her own quote taken from Oppenheimer and Golden: “Having a clear mind and a clear space allows you to think and act with purpose. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.” She had many misquoted sayings like that, and would adjust them on the fly to fit the situation or win an argument. It had driven him crazy. He remembered sputtering with outrage at the age of nine. “You can’t just break the rules like that!” he’d told her.

Now, he would give a lot to have her here, misquoting at him. And he was more of a rule-breaker than she had ever been.

So Oliver sat, going through a much smaller stack of papers while he waited for Canelo. He stopped on a receipt of payment for an exorbitant sum to a workshop in Osham. Despite the price, he smiled. He had signed off on the purchase of several devices that would make producing low-quality cloth easier and faster, with no magic necessary. He had multiple suitable warehouses waiting to be turned into textile factories, and was only waiting on acceptance of the contract he’d sent to Lord Gervin to get started.

Seeing proof of his plans in motion relieved some of his fatigue, and he leaned back in his throne-like chair, massaging his temples. He could do this. Soon, everything would settle down, and he would finally have the resources and clout to make more substantial improvements within his territory.

A knock on the door had him sitting upright again. “Enter,” he called, speaking loud enough to be heard past the sound-dampening magic embedded into the walls and floor.

The girl, dirty blonde hair cut just past her jawline in a style similar to Sebastien’s, though not nearly so striking, looked around in surprise, her gaze freezing when it landed on Oliver—or more precisely, on his mask. She was alone. She swallowed, then said, “After all the security precautions, I was expecting to be blindfolded and led to a separate location.”

He smiled wryly under the mask, which was beginning to irritate his skin after wearing it for so long. “That is part of the precautions. You will still be escorted to a different location and go through the motions of a secret meeting there, in case anyone is following or tracking you.”

Her hands tightened around the handle of the hardened leather suitcase she carried. “Okay.”

“What have you brought?” he asked, gesturing to it.

She came forward, setting the suitcase on the edge of his desk. She opened it to show the large, complicated device inside. “This is a phonograph, a recently developed artifact that records sound and can play it back. My employers would like me to store this conversation so they can listen to your words directly.” An inch-wide strip of glittering black paper was wound between cylindrical spell arrays, but nothing moved or glowed, and the device let off no heat, a sign that it wasn’t active. “Your people already looked it over for hidden tricks.”

Of course they had. He trusted the device was safe enough, but it still piqued his ire. He let out a scoffing laugh. “This seems rather rude, especially when your employers can’t be bothered to meet with me themselves. I cannot imagine you are foolish enough to have come up with this idea on your own,” he added, a small test of her attitude.

She gave his shadow-backed mask a strained smile. “I apologize for the presumptuousness. I believe they want the phonograph recording as…insurance. The Raven Queen is known to bestow both boons and curses.”

“Is that why they sent you alone? They’re afraid she might attack them?”

Canelo shrugged. “I already met with the Raven Queen and lived, even after foolishly threatening her. I think they are hoping she has a…soft spot for me, and if not, then they wouldn’t lose anyone too important. If I die doing something suspicious, or simply disappear, it wouldn’t be particularly surprising to anyone at this point.”

That was an unexpected level of honesty, and Oliver suspected that Canelo was weaponizing her vulnerability, attempting to lower his guard and take advantage of any softheartedness. “They consider you a liability,” he stated. It was an educated guess, based on what he’d learned from both his contacts within the coppers and Sebastien.

Her lips almost disappeared as she pressed them together in a thin line. “This is a chance for me to prove my value. Things haven’t gone exactly as planned, lately. I’m meeting with you in good faith to negotiate, hoping to repair the situation.”

He stared back at her for a few long seconds, then nodded. “You won’t use this,” he stated, gesturing to the phonograph. He didn’t know what else was recorded on the thing before their meeting, or what might be recorded afterward. Even if he spoke with Canelo in vagaries that couldn’t be used as evidence of any crimes, it was still stupidly risky. They could try to use it as blackmail, or even just to cast divination spells to suss out his secrets. “If the exact wordings of our conversation were so necessary, they should have sent the people who needed to know. This is an insult. Place it outside the door.”

Canelo complied quickly and without argument, her movements stiff, a sign that she was forcing herself not to betray her genuine emotions through sloppy body language. An inexperienced negotiator, but not incompetent. Returning, she sat tentatively in a chair before his looming desk and clasped her hands together in her lap. “I sincerely hope that we can still come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

“I hope the same,” he replied truthfully, though he suspected his ideas about what that could entail might be broader than hers. “I believe there are many ways in which our interests could align. What, specifically, did your employers send you to discuss?”

“My unnamed employers had an agreement with the Morrows to provide supplies and the occasional favor. This was extremely lucrative for the Morrows, and offered them opportunities they might not have otherwise come by so easily.” Canelo spoke confidently, and he suspected that she had rehearsed this. “It seems your agreement with the Nightmare Pack allowed you to take over the majority of the Morrows’ hold on the smuggling industry. Are you interested in continuing the arrangement with my employers? Without them, you will struggle to find buyers for all those goods.”

“With the Crowns’ tariffs and restrictions making certain products unusually rare or prohibitively expensive, I’m sure I could unload everything eventually, and there are plenty of other things I could import that don’t require the University’s purchasing ability. I actually have quite a few ideas.”

Canelo’s knuckles whitened briefly. “My employers had already provided payment for the previous shipment of supplies that you seized.”

“Yes. I have extensive records of all the Morrows’ transactions. I believe thirty percent was paid up front, with the rest due upon delivery. I would be willing to honor that.” It was both a warning not to try and cheat him and a threat that he had blackmail material on their illegal doings that might be used if they moved against him. Some of the University’s supply orders were quite incriminating, such as the sudden request for beast cores in bulk. “To be clear, I am interested in working with the University, even if only to avoid the hassle of pivoting the business so soon, but further cooperation will need to be negotiated. As for providing the occasional favor, I’m open to that on a case-by-case basis, with proper compensation.” Having the University on his side in the Verdant Stag’s power struggle against the Crowns might prove quite useful.

“There are other operators who could provide what the University needs,” Canelo said, apparently giving up on maintaining plausible deniability about who her employers were.

Oliver leaned back in his throne-like chair. “Sure. Eventually. But none of them are so perfectly positioned to provide as the Verdant Stag. I’m not an unreasonable man, Miss Canelo. But I will neither be bullied nor taken advantage of. If the University wants to deal with me, they are welcome to do so in good faith.”