Chapter 58 – Classmates

I was doubly glad I’d not brought Annalisa or the seeker robes, now. A quartet of students from the Seekers Guild had just entered Hawkley’s store.

“Just a moment!” Hawkley called from the back. I stepped off to the side to investigate some wand blanks that had suddenly become very interesting—then stopped. Why was I still trying to avoid notice? I may have been a misfit at the academy, but I was no longer at the academy. The sense of shame I’d wrapped myself in like a cloak at the sound of familiar voices was a thing of the two-card-bonded Darcent. Not whatever I’d become. I put down the wand and leaned back against the corner as the mismatched quartet approached. I spotted them before they spotted me and took a moment to re-associate names with the faces.

The first to notice me was Nerien, a half-elf two years above me with a penchant for astrology and a hand for celestial magic. He stopped dead in his tracks, so suddenly that Vientha and Vistol (A dwarf runecaster and human seeker, respectively) didn’t even stop their conversation or their walk. Only Quinnith, a soul seeker a few years ahead of me bonded to petals and demons took it in stride.

“Tits on a gryphon, it’s Darcent!” he said.

I nodded. “Quinn.”

The half-elf, Nerien, just scowled. But the other two halted their conversation and gawked for themselves.

“Darcent?” asked Vientha, “What are ye doing here?”

“Same as you, I imagine.” I tapped the top of the counter with the book of tarot portraits. “Looking to restock some essentials.”

Vistol eyed the book in my hand. “Some light reading material?”

“Fixing yourself a new deck,” realized Quinnith. Sharp, that one.

“For what?” asked Nerien. “It’s not like the hopeless bastard can use it anyway.”

Vientha hushed him, but I just smiled at her. For all she hung out with the wrong crowd, she didn’t have an antagonistic bone in her stout body. “My old one is getting a bit tattered.”

“You should take better care of it!” she admonished.

Vistol whispered to her, and then pulled out his own deck and did a reading between them. I didn’t know what the question was, but his cards were the two of demons, the lost child, and the three of knaves, inverted. Hidden agendas, things sought after, misdirection and concealed motives.

Nieren just walked past them and picked up the remains of my deck without even asking, looking at the torn and soiled cards. He thumbed through them. “Pitiful. To think, Drella has been running her mouth about you being some secretive underworld gangster.”

“Nieren!” gasped Vientha.

“What?” demanded Nieren. “It’s true, she has. Shameful, really, for someone so close to going Guild. Droning on about him being a four-suited criminal mastermind.”

I looked myself up and down, then lifted my eyebrows at the others. “Do I look like a criminal mastermind?”

“Well, the first half, at least,” said Quinn, sly smile spreading across his face. Too clever by half, that one. “What have you been doing?”

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“Working,” I said. “Trying to find a few silver to scrape together.”

Nieren scoffed. “Tricking rubes for a handful of clips, no doubt.”

Hawkley chose that moment to emerge from the back and climb onto the ledge behind the counter so that he could look—well, not level, but at least shoulder-height, with his customers. “I’ll be right with ye, young sirs—” he touched two fingers to his brow and dipped his chin at the giggling Vientha. “—And lady Vientha. Just as soon as I’ve seen to your friend.”

“He’s not,” snapped Nieren.

“We’re not,” I said. I looked at the ornate box Hawkley had likely just stuffed everything into to make it look fancier—and therefore, more valuable. The dwarf spun the box around and lifted the lid. I peered inside at the blank cards and inkwell sitting next to the scribe and varnish.

“I ain’t got fae teak, but I’ve got rare Black Fjord pine from north of the Mausoleum Planes—the shores where the Blackstone drakes breed. Every bit as good. Yer dragon-bonded, if mem’ry serves, yeah?”

I nodded, picking up the stack of blanks and running my hands over the smooth, glossy black wood.

“Well this might work even better for ye. Essence o’ fire, these have.”

“Malarkey.”

“Aye, but it sounds good. Sure a clever lad such as yerself can leverage that sommat.”

“True.” I picked up the inkwell and held it up to the wane light shining through the window. It glowed silver, but not the sparkling chromatic prism of starfoil dye. I willed the mostly-intact four of dragons out of my deck and into my hand and charged it. I ignored Vistol’s gasp, behind me. Oops. That wasn’t something I’d been able to do at the academy. Hell, that wasn’t something most students a year my senior could do. Under the influence of the greed of dragons, the ink shone like a star. “What’s this? Not starfoil, I think.”

Hawkley clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “You’ve a good eye. That’s mooncap resin ink. Bit harder to work with, but it’s more attuned to nighttime spells. Will stand out well on the black pine.”

That was true enough. I put it back in the chest. “How much for the lot?”

“Twenty cunnings and five,” he said.

Nerien snorted behind me, “Might as well ask a thous—” but stopped short as I opened my coin purse and began to count out silver onto the counter.

“Twenty would have bought the teak and the starfoil. I’ll give you twelve for this rubbish.”

“You wound me,” said Hawkley. “I’m barely making ends meet as it is.”

“Uh, huh,” I said. “That’s why you’re clomping about in designer hobnails, is it?”

Hawkley grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “Keen eyes and ears. Fifteen.”

Hardly. The treasure sense from the four of dragons had clued me in to the relative value of his boots. But Hawkley wouldn’t be Hawkley if he didn’t play his little games. Idly, I wondered how much extra silver he skimmed off the upper city brats that took him at face value.

I counted out fifteen and pushed them over. There wasn’t much left after that. “And you can keep the box.”

Hawkley slid the fifteen over, then considered, and pushed one back. I picked it up. “What’s this?” I asked.

Hawkley leaned in. “Got a mountain of black pine back there, but it don’t sell. It’s good stuff, but out of vogue. I need some finished examples to display; any cast-offs you might have when you’re done with yer new deck.”

I snorted. “Rare, huh? Fine, but I want a five-clip for anyone buys blanks or mooncap off my work.”

The dwarf grinned again and we shook on it. Guaranteed I’d botch a few arcana learning to use the mooncap ink so it was no skin off my back to send them up his way. Not only that, but my work with the scribe was top tier, which is why Master Hedwin had offered to keep me on making decks for students. Fact is, despite my lack of popularity, many had coveted my hand-carved Wills.

“Now, can we get what we came for?” asked Nerien, pushing past me. “I require replacement crystals for my star sextant, six alignment gems, and a chart of the northern sky in autumn.

“Right you are, sir,” said Hawkley. He winked at me and disappeared into the back. Shortly, I heard the sound of his hands rummaging through his bowl of cast-off bits.

“Disorganized fool of a stuntling,” muttered the half-elf. “Can’t he find anything in this shop?”

I smiled and put my new blanks and ink in my pocket, walking past my old classmates.

“What just happened?” Vistol asked quietly.

“Business,” I answered, as I walked out the door.

Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one to leave.