Matthew wiped beads of sweat from his brow as the man behind the desk flipped through pages and pages of thick parchment, bound haphazardly by twine. The man had a practiced stoicism. His eyes barely moved as they scanned the text. He had been in this position before. Matthew looked away for a moment, glancing at the pile of nicknacks arranged around the surface of the man’s desk.
A glass statuette.
The key to some city he had never heard of.
A fancy rock.
Garbage. All of it.
The man finally looked up from the document. “Mr. Carpenter, your ledger is…” the man paused while he used his thumb to flip the corner of the page, “...extensive. And most of this property has been destroyed, ruined, or otherwise rendered completely useless beyond the capacity outlined when these funds were loaned to you.”
“Well,” Matt muttered, his nerves causing his voice to quiver. “It was never my fault. You see-”
“It says on the first page here to be wary of your excuses.”
“Honestly, sir,” Matthew urged. “The farm near Hoodsholm was sacked by bandits. We had nowhere to go. We found a place to stay at The Throne-”
“So you took a new mortgage despite sitting on a bandit-ravaged farm plot?” the banker asked.
Matthew looked down sheepishly.
“Then the apartment in The Throne suffered water damage. So you took out another loan for repairs,” the banker glanced through the paperwork again to make sure his remarks were accurate. “But then you moved to Academy City? I wonder, how was it you got there?”
“I had a friend in a caravan. But corsairs hit us halfway there,” Matthew explained. “The money that was meant to help us settle down went to making sure we would all be able to survive the trip.”
The banker chuckled, “but what about the apartment's water damage?”
“The Church taxed us heavily for the damage done to the streets. Even though it was their sewage system that flooded our place.”
“Mr. Carpenter,” the man said dismissively, “it has been several years since your first outstanding payment notice. I honestly don’t understand how you managed to swindle more money out of the banks after that. You are completely irresponsible and totally untrustworthy. Frankly, I feel bad for dear Mrs. Carpenter.”
That set Matthew off. “She trusts me!” he said, suddenly finding the confidence that had escaped him when his file was revealed minutes before, at the start of their sit-down.
“I’m sure you have some sort of redeeming quality somewhere in there,” the banker said, grinning with satisfaction that he had found a weakness. “But it is surely not your financial acumen. This history you have of poor decisions and your penchant for putting yourself in such great volumes of debt to governments, friends, and institutions is counter-intuitive to any sort of family you would want to support.” The banker sat back and folded his hands. “Your father must be disappointed.”
Matthew’s chair crashed to the floor as he leapt to his feet. The banker eyed his lazily patched wool pants with haughty judgment. “Do not ever talk about my father!” he roared, crumpling his thin cloth hat in his rage-clenched fists.
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The banker laughed as he looked down at the ledger, pleased with the damage he had done. “Well, it’s quite obvious, really, that I won’t be seeing my money today, correct me if I’m wrong.”
The rage subsided, if only for a moment, as Matthew processed the condescension. “I, uh-”
The banker laughed again, but louder, as Matthew felt hot tears well up in his eyes. “How about an extra month, Matthew? Does that sound fair? Because, to be honest, it is not fair for me. I’m losing a fantastic amount of money on you, your family, your failed ventures, and your nigh-criminal escapades. You have a month to make something appear in my coffers or I will be sending collectors. And,” the man stood, holding a hand out to shake Matthew’s, “my promises actually mean something.”
Matthew frowned and stared at the open hand for a short eon, tension neither easing, nor growing. “Fine.” Matthew left the office without shaking the hand to find Kaitlyn sitting on a small wooden bench in the hall outside.
“Matty,” she whispered, putting her hand on his back for consolation.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.”
“He had no right to treat you like that, Matty. No right at all.”
“I said I am fine.”
“Matty” she urged, bending toward the floor for a moment. She ran her hand through the rugged wooden planks of the counting house floor, somehow scooping a handful of the wood out. “He disrespected you, dear, and you can not stand for that,” she crooned, holding the fist toward him. Her words sounded less in his ears and more in his thoughts. It was as if she knew what he felt and was manifesting it for him. The chunk of floor she had scooped up began to glow and shift until it had transformed into a churning orb of lava. “Let me help you.”
“No,” Matthew said, finding the orb difficult to look away from. “That isn’t necessary, Kaitlyn. It's all been my fault, anyway. He was right. About all of it.”
“Matthew,” Kaitlyn mewed. Her voice found his ears, and his thoughts, again. Whether it came from her or the space around her, Matthew could not tell, but it was loud this time. As if the sounds now knew the paths to take inside his head to get to the part of his mind where they would be heard the clearest. “Take it. Equip yourself. We can make our own way, Matthew.”
He watched the lava churn and glow and heard the shuffle of papers inside the banker’s office. He looked up to see Kaitlyn smiling, a strange and predatory smile. It was an expression he could never imagine her face capable of making, but one that looked as if it had been just below the surface all along. Matthew held out his hand.
The lava was thick, heavier than it appeared, and with a tangible surface tension that prevented it from dripping between his fingers. Most strangely, though, was that the lava was cold. Kaitlyn gave him an encouraging nod, that ferocious grin never leaving for a second, as he walked into the banker’s office.
“Mr. Carpenter,” the banker said as he looked up from his cluttered desk, “are you here to bring me my geld or more excuses?” He leaned back in his padded chair, crossing his arms with a smug smile.
Matthew handled the lava for a moment before tearing it into two halves, one for each hand.
With a crash, Matthew dove over the desk, sending the banker’s baubles clattering to the floor. One of the chair’s legs gave way with the force of the tackle and the two men hit the office’s generously sized rug with a thud. The banker let out one meager scream before Matthew smashed one fistful of magma between his eyes.
There was an unsatisfyingly brief moment of resistance and then the man’s skull gave way. Matthew’s fist plunged into the floor, the lava cooling.
As he was hollowing out the banker’s skull, Matthew had pressed his other hand into the man’s sternum. If he had collided with heart or lungs, he never knew, though he suspected the moneylender had no heart to begin with. Kaitlyn’s gift destroyed the banker without abandon.
Matthew woke suddenly, but oddly calm.
“Matty,” Kaitlyn said softly from the tent’s opening, her curly brown hair glowing with morning sunlight. “Are you up?”
“I’m up, Kait,” he said, looking at her hand and feeling a pang of disappointment when he only saw a wooden turner.
“I cracked some eggs out here,” she said gesturing with the turner. “Are you hungry?”
Matthew nodded and Kaitlyn responded with a smile. “Hey,” he called as she ducked out of the tent. “After breakfast,” Matthew paused, finding himself nervous. “Can you show me some of your magic again?”
“Of course, Matty.”