Excuse me. May I pass, please? Excuse me.

Ameryth sat in a comfortable red seat on the bottom tier of the auction hall. Small skylights at the top of one wall let in a little light. A glowing crystal chandelier and crystal torches on the walls helped with other places. And yet, the rows of the audience still seemed to be shrouded in shadows.

The stage, of course, was brilliantly lit.

Scattered throughout the rows sat all sorts of figures; people in suits, dresses, robes, and even uncleaned armor. Some wore alien clothing that was clearly Tower-made. Two in the front left row wore exotic clothing that looked like it might be, but clearly wasn’t. She couldn’t help herself from keeping an eye on those.

These were the rich and noble who sat comfortably, the climbers at the edge of their seats, and the collectors or representatives who stared at everyone else with murder in their eyes. Some came to buy. Some to sell. Some to observe the others or how their own items fared.

For the first time in weeks, Ameryth was just having a day off.

Terribly sorry. I just— Thank you.

She couldn’t actually buy anything here—she was still terribly in debt—but now that she had the support of the Registrar's Department, there was a spark of hope. She might be able to buy here again someday.

For now, she belonged to the group who observed the others. It was relaxing. And it was better than looking at the stacks and drawers full of folders and forms which waited for her back home. It had been so tempting to just burn those to the ground a few weeks ago. Now, she could offload most of the work to the [Registrars]; let them do what they did best.

“Ms. Denner,” a standing person whispered a few seats over. Then so someone else, “Can I—? Thank you.”

Ameryth’s eye twitched. And yet, during this rare relaxing day off, why was Joshua Bluth choosing to pester her?

“Ms. Denner,” the man finally said when he arrived next to her seat. He seemed a little out of breath. From pushing his way through a row of people? He really had let himself go when he took over the family.

“May I sit?”

“It’s a free city,” she mumbled.

“Ah, thank you.”

Ameryth stared at the stage, where they were selling a large vase that had been found in a Garden two weeks ago. It wasn’t enchanted, but it looked pretty and pretty ancient, and it had the signature of the Eruau family on it, a mythic lineage in Linnic mythology. Collectors would probably pay a fortune for it. And collectors from Lin would probably pay them ten fortunes for it.

If it wasn’t a fake.

“Ms. Denner,” Joshua said next to her. “I wanted to speak to you about my daughter, Lea.”

Ameryth frowned. That was his .... third child? Was she applying to her school? That reminded her that Navid Madin had applied, too, which was great, but if the applications continued like this, her school was going to be filled with third and fourth children, middle-class ones, and orphans. Ameryth didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

“What of her?” she asked.

“I received a letter that her application had been rejected.”

Finally, Ameryth deemed to look at the man. She didn’t remember sending out any such letter. Someone from the Registrar’s Department must have taken it upon themselves then.

Or it was a prank.

“Did the letter say why?” she asked. She couldn’t think of any reason they would reject an applicant this soon, a few weeks before the entrance exams. Maybe if the applicant didn’t meet the most basic of requirements, like having a Class or Path, but ...

Oh.

“It did,” Joshua said with grit teeth. There was a spark of his old self in those words. Just in Ameryth’s case, when she imagined "spark" she saw it as a literal spark of passion essence that ground out between his teeth and lit up his cheek from the inside out. Even after all these years, she loved seeing that.

“I just don’t agree with it.”

“Does your daughter have her Path yet?” Ameryth asked, humoring the man. Lea was supposed to be about fifteen, now, she thought. If she wanted to keep up, having her family’s path would be a good place to start.

“Yes. She has the [Bluth Path],” he said.

“And her Class?”

The man looked away.

“If she doesn’t have a Class, I can’t accept her,” Ameryth said simply.

“But that’s preposterous! Other schools don’t have that requirement. Why does yours?”

“Other schools don’t nearly have the same focus on climbing,” Ameryth said.

Her students were going to be going into the Tower much more frequently than others. Still, not too much. You wanted the perfect balance between repetition and discovery for the highest potential level gain, after all, but it would be a noticeable difference. She was hashing out the details with her advisors.

“I should file a complaint to the School’s Guild,” he said, standing up a little. Probably in an attempt to tower over her. Ameryth respected his emotions if not the gesture. “Your school isn’t even open yet.”

“You would be getting in a very long line,” Ameryth told the man.

He seemed to process that for a moment before he begrudgingly sat back down.

“She has the family Path,” he insisted.

“And I’m sure it’s great,” Ameryth countered. “But it isn’t the same as a Class. Has she gotten any Stats from her Path?”

“She’s fifteen,” he dodged the question. Because of course, practically nobody got true Stats from their Path. “That’s the time you should be getting your Class. She’ll have it soon. I know it. She’s trying out all sorts of things now in an attempt to find it, dozens of different weapons, styles of magic, styles of climbing ... One of those will click.”

“Joshua, I have thirteen-year-old children who are level five applying to my school,” Ameryth said proudly. “If your daughter gets her Class in time for the entrance exams, I’ll happily let her apply. But if not, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

“Those are ridiculous standards,” he said.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Then apply to another school with lesser standards,” Ameryth countered.

There was silence for a moment. Ameryth watched as the vase was sold off to the two suspicious-looking ones on the front left row of the auction house. She was pretty sure they were from Eastern Fen by now. Who allowed them in? Were they spies or diplomats? The city probably knew what it was doing, so she didn’t bother too much. Ameryth had her hands full already.

“I can’t,” Bluth said eventually.

Ameryth sighed. “Why not?”

“All of her girlfriends are applying to your school,” he explained. “And most of her peers, too.”

“Ah.”

The troubles of youth. She wasn’t even sure she wanted Lea after hearing that. The girl only wanted to apply to her school because her friends were going there? It was a weak reason. But then again, she wasn’t applying for a scholarship, so what did Ameryth care why she wanted to become a climber? She couldn’t fill her school with only the ones she approved of. She needed numbers, too. Support from important people. Sadly, Joshua was one of those.

He leaned over a bit and whispered.

“I’m sure we could come to an agreement, right?”

Ameryth tried not to look too interested. She sensed the emotions drifting off from his skin.

As a response, though, she just raised a single eyebrow.

He pulled something out of his pocket, a small coin purse, and placed it in the glass-holder of her armrest.

In public, really?

Ameryth didn’t need to open it to know how much money was in there. She could count by sensing the mixture of essences from whoever had placed them in there. Not Joshua’s, but it had been recent enough to last. Somewhere around the twentieth coin, she stopped and tried not to whistle.

Sure, it was about the minimal sum for bribing your child into a school, and it would only help a little with Ameryth’s debts, but that he was willing to spend that much money to get his daughter into her school when there was still a chance Lea might get her Class on her own and Ameryth’s school might fail? It made her proud. It was proof that others believed in her.

This is going to work, she told herself.

“No,” she told Mr. Bluth, trying not to smile.

He grunted and placed a smaller coin purse atop the first.

Ah. So he had known she would say no. How many of those smaller ones could Ameryth get out of the man? She couldn’t sense them through his suit, though, and was immediately more interested in the suit than the coin purses themselves. What was that? An enchantment?

Maybe she could take that as a bribe instead? How would she look in a poorly-fitting men’s suit?

Still, she said, “No.”

And before he could place a third, she explained, “Your daughter doesn’t have a Class, Joshua. I can’t in good conscience let her into my school with the education I have in mind. I wouldn’t even allow her to participate in the entrance exam.”

He frowned for a moment then, earnestly stymied.

“Whyever not?”

Ameryth didn’t deem that response-worthy. If he was smart, he would figure it out for himself.

After a moment, he seemed to. “Will it take place in the Tower? Won’t there be supervision?”

She rolled her eyes.

Suddenly, he placed three more of those coin purses onto the pile and she had to stop herself gawking at him in surprise.

Rich people, she thought. Sure, she was noble, but as soon as she had graduated from school, she’d had to fend for herself. Climbing the Tower and donating most of the stuff you found didn’t exactly pay well. Especially not when you bought as many curiosities—more, even—than you sold.

“Ms. Denner,” a youthful voice suddenly said right next to her ear from behind. She almost jumped out of her chair in surprise. “I have a message to deliver.”

Third time’s the charm and she finally did show her emotions. She stared at something on the stage.

“And for our next item, a surprise. It is a large, sealed scroll found deep in the Open Sewers. Its parchment is high-enough quality to have survived rough combat during extraction without harm and its seal shows the stamp of the famous Shepherd himself. Who knows what it might be? A map of the continent? A description of a new spell? Or maybe just another painting of a herd of sheep? Bidding starts at a gold coin. All proceeds go to the Hoplites of Ostfeld.”

Ameryth could practically physically feel passion essence rolling off of that painting and sweep through the rows of the auction house. How was nobody else reacting to it?

Joshua glared at the messenger. Ameryth only loosely recognized him herself when she turned around to look at him. A glance at his vascular system revealed his identity, though. It was Odis, a low-level [Informant] and self-proclaimed “Grey Man” she had recently employed as a scout.

Annoying Skill, that. Why couldn’t he have contacted her in private?

“It’s my day off,” she stated for both of the men pestering her.

“It’s urgent,” he said and glanced at Joshua.

Ameryth sighed, but said, “Fine.” Any message he delivered would be in code anyway, and if Odis really thought it was urgent, she was willing to hear him out. New as he may be.

“The [Carpenter] Phillipe is currently taking commissions,” he said. “For that watch you wanted?”

Ameryth frowned.

Philippe was a famous level 52 [Carpenter] in Hadica. Him taking commissions was a Big Deal, but she didn’t see how this was relevant to her, or even urgent. Nothing he made would be something she could afford right now, after all.

She squinted at Odis and he widened his eyes a little, as if he wanted her to get the mess—

Oh. OH! [Carpenter] was code for [Enchanter]. Then her mind caught up. [Carpenter] is code for [Enchanter]!

“Where is he now?” she asked, standing up. “Does anyone else know already? How much time do we have?”

“Ms. Denner?” Joshua asked.

She climbed onto her seat and over it to the row behind her, Odis holding her arm to steady her while she did. How considerate of him … as long as he wasn’t picking her pockets. She checked. Her wristwatch was still there.

“We have time. I will lead you to him,” he said. Of course, he would. He worked partially on commission after all.

“Thank you.”

“Ameryth!” Joshua said a little louder now. Other patrons turned to them at the silent commotion, making shushing sounds.

Oh, shush yourselves.

“What about my daughter?”

Oh. Right. She’d almost forgotten about her. And about something else.

“Get me that,” she whispered, leaning down to him and pointing at the rolled-up painting on the stage.

She knew it was a painting. Only [Artists] put passion into paper like that.

Joshua glanced at it. “I’m sorry?”

“Get me that scroll—exactly that one, I’ll know if it’s different—and your daughter can come to my school without a Class,” she said. Then she weighed her head a little, “So long as she doesn’t completely boggle the entrance exams.”

“But—”

Why was he saying “but” here?

“You were willing to spend that”—she pointed at the tiny fortune in her glass-holder—“to bribe her way in. You better be able to secure a simple mystery scroll by the Shepherd.”

Otherwise, he would be a complete waste of his family’s money.

Joshua set his face and said, “Alright.” A little bit of determination flowed through his veins then.

Then she remembered something else. “And pay a little extra, will you? It’s for the [Hoplites].”

He frowned but nodded again.

Ameryth smiled and let Odis lead the way. At the end of the row, she reconsidered and ran back. She practically threw herself over her former seat as she leaned in to snatch one of the smaller coin purses.

“And I’m taking one of these,” she said before Joshua could protest.

Then she ran off, feeling nervous.

[Carpenter] was code for [Enchanter]. If she scouted this one for her school, she would have two. That was the minimum elite schools tried to scout each year. Of course, a lot of them failed. The enchanter Paths were found like sand on the beach, yes, especially among the academic trying to crack how they worked, but the Class? Having it proved you actually succeeded at making something.

That showed potential.

Tossing the coin purse up and catching it again, Ameryth said, “Tell me about him.”

While Odis led them towards Nistar, she thought there was someone she herself was going to have to bribe today.