As the sun sank it dyed the room red. Carrington still seemed awake, though he never moved.

When I’d finished and asked his opinion of what I should do, Percy only shrugged. “I don’t know; let me think about it for a while.”

“Okay,” I replied and dug my toe into the dirty rug.

An incredibly loud, drawn-out coughing fit graced the room. Carrington’s doing, of course. He cleared his throat and began to speak. “You boys think I can’t hear, that just because my body doesn’t work, my ears don’t either! Wrong! I heard every teeny-tiny eensy-weensy word both of you said about the Triumdemic. No, I’m not going to turn you in. Why? Because I hate the Triumdemic! They’re the ones that did this to me,” he spat out, and gestured to his body under the sheets.

I looked at Percy warily, and whispered, “I think he’s a few loaves short of a bakery. Where did he come up with this stuff?”

“It’s all true!” He raged. All the veins in his forehead stuck out dangerously, and his face’s color changed to beet red. “The Triumdemic is behind this whole war, just like Callum said. Anyone who doesn’t know it is a fool.”

Great. He knows my name. And he’s going to have a heart attack or something if he doesn’t calm down.

“Hey, hey,” I said, and tried to sound calm. “Yes, we both know what’s going on. It’s okay, we know.” He seemed to settle down a little. I kept talking. “We don’t like it, either. We’re just not sure what to do.”

Carrington made eye contact with me, an intense look on his face. “Kid, I’ve been around a lot longer than you have. Rumor has it, the Triumdemic is holed up in one of the caves around Egron City, with a business in town as their secret doorway. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it and I’ll tell you what I’d do if I was able to take down their black market.”

“Why would you want to destroy them? They sell medicine that the Egron City hospital isn’t able to get. It saves lives,” Percy said. “And they give a lot of their profit to families who need it.”

“Those are just fairy stories, kid. They’re greedy. They sell the medicine for six times what it’s worth - only nobles can afford it. Is that fair? Are the lives of poor children worth less than their noble counterparts? If the Triumdemic really cared about the people, they would give the medicine away for free to everyone, or offer their supply lines to the hospital itself. News flash - they don’t care about anything except their profit margins.” Carrington said with a disdainful snort.

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“Anyway, Carrington, I’m curious. How would you get rid of the Triumdemic?” I asked.

“There’s a couple different ways. You want to hear about the quick, life-threatening, utter destruction route; the medium-fast plan, or the slow and steady undercutting of profits?”

“We don’t have enough time to go slow and steady. Too many people have died already.”

“Okay. Here’s the firecracker plan. You join the Triumdemic. You get all buddy-buddy with whoever’s in charge. Then, you whack them, their assistants, and their families. Cut the head off a snake, the whole snake dies. Easy-peasy.”

“Except for the whacking everyone part,” Percy rolled his eyes.

“How about the medium-fast one?” I asked. I wanted to explore all my options.

“Kind of similar to the last one: You join the Triumdemic. You get all buddy-buddy with whoever’s in charge. You become trusted, and get put in charge over some portion of the racket. Then, you totally mess it all up. You send people to the wrong places, you fire the couriers, you make it so that the cargo airship captains will never work with you again.”

“That wouldn’t work very well,” Percy pointed out. “They could just train their own couriers and delivery people. And that’s not complete destruction; they would recover eventually.”

“Hmph. I assume you want to hear about the slow, insidious plan? Here goes: you start your own black market. You sell the same goods for cheaper. Noblemen become loyal to you over the Triumdemic. Your profit would be less, but if you had rich investors, you could keep going until the Triumdemic withers and flies away like a dried-out dandelion.”

“We definitely don’t have enough time or money for that. I want a fast plan, I just don’t want to have to whack everyone.” I told him.

“You could get a lawyer or whoever to look into all their tax paperwork. I bet the king allows them to get away with all sorts of illegal tax stuff. Even five years in jail for their leader would cripple them.” Carrington said after a minute.

“I don’t know any lawyers,” I said. Even if I did, as a refugee I wouldn’t be allowed to hire one.

The supper bell rang. I stood up and grabbed my knapsack. “Better go and get it while it’s hot. Does someone get your food, Carrington?”

“Yeah, the doctor will.”

“We’ll be back in a few minutes, then. Hopefully the line isn’t too long.” I opened the door. Percy still sat on his bed. He continued to stare into space. “Percy, are you coming?”

He shook his head and snapped out of it. He looked dazed. “Yeah, I’m coming. Give me a minute here.”

He stood up and followed me out the door. “Don’t you want your knapsack?” I asked.

“Oh. Yeah.” He re-entered the room and grabbed it, then followed me down the stairs and out of the hotel. We joined the line and eventually received our food.