“It’s not a problem,” Kelsey said confidently. They were back at the inn, and able to talk privately. Anton and the others had held back while they were in the shipyard, but they could speak up now.

“How is it not a problem?” Anton asked. “If there needs to be an inspection before the ship leaves, they’re sure to notice all the freed Zamarrans onboard. And they’ll be checking for papers as well!”

“Hmmph,” Kelsey grumped. “Don’t need papers to buy a ship, but you need them to sail out on it? Bit of a bait and switch, true. But it doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?” Aris asked.

“Due to a cunning plan… that is not yet fully formed.” Kelsey paused and looked thoughtful. “Or, we could just forge some papers.”

“I thought we weren’t enlisting the underworld this time around,” Anton said doubtfully.

“We don’t need to,” Kelsey said smugly. “I’m a dab hand at forgery myself, or at least my Scrivining Skeletons are.”

“You can’t read Elitran though,” Anton pointed out. “Isn’t that necessary?”

“Hmm, hang on,” Kelsey said. After a brief pause, she pulled a piece of paper out of nowhere and gave it to Zaphar. “Is this legible?” she asked.

Zaphar looked doubtfully at her, and the paper she offered him, but took it. “This… this is good paper,” he said wonderingly.

“Thanks, I made it myself.”

“As for the writing…” Zaphar looked at the words and sighed. “It says that Anton is a mean poopy head. He’s lucky he’s so hot.”

Kelsey nodded. “That is exactly what I wanted to write,” she said.

Anton rolled his eyes, not just at Kelsey’s pettiness, but at the ridiculousness of what she could do. “So, you don’t read Elitran, but your skeletons do? How does that work?”

Kelsey shrugged. “I don’t make the rules,” she said. “The skeletons can write, so they can write any language that I can speak… even if I don’t know the letters.”

“Can they read as well?” Zaphar asked.

“Yeeeaaaah, sort of,” Kelsey said. “They don’t speak, so getting information out of them is hard. The link gives me non-verbal impressions… which isn’t always reliable.”

“You’ll need more than that for forgeries though,” Zaphar pointed out. “You need to know what to write, and you’ll need inks and a seal…”

“You can help with that,” Kelsey said. “You can break into the office of whoever issues these papers and get me some examples to work off.”

Zaphar drew in his breath nervously. “Maybe. Maybe I could get some papers. But steal a seal?”

“You don’t have to steal it,” Kelsey said. “I can give you something to take an impression of it and make my own from that.”

“Even so,” Zaphar said. “It will likely be locked up tight outside of office hours.”

“You can’t crack a safe?” Kelsey asked. “Wait, we are talking about a safe, right? You have those?”

“We do, and I can’t,” Zaphar agreed. “I just sneak in and steal things.”

“Well… maybe I can reverse engineer it from the impressions it leaves,” Kelsey said. “We’ll workshop it.”

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

The next item on Kelsey’s agenda was renting a warehouse. This turned out to be much harder than it had been back in Kirido. There, Anton had known just about everybody, and a few questions had identified who was looking to sell out and retire after the raid.

It was much more complicated here. Fortunately, they had Zaphar to do the actual talking. As a native Elitran, he could at least pass for a local. And his recent makeover made him appear respectable. All that meant, though, was that the merchants he talked to were willing to talk to him. Useful information was much harder to come by.

If there was an informed person who kept track of which merchants had spare warehouse space, no one was willing to direct Zaphar to them. Nor did they keep tabs on the business dealings of their neighbours, or so they claimed. Zaphar was reduced to wandering the warehouse district, going from door to door, looking for a seller.

“This isn’t working,” Kelsey groused after two hours of this. “We’ve found three likely prospects, but not a hint of who to talk to!”

It turned out that warehouses that suited their purpose, i.e., unused and far away from well-trafficked areas, often lacked a conveniently available owner. There wasn’t much reason to stay near an empty warehouse, after all. Nor were their neighbours much help in tracking down the owners. Two of the warehouses they had found had neighbours that yielded a first name for who they thought might own the building. Nobody was able to say where these people were to be found.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Maybe we should check out the taverns where merchants gather?” Anton said.

“Worth a try,” Kelsey agreed. “If that doesn’t work, we can try burning one down and see who shows up.”

“Then… there wouldn’t be any warehouse for us to rent, though,” Aris said.

“True, but I’d feel better at least,” Kelsey said. “Let’s try the taverns though.”

Asking questions in taverns did not prove any easier. It was more comfortable though, than trekking from door to door. And it was, eventually, successful.

“Warehouse space, you say? I might have something available.” The portly, middle-aged man ran his hand through his thinning hair.

Zaphar glanced at Kelsey for reassurance but pushed on with his script without any help from her.

“We’re not looking to share, we need a building of our own,” he said firmly.

The man nodded. “I’ve some product there, but it can fit into other stores,” he agreed. “If the price is right.”

Zaphar didn’t know what the right price for warehouse space was, but he knew haggling. He let the man suggest a price and then made a counteroffer for a third of that. Anton watched as the thief bargained the merchant down to half of his initial suggestion.

Anton didn’t think that the price actually mattered, but it would have looked suspicious, and not very merchant-like if they hadn’t tried to find a bargain. From the way Kelsey stayed silent through the discussion, she felt the same way.

The discussion finally reached the point where an inspection of the premises was in order. It was late in the afternoon, but there was still daylight, so they headed out immediately. Kelsey’s eye twitched when the merchant led him to one of the properties they’d already marked as a prospect. The merchant next door had given the owner’s name as Fari. The man in front of him had given his name as Farid al-Darim, so that might not be incorrect, but would have made finding him based on that difficult.

“You see! Everything is as I described,” al-Darim declared, waving at the cavernous darkness. Zaphar and Kelsey shared a look. Anton was pretty sure that both of them could see in the dark.

“I think we’ll need a little more light to see,” Kelsey said mildly.

“Of course! A lantern is kept… near… here,” al-Darim said fumbling near the door. He did manage to find and light a lantern and he was soon shining it about the place. As he’d said, there was a small stack of crates sitting in the middle of the place, but it was otherwise empty.

“How soon can you get rid of those?” Zaphar asked.

“I can have those removed tomorrow,” the merchant assured him. “I can get the contract ready by then and we can probably get it registered after lunch.”

“Registered?” Kelsey asked. Something in her voice made al-Darim look at her nervously.

“Well, yes, all lease and purchasing contracts need to be registered with the central administrative bureau…” he said, trailing off as he looked at Kelsey. He swallowed as Kelsey took a step forward.

“Don’t you think,” Kelsey purred, “that it would be better if we kept this contract informal?”

“That’s ah… very irregular,” he said. He took a step back as Kelsey kept moving closer, but there was a limited number of steps he could take before his back was against the wall.

“Of course,” Kelsey said, “We’d be willing to pay, say, fifty percent more for the convenience.”

“That’s ah… very tempting, but it’s technically illegal, so…”

“And if central administration didn’t know about it, you wouldn’t have to report it on your taxes, would you?”

Kelsey had the man backed up against the wall, despite not having come closer than a yard of him. Anton wasn’t sure how she was doing it. Her body language wasn’t threatening, and her voice sounded as pleasant as he had ever heard it. It must be something to do with the way she was staring at the merchant.

At the mention of taxes, the merchant’s face became a little more calculating.

“That… but it wouldn’t work, you see. You’d have to report this place as your place of business, and they’d need to see how it is you’re able to trade from here. They’d notice the discrepancy.”

“Ah, but we won’t be trading from here,” Kelsey said.

“You won’t?”

“We’re not merchants. We just need this space, and some privacy, for our own purposes.”

“Oh, that’s…. Fifty percent, you say?”

Kelsey smiled and turned around to face Zaphar. With a wink, she handed over a leather bag, heavy with coin, while her body blocked al-Darim’s view. “You can work out the final details with Zaphar.”

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

“So, we’ve got a ship and a warehouse,” Kelsey said. “I feel a plan coming together!”

“We don’t actually have a ship,” Zaphar pointed out, “You didn’t finalise the deal.”

“There’s no point in paying docking fees for longer than we need to,” Kelsey said. “I’ve got some upgrades in mind for that ship, but the ship can belong to the shipyard until I’m ready to start work.”

Zaphar nodded. “So my next target… do you know where the documents are produced?”

“Ah, no,” Kelsey admitted. “The central administration that Farid mentioned?”

“Maybe,” Zaphar agreed. “I don’t know where that is, though. I could ask around but it would look a little suspicious if I did so after the place closed.”

“Get some rest then,” Kelsey suggested. “We’ve got that auction tomorrow, you’ll want to be at your best.”

“Are… we even going to do anything at the auction?”

“Take notes on the buyers at least,” Kelsey said. “And be ready if there’s an opportunity.”

Zaphar grunted acknowledgement and turned to go to his room. He paused at the door.

“By the way, I felt some experience accrue when I dealt with al-Darim,” he said. “I’m not sure why.”

“Preparations for the heist,” Kelsey said. “Your class is about bigger, more complicated ways to steal things now. We should get you trained on safecracking when we get the chance. That enhanced hearing of yours will help a lot.”

“It will? I don’t see how,” Zaphar said. “Speaking of my enhanced hearing, I would like to get some sleep tonight and this room is only separated from mine by two walls and an open room.”

It took Anton a moment to understand what Zaphar had meant. When he did, he felt the heat rise in his face. From the mortified look Aris got, she understood as well. Kelsey just grinned.

“No promises,” she said. After Zaphar closed the door behind him, she looked at the other two.

“So… I guess there weren’t any anxiety-related performance issues?”

“Not last night there wasn’t,” Anton muttered. “I didn’t realise he was—”

“He wasn’t here last night, remember?” Kelsey said. “He didn’t get back until the two of you were fast asleep.”

“Oh,” Aris said. “Now I feel embarrassed and dumb.”

“You’ll get over it,” Kelsey chuckled. “The thing is, he’s gone down to get dinner now… but they’ll still be serving it for at least one more hour. So if you want to get some actual private time…”

“We could…” Aris said. “I mean…”

“Or if you’re hungry, we could eat now and Zaphar can stay in the common room for a couple more hours…” Kelsey slyly suggested.

“I’m… not that hungry,” Anton said slowly.