The room went unnaturally quiet as Momo stared at the bracelet. She knew one thing unquestionably: the voice she just heard berating a nonexistent telemarketer belonged to the same man that greeted her during her very first day in Alois. The necromancer who had gone off to deal with some sort of skeletal uprising. She had never heard from him again, never saw him again, never recalled anyone even referencing him. She had half-convinced herself that he had simply been a comforting illusion she concocted, a post-food poisoning coping mechanism.
“So I gather that was a failure,” Zephyra said. “Sorry to say, but you must have mixed up who gave you that Nectar.”
“No,” Momo said quickly. Her brusqueness caused Zephyra to bristle, and Momo quickly backpedaled. “I – oh, sorry. I just mean, I really didn’t mix them up. Valerica was the one who gave me that bottle. I know it was her. My memory is bad, but not that bad.”
The possibility had occurred to Momo that the Valerica she saw on the ship that day hadn’t been Valerica at all – an illusion instead, broadcasted by the necromancer from the Dawn’s basement. But that proposition was shortly shot down by common sense. That was Valerica. Momo knew it in her gut. Felt it with her earthly intuition. Also, she doubted anyone, god or mortal, had the acting chops to portray Valerica’s very unique brand of ridiculous.
“Could the bottle have passed hands before it got to you?” Zephyra probed. “If she bought it off of some merchant recently that scent could be mucking up the signal.”
Momo frowned. That was plausible. “No idea. But Valerica hasn’t been allowed to leave the Nether since she started her onboarding. So if that guy was the one to give it to her, he’d have to be in the Nether, too. And probably within her inner circle.”
Nyk bowed her head in through the doorway. True to form, she had been trying her very hardest to be as unhelpful as possible, but it seemed the conversation had reached such a point of aggravation that she could no longer resist.
“Gods, I can’t listen to any more of this amateur detective work. That was Azrael, you idiot,” she said. “Third Lesser God. Oldest and most maddening of Morgana’s maniac trio. Even before his rise to godhood, he never spent time in Alois. Not after the Dark Calamity. He conducts all his business on other planets, occasionally sending messages through the realms. He constantly treats us dokkaebis like his paper boys. I’ve delivered more packages for that man than he’s taken breaths. That Nether Nectar included.”
Momo’s eyes widened, goosebumps biting at her skin.
“I met him. Here, in Alois," Momo said, recalling the memory. "He was the first face I saw when I arrived. Super gross teeth, had a pet lantern-skeleton. So he... had to have returned to Alois. At least very briefly. He returned to welcome me to the Dawn.”
Nyk rolled her eyes. “I can assure you he did not,” she paused. “At least not physically. I’m sure the man you saw was one of his many throwaway bodies—hence the rotting teeth. He probably sent a signal to it from some faraway planet, animated the corpse for a few minutes, then dropped it off in a ditch outside. As for why he decided to talk to you, I can’t answer that. Just consider yourself lucky. The man can very rarely be bothered to even talk to the dokkaebis who deliver his groceries.”
The information rummaged around Momo’s mind, not quite finding the right filing cabinet to sort into. “Okay,” she said, ultimately, lacking anything better. “Even if I can’t talk to Valerica, I guess he’s sort of the second best thing.”
“Good luck getting him to pick up the call,” Nyk said. “He probably blocked you.”
Mortified, Momo turned to Zephyra. “Can people block you with a bracelet?’
“Of course not,” Zephyra huffed. “Catwalk Communicators were literally designed as harassment devices. They’re made in bulk by elvish modeling companies in order for managers to have a twenty-four-seven line of communication with their employees – aka, underpaid models. You can never refuse calls. All you can do is reroute signals.”
Momo nodded, relieved. She’d try calling him again later once she had given her mind a chance to process this overwhelming amount of information.
“Now, about payment.”
Zephyra closed her toolkit drawer with a click, removed her goggles, and fixed Momo with a terrifying smile. Momo blinked quickly, like one might while staring into the sun.
“What?” Zephyra said, licking her lips. “You don’t think I did that work for free, did you?”
“Oh, um, of course not,” Momo said. She absolutely had thought that. “But I thought since I’m your sister’s friend and all–”
“Please. My sister isn’t even my friend. You, Queen Momo, are even less than that: still a stranger,” Zephyra informed her casually. “Not to mention a queen. Queens have funds. Lots of funds. Hordes of gold and shiny treasure. Tragically, tour tends to limit my ability to get out and purchase new shiny things. It’s a real shame.”
Zephyra looked at her with the intensity of a ray gun. Momo made herself smaller instinctually—her hands crumpled into her stomach, her shoulders folded inward. She wasn’t even doing it cognizantly. The effects of Zephyra’s Charisma were so strong that Momo’s body moved of its own accord. It was not isolated to the body; she immediately began to lose agency over her own thoughts, too, finding herself thinking of ways she could best make it up to her: how much gold she could reasonably part with, which of her favorite doo-dads she could stuff in a sack and present to her like a gift to the Gods.
Momo bit down hard on her lip. Bit so hard that it bled. Snap out of it, she thought desperately. Don’t do anything stupid. She hadn’t had any time to check the stats in her Ruler System lately. Or had the time to hire an economic advisor. For all she knew, the price of gold had inflated like a hot air balloon back home. She couldn’t risk making huge donations to foreign models just because they wanted her to.
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“[Focus],” Momo whispered under her breath.
“What was that?” Zephyra said, extending one of her talons to pick up Momo’s chin. She ran her thumb across the skin delicately. “Did you say something?”
“What’s your price?” Momo choked out. It took every cell in her body not to crumple under the woman’s touch. Even [Focus], which usually acted as an all-encompassing salve to her impulsiveness, barely made a dent in her swimming thoughts. The System hadn’t been joking. This woman had clearly earned her spot as 15th most charismatic person in the realms—her vibes were absolutely smothering.
“Grunt,” Zephyra said, turning her head to one of the anxiety-ridden guardsmen. “What does two million elk translate to in Aloysian currency?”
“Roughly one hundred thousand gold, ma’am.”
Zephyra turned to her and silently raised an eyebrow. It was more than a provocation—it was a command. That was the price tag, and she wasn’t budging.
Momo sighed in relief. That was a lot of money, sure, but it wouldn’t bankrupt the nation or anything. Last time she looked at the capital’s liquid funds, there was at least seven hundred thousand in there. She could part with a seventh of that and only have to beg a medium-sized amount of forgiveness from Sumire. Probably.
Just as she was about to open her Ruler System and make the transaction, Momo paused.
What the hell? She internally accosted herself. Why am I even considering this?
The tiny, truly miniscule part of her brain that remained uninfluenced by Zephyra’s charm was protesting loudly. It hijacked her nervous system and froze her in place, but she still wasn’t able to will her lips to actually disagree. The oppressive nature of Zephyra’s Charisma clamped around her willpower like a heavy metal claw. Using what little executive function she had left, Momo willed her eyes to look at Nyk, silently begging for her to interfere.
“This is none of my business,” Nyk said. “I’m here to escort you to Lione. Not to solve your glaring financial issues. For what it’s worth, though, I think you should give her the money.”
Nyk’s eyes widened as the last sentence left her mouth. Momo recognized that expression – the words had fallen off her tongue unprovoked, as if scripted there by a ghostwriter. Clearly the dokkaebi was not immune to the elf’s Charisma either. It had to be at Expert level or beyond.
“Here it is. Gods, you really are a hoarder,” Kasula said, breaking the tense silence.
The elf was holding up what looked like a black leather suitcase. The suitcase had a fresh, glaring hole in the middle, cut haphazardly into with a knife. Shining inside the dissected suitcase was the unmistakable silhouette of the Soul Splitting Dagger. It glowed like a diamond, blindingly reflective. It had taken the entirety of their painful conversation, but Kasula had finally found it.
With a roll of her eyes, Zephyra turned her attention back to her sister. The spell broke its chokehold on Momo, and she inhaled sharply, suddenly regaining agency over her own thoughts and limbs. She took the opportunity to shuffle towards the door, but the guards flew to blockade her way, crossing their spears in front of the glass sphincter.
“You won’t be running out on Ms. Ren, kid,” said the skinnier of the two sternly.
“Not a chance,” the other added. “We’ve sworn our lives to her bottom line.”
“That’s what you’ve been after this whole time?” Zephyra asked Kasula, not paying the least amount of attention to Momo’s sad escape attempt. “The silly dagger? You could have just asked. It’s total garbage, anyway. The Count told me it could up my Charisma points by ten, but I’ve already hit the System max. It didn’t do shit but weigh down my hand, and my nails are already their own set of dumbbells.”
“You seriously bought this off Count Marzipan?” Kasula said, mouth wide in disbelief. “I was really hoping you were smarter than that. It’s an illegal good made from wraiths, which, as you should know, are a heavily protected species in The Mists. There are dozens of orc trackers looking for this exact item right now. And I can tell you with complete certainty that not a single one of them would be afraid to leak it to the tabloids that you were the one who had it.”
Zephyra froze, blinking slowly. She looked as if someone had suddenly pushed her off balance.
"What are you talking about?" she said quietly. "It's not made of wraiths. Those teeth on the edge.... they're just ornamental."
"Now who has the undiscerning eye for merchandise?" Kasula said. She ran her finger across one of the teeth until it bled - a gaudy, but effective, persuasion attempt. "These are real, Zef. Real enough to kill your career if you aren't careful."
Zephyra opened her mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again.
“I didn’t buy it. He.... The count... gifted it to me,” she said, holding a hand to her lips. “Said it was some dwarven creation. That I had a fan from Deepgrove who wanted to show his appreciation. I – I have groupies everywhere. I’m constantly getting gifts like this. It wasn't unusual.”
Zephyra took a shaky step backwards, her fingers trembling as she sat in her chair.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she said, her typically neutral face growing more and more distraught by the second. “The bastard set me up.”
“Yup,” Kasula agreed, frowning. “Let me guess, he gifted it to you just before the cover shoot for the posters outside, didn’t he? He probably kept insisting on how much it suited your outfit. How you’d be silly not to make it part of the debut look.”
Zephyra nodded coldly, completely frozen by shock. Kasula scowled.
“Total bastard. He made it so you’d incriminate yourself. He probably made a deal with the elvish tabloids, sold them an unbelievable story about you and your illicit dealings with artifacts made of endangered wildlife. I’m sure it’ll hit the news broadcasts in a few days, just as your tour is peaking. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Count is found dead a few days after. Another disposable tool of one of the other Beau Idéal families.”
“It doesn’t matter. This will ruin my career,” Zephyra said breathlessly. “Mother will disown me, naturally. Insist she knew nothing and wash her hands of the whole affair.”
“No she won’t,” Kasula said, her frown deepening. Kasula’s apathetic façade from before had vanished completely. Raw anger sat on her features; fury at the count, at her mother; fury at the prospect of her sister going through the same thing she once did, Momo imagined. “She loves you. You’re literally everything she ever wanted you to be. They’ll figure out a way to run the PR on this, I’m sure. Make it all out to be a huge misunderstanding.”
Zephyra smiled at her sister sadly. Just watching the exchange, Momo was on the brink of tears. The elf woman’s Charisma provoked an overwhelming amount of displaced empathy in her. Momo wasn’t an uncaring person by any means, but it was as if she had suddenly just absorbed fifteen tearjerker films back to back. But more than that, more than any psychological misery the System could ever subject her to, Momo saw something else when she looked at the pair of them.
She saw her own stupid little brother.
Swatting away the rational voice in the back of her head that told her she had larger issues to address – catastrophic, world-ending sort of issues – she rashly stepped forward.
"I think I have a way to settle our debt," Momo said. "And let you keep your career."
Zephyra looked at her skeptically, but a glimmer of hope shone in her eye.
"Oh? And how do you intend to do that?" she said coldly.
"By tanking my approval ratings," Momo said, feeling Sumire's overwhelming disapproval from an ocean away. "Just a little bit."