Chapter 37 Faith

Tim looked up from his desk at the sound of a knock on his door. “Come in.” He replied with a sigh and set down the incident summary that he had been reading through. The door opened and two people that he had never expected to walk into his office did just that. “Lord Wexler, Lady V’Nova, what can I do for you?” He asked.

“Guard Captain.” Isaac greeted and Lenna nodded to him. “I have information that I think you would like.” He glanced back over his shoulder and the guard that had led them there closed the door behind them. Isaac wasn’t taking any chances however and blanketed the inside of the door in shadows to mute the sound.

Tim noticed the attempt at secrecy and nodded. He moved his lamp a few inches to the side and pressed a small stone button that was hidden under it. A small pulse of mana ran out along the walls and almost seemed to solidify. “I’m listening.” Tim told the duo.

“The thing is,” Isaac began. “I am a businessman.” He told Tim. “Especially after your duke sent me a bill for twenty thousand gold for something that is going to prove to be more beneficial to him than me.”

“You want payment.” Tim replied. He had worked with sellouts and informants in the past. Most of the time they were the simple sort of people who were just looking for enough coin to get them out of town before their enemies caught up with them. He knew Isaac well enough to know that if Isaac truly had living enemies, they wouldn’t stay that way for long.

Isaac smiled and sat in the chair across the desk from Tim. “Yes.” He shifted slightly to get more comfortable in the uncushioned chair that was lacking armrests. “Usually I would say that gold is the best payment but if you have something tempting enough I might just be willing to trade.” Isaac explained.

“What information do you have? That will decide the price that we can afford.” Tim chose his words carefully. He had some leeway with the budget, in fact, he had an amount set aside for such occasions. An amount that he would prefer to last him more than the next ten minutes.

“One hundred and fifty nine names, seven organizations, two of which are mortal trafficking rings. Some other less important information like classes and estimated levels of some of those on the list, locations where the organizations are based, and in some cases even known crimes that were committed by certain individuals.” Isaac pulled the stack of paper out of a ball of shadows and started leafing through it. After a short moment he stopped and smiled again. “Three of the people on this list are guards.” He commented and then stored the papers again.

Tim was on the edge of his seat. “How much for the information about the guards?” He asked quickly. He wasn’t very good at negotiating once something had truly peaked his interest.

Isaac grinned impishly. “What are you offering?” He asked.

Tim swallowed. He was silent for a long minute as he tried to do some mental math to figure out how much he could spend. “Five hundred for each of them.” He told Isaac.

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Isaac was shocked. That was way more than he was expecting to get. He, of course, didn’t show any of that on his face however. His grin turned into an easy smirk. “That’s a bit lower than I was hoping.” He lied. “Let’s call it twenty one hundred for the set.”

Tim frowned. That was a much larger chunk of the informant money than he was hoping to spend. Especially considering the size of the list in Isaac’s possession. “Eighteen.” He replied slowly.

“Two thousand and you have yourself a deal.” Isaac told Tim.

Tim sighed. “Alright, but only because those are guards. Don’t expect anything nearly as much for the rest of the ones on that list.” He warned.

Isaac smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He replied. “Now, what do you know about the Crimson Coins?”

—

“If he knew how much you sold that information for…” Lenna commented while shaking her head as the pair headed back to the Celestial Dawn.

“He would have a stroke.” Isaac finished for her. He nodded. “Yeah, I would not be happy if I were him.” He flashed Lenna a grin. “Good thing I’m not him and he’ll never find out.”

Lenna could only shake her head again. After a bit of silence Lenna decided to bring up something that had been bothering her. “You told Jala that you own her.” Lenna spoke.

Isaac, unsure of where the conversation was going, nodded his head slowly. “Yes.” He replied.

“Is that how you feel about me?” She asked without looking at him.

Isaac felt a strange mixture of emotions that he shoved to the side to reply as logically and honestly as he could. “Not really.” He replied. “It is different. You chose to come with me. You chose to repay that debt.” He explained. “To me, you are my bodyguard and friend, more than a friend honestly, and if you decided that you wanted to leave I would be sad, hurt even, but I wouldn’t try to stop you. I trust you too much to do that.” He took a deep breath to help gather his thoughts. “With Jala, she is an asset. Nothing more. With her it is almost like buying a business but not running it. It would be like if I bought Stan’s Smithy or The Celestial Dawn but let the old owners keep running it however they wanted. I might put some restrictions in place or move them to a different part of town but they are, in the end, just an asset that exists to make me money.” He finally looked at her and tried to read her blank, expressionless, emotionless face. “Does that make sense?”

Lenna was silent for a long while as she sorted through everything that he had told her. It felt good to know that he trusted her unconditionally but it was also sad to hear him say that he wouldn’t stop her from leaving. She didn’t know how she felt about feeling that way but that was for another time. Hearing how he felt about Jala tracked with how he generally acted. Isaac was prone to using people for whatever gain he could get out of them which usually meant building a working relationship of sorts with them. Most of the time he seemed really short sighted but then he would hire an informant for eight years while paying completely up front. She wanted to believe what he said, especially the parts about her but she knew that Isaac was never as straightforward as he seemed at any given moment.

The silence dragged on for what Isaac felt like was an eternity but he kept his mouth shut. He knew better than to interrupt her while she was trying to sort out what she was feeling. He just hoped that she would come out of her contemplation with, at the very least, not a worse view of him.

Lenna eventually nodded once and looked at Isaac. “Okay.” She said with more earnestness than the word alone deserved.

Isaac just stared at her for a long moment. “Okay what?”

“I’ll continue to have faith in you.” She told him.

Isaac sighed deeply in relief. “You have to explain things sometimes.” He chastised with a smile. “I might seem like it but I’m not a mind reader, you know?”

Lenna smiled. Her smile brightened the poorly lit street and the soft white light glistened off her silver eyes. “Then maybe you shouldn’t act like it.” She poked and elbowed him lightly in the arm.

Isaac chuckled and shook his head. “It’s not just me that you talk like that to. I doubt poor Edward followed half of the story you told him after the hallway incident.”

Lenna looked offended. Her next words actually took Isaac by surprise. “You should have more faith in Edward.”