Chapter Fifteen

Ludicrous Plans

If anywhere else in Sailor’s Rise was starting to feel like home to Elias, the honor undoubtedly belonged to The Thirsty Eagle. Bertrand likened their favorite Hightown pub to his father’s company, in so much as one might call it a sweet spot of sorts. The bill at the end of the night wouldn’t leave an unsuspecting patron re-evaluating his finances, and no one would stab him for a few copper on the way out. The Thirsty Eagle was the comfortable yet unpretentious space between two worlds. More and more, Elias felt that he too existed in such a space.

It was an upgrade from his previous life, to say the least.

On the subject of new beginnings, they were celebrating Elias’s eighteenth birthday, the date of which had only been revealed to his friends via the paperwork Bertrand was presently handling for his father. Naturally, Bertrand had insisted they celebrate—the evening had commenced with cake—while Briley seldom steered the ship of social affairs. She went where she was invited when it suited her.

The Thirsty Eagle suited her well enough, just as it suited Elias. They were sitting across from each another at the end of a long table near the window, a fireplace warming one side of them as winter air blasted the other whenever anyone entered or exited the bar.

Bertrand, meanwhile, was two tables over. He had started the evening in the empty seat beside Elias, but like baked goods, Sirens was a temptation the young man simply couldn’t resist. They were playing for relics, which might have been a bad bet for another player, but Bertrand had a knack for the card game. Elias, for one, had never beaten him at Sirens, and Briley dodged the question. By the looks on the faces of tonight’s victims and their rapidly dwindling hands, they too would soon have something in common with Elias and Briley: they would know how it feels to lose against Bertrand Fairweather.

“I don’t get it,” Elias confessed between sips of ale. “The game is half luck, so how the hell does he keep winning?”

“Maybe it’s less about luck than you think,” Briley replied, already one beer ahead of Elias, who shrugged and beckoned her to go on. “It’s not merely about the hand you’re dealt,” she explained. “Bertrand knows how to bluff. He knows how to read a man.”

“We’re both good salespeople,” Elias remarked. “Is that not reading people?”

“Sirens is a game of subtle manipulation,” Briley said. “You sell with your head and your words. So do I. Bertrand plays with his whole body. Look closely.” She pointed. “That blonde across from him: see her leg bouncing under the table. The spectacled man: he’s sitting a little too straight. Now look at Bertrand: still as stone, as confident as a mountain peak.”

They watched Bertrand place down his cards on the table. The other players scoffed and tossed up their hands. Defeated again by the master bluffer of The Thirsty Eagle.

Bertrand walked over a minute later, beaming and a handful of relics richer. “Sometimes I make more money here than I do from an honest day’s work,” he said, sitting down. “Drinks are on me. It is your birthday, after all, Elias.”

“I thought my birthday gift was cake,” Elias mentioned.

“You are allowed more than one birthday gift, my friend.”

“Thank you, Bertrand. That’s very generous.” Elias promptly ordered another. He was starting to feel it, truth be told, but what were eighteenth birthdays for if not drinking to excess?

Drinking wasn’t the only reason Elias had gathered his friends together, however, not that they needed any occasion. He leaned forward, elbows bending on the table, and said, “So, I’ve been thinking about something, and, well, I have a plan. It’s a big one.”

“Going to need more intel than big plan,” Briley said.

Elias let the mystery work its magic before finally asking his impatient companions, “What is it you want more than anything?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Briley was no fan of rhetorical questions.

“Just answer it,” he said.

She took another swig of beer and shrugged. “I suppose I want… freedom. My own business. My own purpose.”

It was exactly the answer Elias had hoped to hear as he turned to Bertrand.

“That sounds nice, I guess,” his larger friend answered.

“What if I told you that freedom was within our reach? What does every new venture require?”

“Money,” Bertrand said.

“Or a way to make money,” Elias shot back. “Like an airship.”

“An airship costs money.” Briley seemed to be siding with Bertrand.

“Or does it?”

“Enough with the endless questions,” she exhaled. “Just tell us this damn scheme of yours.”

“This might sound ludicrous, but hear me out,” Elias said, not off to a great start. “Bertrand and I were chatting with his friend, Noah, the other night at the Solstice Eve Ball. Noah said the Graystones are about to acquire an airship without paying a copper in tax. Basically, they have the ship legally abandoned in their junkyard, then simply discover it rather than purchase the thing. No money exchanged—no tax paid.”

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“Why would someone abandon a perfectly good airship?” Briley asked.

“Because the Graystones paid for it in other ways, cutting this other company deals, shipping their wares for free. Eventually, all these favors add up to the price of an airship, I guess. But favors aren’t taxed, and neither is an abandoned airship.” Elias could tell he had Briley’s attention—and Bertrand’s very furrowed brow.

“Go on,” she said.

“I did some digging,” Elias went on. “No one technically owns the ship right now, at least not until the Graystones remove it from their junkyard and register it as their own. Until then, it’s still finders, keepers. The only thing stopping someone else from nabbing it first are the walls of that junkyard and the ability to pilot it out of there. Think about it.” He slapped the table with both hands, rattling their half-empty pints. “With a ship, we could start our own business. Freedom and purpose, as you put it, Briley. Our own venture.”

“You’re right,” Bertrand said. “This does sound ludicrous.”

“Maybe,” Elias admitted. “But if I was afraid of a promising idea just because it was a little ludicrous, I’d still be in Acreton right now, stuck in a muck of meaningless work with nowhere to go.”

“It costs nothing to entertain an idea, Bertrand,” Briley inserted, “even an outlandish one.”

Elias nodded his appreciation and continued his pitch. “How often does one stumble across a chance to acquire a free airship?” he asked them, and this time the question was rhetorical.

“Nothing is ever taken freely,” Bertrand said, still plainly unconvinced.

“And nothing is ever won with excuses,” Elias retorted.

“The Graystones will make us pay, one way or another. They won’t publicly admit they’re evading taxes, but eventually… they’ll find a way.”

“Edric Graystone will gleefully screw you over the first chance he gets, Bertrand, whether or not we do this,” Elias reasoned. “Plus, I already punched the guy, and I don’t think he likes Briley either. Powerful people want you to play by their rules, even the rules they break, because that’s how they hold onto their power: by keeping everyone else in line. I say we step out.”

Something in Bertrand had shifted, if only by an inch. “Even if I agreed with this insane idea of yours—and I’m definitely not agreeing—how the hell do the three of us steal—”

“It’s not stealing,” Elias interrupted.

Bertrand rolled his eyes. “How the hell do the three of us move a massive airship out the Graystone’s walled-off, well-secured junkyard?”

“I’m still working out those details,” Elias said, “but I think it’s doable. Give me a few days, then hear me out. That’s all I’m asking right now, for you to hear me out. As for your role in this, Bertrand, you don’t even have to take part in the… moving. We only need you for a little—what was it you said Bertrand was skilled at, Briley?”

“Subtle manipulation,” she said.

Bertrand recoiled in his seat. “I’m not manipulative.”

“It’s not a criticism,” Briley added. “We all have our skill sets.”

On that rather appropriate note, the blonde woman from the Sirens table tapped Bertrand on the shoulder and demanded another round. Bertrand looked at the pile of relics he had already won from them, glimmering orange in the firelight, before scooping them into his pocket. “These guys love losing money,” he said, standing up and leaving Elias and Briley to their scheming—leaving it unclear as to whether he would take any part in it.

Briley, whose scarlet complexion burned even redder after a few ales, chuckled and seemed less bothered by Bertrand’s sudden departure. “He’ll take some convincing,” she told Elias. “Bertrand isn’t like us.”

Elias was glad Briley felt they had something unique in common, though he wondered which particular qualities she was referring to. “How do you mean?” he asked.

“You and I come from nothing,” she said. “You grew up in a nothing town way over there.” She pointed southeast, assuming her drunken internal compass could be trusted. “And I grew up in a nothing town just over there.” She pointed true east, or at least that was the intention.

“And Bertrand grew up here,” Elias added, connecting another boxcar to Briley’s zigzagging train of thought.

“Precisely,” she said. “Young Mr. Fairweather will inherit his father’s company. He need only build in himself the virtues of a businessman. You and I must build the business too—or else toil in the shadows of other men for the rest of our lives.”

Elias’s head nodded for him, bobbing up and down as he chewed his bottom lip, as if Briley’s words were gospel, as if their shared ambition were a religion, and perhaps it was. “Amen,” he said to her.

Briley could see through the bottom of her pint as she asked, “Acreton, right? The town you grew up in.”

“The jewel of Sapphire’s Reach,” Elias joked.

“Hamford.” Briley said it like a confession whose utterance required a few drinks. “A coastal town in the Broken Isles. Literally, I grew up on the edge of the world. I used to stare out at the ocean, pretending something else existed out there.”

Elias, who had similarly grown up with a wandering mind, knew geography better than most. He knew the republic was a small island nation off the eastern edge of the Great Continent, only a few borders from Sapphire’s Reach. “I’ve always wanted to visit the Broken Isles,” he said.

“Is there anywhere you don’t want to visit, Elias?” Briley smirked.

Elias smirked back.

While the two friends had spent many an hour alone with only each other’s company at Fairweather Provisions, Elias had never connected with Briley on this level before. For once, they didn’t talk about the business or local gossip. They dreamed of the future, and yet on the evening Elias turned eighteen, they spoke bittersweetly about the past.

Another two hours slipped by before they stumbled out of The Thirsty Eagle, an hour later than Bertrand, who had left for home “utterly exhausted”—but also, once again, a few relics richer.

Briley lived in a cramped apartment with two roommates—the only accommodation she could afford in Hightown—but her modest dwelling was at least conveniently close by. Their walk home was mostly the same, and they continued their compelling conversation until finally fated to part ways.

Maybe it was the rare bond of a parallel past. Maybe it was her infectious confidence or the confidence of booze. Maybe it was the blush in her cheeks or the elegance of her sharp features in the soft light of an oil lamp that marked their diverging paths. Maybe it was all of these things. But in that moment, Briley Soren was suddenly the most beautiful young woman Elias had ever seen.

They were already standing close to one another, but Elias leaned a little closer, until her lips were inches from his and he found himself kissing them without thinking. She didn’t retreat, but she also did not kiss him back.

“Sorry,” Elias said instinctively. “I didn’t mean—” He stopped himself, unsure what exactly he hadn’t meant. He was pretty sure he had meant it.

Briley sighed a sober sigh. “It’s not you.”

“You don’t need to spare my feelings.”

“Truly,” she insisted. “You’re a fetching lad, as far as lads go. I’m just not interested in men in that way. Something else we have in common: our taste in women.”

It took Elias a few seconds. “That… makes sense.”

“I thought you’d figured it out,” she said.

“A little too late, it would seem.”

“If it’s any consolation, you probably would be my type otherwise. You’re kind of pretty.” She patted his shoulder, and the only thing Elias could think to do was laugh. “Use that ambition for your ludicrous plan,” she said. “It’s a good one. Or a terrible one. Plans are best evaluated in retrospect.”

Elias peered up at the starless city sky. “Good night, Briley,” he said.

Briley turned toward the direction of home. “Night, Elias.”