After setting his drink on the table with a light clink, Eryk begins. "Let me start off by saying this is an entirely separate matter from today's business with the star metals. This is for a personal request from Aria I haven't been able to fulfill until now."

"Mmm," Laslo hums, hiding any response he might have for now.

"I would like to buy a small amount of alba."

Laslo considers the request for a full tick in silence, face still unreadable. Then he sits up a little straighter. "How do I know you aren't going to use it to make more star metals?"

It takes a moment for me to realize what he means. We would make them by combining alba with other metals.

Meaning Laslo knows how we do it.

Eryk lifts one eyebrow a little, but doesn't give any response beyond that to what Laslo's implying when he says, "Because we don't have a reliable source of alba, there is little point in us putting our resources into using it for star metals. We would not be able to produce them in any quantities worth selling."

Laslo pauses again, making a small expression that he's pleased with Eryk's answer. "I see. How much are you looking to buy?"

"Aria?" Eryk directs the question my way.

"Not much." I give a small head shake. I know it's extremely expensive, and I really don't need much to act as a mana conductor, to replace the nuvrite I've been using. "Not even an ingot, maybe a quarter or third of an ingot."

Laslo gives a fake surprised look when he asks, "Now, what would you be making out of such a small amount of alba?"

I frown. I can't tell him the truth, and I'm terrible at lying. I can't even come up with anything that would sound reasonable because I have no idea what you could normally make from alba besides jewelry... But just looking at him, it's clear that he won't sell it to me unless I give him an answer he likes. After thinking a little longer, there's only one thing I can come up with.

"I want to make it into small, flat disks. Similar shapes to coins, but slightly larger around." My answer draws a questioning look from Eryk, since he doesn't know the specifics either. Of course, Laslo catches onto that.

"What are these small disks for?" he pushes further.

"Something important to me personally. I can't talk about it." There's nothing else I can say here. No better answer I can give him. "Is that good enough? Will you sell me some?" What do I do if he won't? If it gets much colder outside, my nuvrite will stop working and I won't be able to easily convert mana anymore. If I had to use mollite, I'd burn at least like thirty times more mana in the process...

"Hmm." The older man rubs his chin between his fingers, before he smiles slightly. "Do you know how much alba costs, girl?" I shake my head. Darn, I never thought to ask Eryk about that... "In that case, how about this?" Laslo's smile widens and he makes his proposal. "Since this is your order, I will only accept the payment from you."

Eryk interrupts immediately. "She's an orphan child, how do you expect her-"

"Come on, Eryk," Laslo scoffs, "you've made it clear she has noble connections. Of course she has some money." That shuts down Eryk's argument, even though he knows I don't have any actual connections. As far as he knows, I don't have any money. I spend all my time at his place, learning after all.

I put up a hand. "It's fine. So you want me to pay for it myself? How much is it?"

Laslo's smile returns. "That's for you to decide. I want you to make an offer. If it's high enough, I sell to you at that price. Too low though..." he gives a small wag of his finger to show that if that happens, he won't sell.

If that's the case... I nod. "Thirty irons." I say it confidently to hide how nervous I am. I have absolutely no idea how expensive a noble metal would be, so I have to offer the maximum I can afford, for the best chance that it's enough. If I overshoot the value, I don't care. I need this metal for the next battle, or I'll probably die.

Thirty irons is all the money I've made in the last two or so weeks working with Emily to sell large animal parts. It's a ton of money by my standards, but I still don't know if it's good enough. The surprised expressions my offer brings from both men are a very good sign though.

"Deal." Laslo stands, and I quickly follow. Off to the side, I glance at Eryk as he buries his face in his hands, but he isn't saying anything. I probably offered too much. Laslo extends his hand for a shake. It takes a moment, seeing the motion, to realize what it means.

Oh right! Business agreement etiquette! I fumble for a moment as I recall how to do it right, then take his hand. Him offering means he's way higher standing than me, so I lower my head and bow as well as we shake hands lightly.

"Thirty irons for a quarter ingot of alba," Laslo confirms the deal, before we let go and sit down again. "So, how will you be paying? You do have enough money, right?"

"Yeah, but it's at home," I reply. "Eryk, could we send someone to pick it up?"

Before he can answer, Laslo raises a hand to stop him. "I don't have the alba with me right now either. I propose we postpone the exchange until tomorrow." Then why did he ask if I could pay? If I'm paying tomorrow, Eryk could have just given me the money after we make the deal...

"Aria is busy tomorrow," Eryk cuts in again. "She has her lessons, we can come over afterward."

"With that Claire woman?" Laslo chuckles. "The one who was taken away by Karl Liffan? You don't honestly expect her to get off so lightly, do you?"

"He only said he had some questions for her." Both men lock eyes briefly, but I have no idea what they're thinking. Claire... should be fine, right? I got through dealing with nobles alright. And she's ridiculously smart and knows so much, I'm sure she'll manage better than I did.

"We'll go to your place as soon as we're free tomorrow," Eryk says. Laslo rolls his eyes, but doesn't argue this time. "Aria, make sure to bring the money with you tomorrow."

"Sure."

Laslo nods with a big smile that makes me suppress a cringe. "I suppose that wraps up our business?"

"Yes," Eryk confirms. When Laslo stands, we do too, exchanging respectful gestures before he leaves. Irene holds the door for him, then closes it after.

As soon as he's gone, Eryk's mask falls off and he sighs deeply. "I really should have taught you more about the metalworking industry..." he groans.

"How much did I overpay?" I ask, already knowing where he's going.

"One ingot of alba will usually run..." he hesitates somewhat, "...let's say average... twenty five irons."

"Oh." I pause to do the math. "So I paid thirty irons for six point two five irons worth of metal. About... four point eight times what it's worth." I close my eyes and sigh. "Well, whatever. I need it, so I don't care that much. I can just make more money."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"How did you even make that much in the first place?" Eryk asks. "You're always busy, when did you have the time?"

I shake my head. "I don't want to talk about it."

That makes Eryk look more concerned. "That's a lot of money, Aria. You didn't have to do anything..." he hesitates, like he's searching for the right words. "...Anything you didn't want to do, right?"

I tilt my head. "No?" Why would I do something I don't want to, just for money? Well, I guess if I really needed it, but it's not like the money itself is important, I just need enough to buy certain things...

"It's nothing illegal, right?" he checks, and I shake my head. "Fine. Just be careful. And yes, you overpaid for the alba by an enormous margin," he jumps back to the other topic. "There's nothing to do for it now, but I'll be teaching you about the proper prices for products so this doesn't happen again, alright?"

"Yeah, thanks Eryk."

"Still, taking advantage of a child like that, ugh," he scowls.

Suddenly, Irene speaks up. "I don't believe you have the right to complain about that, Master Eryk." She doesn't move from her spot near the door, but she aims one of her particularly unamused looks at him, and he chuckles darkly.

"Fair enough." He shakes his head at himself, then reaches down to the low table to pick up the glass with the purple drink in it, and takes a few gulps. After a long sigh, he clears his throat. "You should drink something too, Aria," he advises. "It's been a busy day, you don't want to get dehydrated." I nod. My throat is pretty dry now that he mentions it.

"Come on, let's get back to the party. We'll get you a drink." Eryk sets his glass down, straightens his suit, and nods to himself, his strong, determined expression coming back. I look myself over too, and Irene comes over, straightening and plucking at my dress in a few spots to help.

"Good," she comments, before returning to hold the door for us. We head back out, straight into the loud, overcrowded house. We talk to a few people briefly, but Eryk sticks to his word and keeps us moving until we arrive at the drink table at the front of his foyer. The big glass windows behind give me a pretty clear view of the houses across the street, and the slowly darkening sky. It's starting to get late and the sun's going down. It's already halfway to the tenth bell, and the days have been getting shorter too. Less than a thousand ticks left until sundown...

Eryk receives a glass from the servant managing the drinks and hands it to me. The color is kind of purple, but not quite like the drink he had earlier. More of a pink-purple than his was. I take a careful sip, and feel my entire body shudder when the sweet sensation hits my tongue.

I swish the drink around in my mouth for a few moments, savoring the amazing flavor and making sure I won't have a reaction, before swallowing. "Wow, that's so good," I sigh happily, before immediately taking a few more gulps.

It's a bit odd, with a slightly thicker feel than water does, like something was mixed into it. But it's so amazing and sweet and kind of fruity, I love it. It even helps with my dry throat, and I end up quickly finishing the whole glass, feeling refreshed and smile up at Eryk in thanks.

Eryk says, "Alright, let's get back to it. We're almost done."

"Yeah."

----------------------------------------

Thankfully, the rest of the party passes without any more problems. After the tenth bell, people start trickling out a few at a time. I continue mingling and chatting, getting to know more people from related businesses. Eryk makes sure I get a couple breaks too, to get some more delicious food and drink, and I even have a short chance to stand near the band and listen to them play music.

When the eleventh bell rings, a good deal of the guests have already gone, and it's much easier to move around. I stand with Eryk one more time as he addresses everyone who's left.

"Thank you, everyone, for attending my Independence Day party. I hope you've enjoyed your time and my company's big announcement. There are big changes on the horizon for all of us."

He pauses briefly as there is a short round of applause, then goes on. "The party is now officially over, have a nice night, everyone." He makes a brief respectful gesture toward the crowd, and I follow along at his side.

The somewhat quieted room gets a good deal louder as people make for the door. We move to stand nearby as everyone pushes through, waving and saying individual farewells to a bunch of them as they pass.

It takes a little while with so many people leaving, but eventually, the bulk of the party-goers have walked off into the quickly darkening city.

There are a few stragglers left over. Some people who haven't finished talking business yet, some of whom go out the door in small groups so they can continue. There are also a few of Eryk's family members who want to speak a little before they go.

And... a few people who don't really seem to understand when we go around and tell them it's time to go home. They also seem clumsy and have some trouble walking until Eryk has a couple of the servants help them out the door. Weird...

There are just a small handful left at sunset, when the last bells ring.

"Irene," Eryk calls her as she's working on cleaning up a table. "Can you get Aria changed so she can head home now?"

"Of course." She waves me after her, and we walk over to the changing room. Irene takes some time to carefully pull me out of the expensive party dress, before putting me back in my scratchy peasant clothes.

"I'm sorry, Aria, but there are still some guests around, so we probably shouldn't have you go out the front door dressed like this."

I understand, but hearing that still makes me feel bad... We already told them I'm an orphan, so it just... It feels bad, being treated like something that should be hidden when I'm not dressed up.

"Yeah, that's fine," I tell her anyway, hiding how I feel about it. It's not Irene's fault that they wouldn't accept me like this.

"Come, this way." I follow her over to the spot on the wall opposite the wardrobe, right next to the door to the bathroom. She pushes on the wall and slides a section over to reveal a narrow hall.

There was a servant hall there? I blink in surprise, as she takes a candle out of a wall holder and steps through the gap.

We stop for a moment for Irene to reach back over me, into a little hand hold to slide the door shut behind us.

"Watch your step," she warns as we move into the narrow, dimly lit hall.

I only make it two steps before I squeak out, "Eep!" as my foot finds nothing but air. I flail and end up grabbing the back of Irene's dress to hold myself up.

"I just said to watch your step," she scolds me lightly.

"S-sorry..." I stammer as I search the dark floor below. Looks like stairs leading down? I'm super surprised to see something like this somehow tucked into Eryk's house.

Luckily they're really shallow so I can actually walk down them without needing to carefully climb down each one. There are only a few steps too, so we don't even go down very far.

It's a short trip down the servant hall before we head up a few steps again, to emerge in... I think this is the servant's wash room, where they clean clothes and everything.

It's hard to recognize because it's dark with just Irene's candle light, and Selena only pointed it out once when she was showing me around the house.

Once we go through the door into the storeroom, it's much easier to see again with all of the candles lit up around the room.

A couple servants go past, grabbing cleaning supplies and moving things around on the shelves. They glance our way as we go past, but continue with what they're doing. We get to the back door and peek outside. Unlike earlier, the little grassy area out back is no longer full of excess guests who came out since it was too busy inside.

The empty grass that surrounds the small well looks pretty short and trampled down, either from the party or from people going to the well often enough that it can't grow very tall.

"Now, if you'll just wait here, without running off this time," she gives a small scowl to remind me about that, "I will get Kristene to take you home." The look on her face tells me it's better not to argue with her here, so I agree quietly this time. Even if I don't need her, at least I'm not worried about her coming along. Unlike Irene, Kristene is huge and loud and definitely doesn't look like someone that people in the northern districts would try to mess with, walking there at night.

I wait a bit by the back door, looking across the grass and up at the somewhat cloudy sky. It's hard to make out the puffy little clouds that drift lazily by since it's really dark, but my eyes are starting to get used to it. I wonder how much better I'd see with some air mana...?

I let my tired head wander over those thoughts for a bit until Irene returns with Kristene. Standing over me, Irene shows a rare smile. "Good work today, Aria." She unexpectedly puts a hand on my head, giving it a small rub with her thin but strong fingers.

"I know I'm normally very hard on you, so I wanted to let you know that you truly did a wonderful job today. While not everything was perfect, you clearly remembered all of my lessons, and comported yourself excellently. I'm proud of you, and I'm sure Master Eryk is too."

I can't help but smile. I don't even know what to say. It's so unusual for her to praise me, I'm at a loss, until the best I can manage is and muttered, "...Thanks, Irene..." Having said her part, she waves Kristene out the door with me, sending us off with a pleasant wave. We have to circle around the nearby houses to avoid the street in front of Eryk's house since I'm not supposed to be seen by the party guests. Once we have some distance, it's off to home.