Lucky Rabbit

There were fifteen people waiting outside the kitchen door. Fifteen. Some looked annoyed, others hopeful, but all were staring at Pandy as she entered the room. Isidor had gone back down the stairs ahead of her, and he pointed at a large man who was the only one who seemed more bored than anything else.

“This is Mr. Mason Baker,” Isidor told Pandy. “You spoke to someone from his company about an over yesterday.”

Pandy very much did not remember doing any such thing, but when Isidor narrowed his eyes at her, she just nodded and looked around uncertainly. “Um, okay, so you can, um, put it… there?” She pointed to a spot not far from the pile of partially melted metal that was the old oven. There used to be cabinets there, but they’d been so water-damaged she’d just fed them to the book, and she had no regrets.

Mason Baker rolled his eyes. “I’m just here to take measurements and discuss the price. The kind of stove you want is going to cost quite a bit.” There was something significant about the way he said this, and the other people gathered outside the door shuffled and murmured among themselves in response.

Pandy held in a sigh. She had hoped that whatever imaginary version of her he’d spoken to had also paid for the stove, because her funds were dwindling rapidly. She’d have to tell Augustus she’d gone through a thousand gold in a week, which was a bit embarrassing, because as far as she could tell, one or two gold was enough to go on a low-key shopping spree in her old world.

“Well, you’ve already taken the measurements, so go to the sitting room to finalize things,” Glory said. She was standing in the doorway, preventing anyone else from coming in. There was a sparkle in her eyes Pandy wasn’t used to seeing, and the curve of her lip was almost predatory as she turned to the next man. “Now, you said you can deliver food on a daily or weekly basis?”

Another man further down the line half-raised his hand and said, “That’s what I’m here for! You can’t just go with him because he got here first.”

Glory raised her brows and tilted her head. “Oh, I certainly could. Unless you can convince me it’s not a good idea?”

Both men started talking immediately, each one promising a faster, fresher delivery for a lower price than the other. Seeing that the Empress had this well in hand, Pandy turned and headed back toward the hall, though she was somewhat surprised to see that Isidor was coming as well.

As soon as they were out of sight of the others, Isidor and Mr. Baker paused, with the strange man’s posture shifting from slightly annoyed to all business. He glanced at the stairs, though he made no attempt to go up. Turning to Isidor, he said, “Is everything going well?”

Isidor’s head was up, his shoulders straight, and he looked like he might snap a salute at any moment. His entire demeanor was a far cry from the grumpy teenager Pandy had grown used to. Tempest was even thoroughly hidden in his pocket, though she’d become more inclined to pop out and glare at everyone over the last few days. For the first time, it occurred to Pandy that when Isidor was around other people, he acted like he was almost embarrassed of his elemental, at least until it was time to fight.

Turning to Pandy, the obviously-not-an-oven-salesman said, “We finally managed to extract Lady Gloria’s property from her former home. It was being watched, but her landlord evicted her and sold everything to pay the rent, so we used intermediaries to buy it.”

Pandy flinched. Poor Empress Glory. At least the other woman could stay here rent free until she found somewhere else to live, but Pandy suspected her former landlord hadn’t heard the last of this. The Empress didn’t strike Pandy as a forgiving sort of person.

“You’ll be receiving a large number of deliveries today and tomorrow,” Mason went on. “We wanted to check in with you and let you know you shouldn’t open any of them outside of the house. Your perimeter defenses have been getting stronger, but they’re not going to keep out a determined elemental. They can’t get into the house, though.”

His gaze lifted as he said this, staring over Pandy’s shoulder, and she turned to look. Nox stood behind her, just far enough that she couldn’t feel his cool aura, but not quite so far that the word ‘looming’ didn’t apply. He was watching Mason Baker though, not Pandy, and she got the distinct sensation he wasn’t happy the man had been allowed inside the house.

Shaking his head, Mason flicked his fingers, and a little twist of wind swirled above it, somehow visible even though it was nothing but moving particles of air. “I’m on the queen’s business,” he told Nox, but the elemental butler didn’t back down.

“Then you should know not to bring one elemental into the territory of another without permission,” Nox said, and his voice was dark in a way more suited to a haunting laugh echoing up from the depths of a murder-cave.

Mason Baker’s eyes narrowed, and he reached into the large leather satchel at his waist. When he opened the flap, she could see what looked like a cloth tape measure, a battered notepad, and a stubby pencil, as well as a few tools she didn’t recognize. Pushing all of that aside, he reached through the bottom of the pouch and pulled out a heavy bag that jingled as he held it out to Pandy.

Bag after bag came out of the innocuous-seeming pouch, and Pandy’s eyes grew so wide she thought she must look like Nyssa when the Apparition was startled. On autopilot, she added them to her Inventory, watching her total funds roll upwards at an astonishing pace. By the time the influx stopped, she had a grand total of ten thousand, three hundred, and eighty-one gold, and was filled with the kind of glee one experiences only after winning the lottery with a ticket they found on the subway. Free money.

A small smile twisted up one corner of Mason Baker’s mouth as he finally dropped the flap on his pouch, shrugging his shoulders as if relieved of a heavy weight, even though Pandy was certain the objects in an Air elementalist’s Secret Cache didn’t actually weigh them down. Unless this one used a different kind of magical storage? Which seemed possible, actually, because surely carrying Lots of Stuff was what magic was meant for, so there were probably multiple ways to do it.

Quietly, the man said, “Just keep on as you are. Our lady is pleased with your progress so far, but reminds you that your priority is to keep the parcel safe. Do that, and you will forever have a friend in the very highest of places.” His gaze flicked over to Isidor, and he added, “And some a bit closer to the middle, as well.” Then, to Pandy’s utter shock, he reached out and ruffled Isidor’s hair, giving the teen a look Pandy could only perceive as affectionate.

Isidor glanced at Pandy, his cheeks turning a shade of brick she’d never seen on him before, and almost but didn’t quite glare at the man. “Is that all?” he asked, stepping out from under the thick-fingered hand, his back stiff.

With a sigh and a flip of his fingers, Mason waved farewell, turning to head back into the kitchen. Between one step and the next, he shifted from… whatever he was, to a no-nonsense workman who’d just come to take measurements and gouge the homeowner for anything he could get. 

With a scowl, he started to push past the people crowding the doorway, then paused and looked back at Pandy. “It’ll be delivered tomorrow, but it’s a good thing you have the gold. We won’t be extending credit to Avingtons.”

A murmur passed through the gathered crowd, which only seemed to have grown since they left the kitchen. Pandy would have expected some people to look nervous at this reminder of the terrible reputation rightfully enjoyed by the Avington family, but instead they only looked more eager.

“I understand,” Pandy said, working hard not to turn the statement into a question, because she did not, in fact, understand.

Then he was gone, and Isidor and Glory were chivvying the lot of them back out into the yard. “Lady Avington has better things to do than speak to unsolicited vendors,” Glory said briskly. “As her steward, I can make those arrangements. Now, you’ve all seen her, so you know the rumors are true. Do you really want to anger her by continuing to disrupt her day?”

Turning back to look at Pandy, she winked, then shut the door between them, leaving Pandy alone with Isidor and Tempest. The voices from outside grew even louder, but they were excited, not angry. Pandy looked over at her ‘brother’ and said, “What just happened?”

Isidor grinned. “Apparently word has spread that not only is the new Lady Avington a complete newcomer to Knightsmere, but she’s throwing money around like water. Add to that the fact that she has a delightfully fresh sense of style and is dating, if not engaged to, the chancellor of Falconet, and people believe it’s worth the risk of coming here in order to see what the talk is all about. At worst, they get fresh gossip before anyone else, and at best they make a lucrative contract with a wealthy and potentially influential house. The fact that you’re not asking for credit is a good sign. Merchants like people who pay up front, but most nobles prefer to run a tab that only gets paid once a month, at best.”

Pandy stared at Isidor. “So having a bad reputation is actually good?”

He shook his head. “No, having a reputation for being interesting is good, at least sometimes. People will want you to wear their clothes, eat their food, and attend their events, all so they seem more intriguing themselves. And the best part is that as long as you pay them beforehand, they have nothing to lose by being associated with you.”

Pandy still didn’t get it, but he sounded pretty sure of himself, so she switched topics. “Who is Mason Baker really? Is he your Master?”

A scowl immediately took over Isidor’s face. “Definitely not. My Master is… is someone far more important and powerful than that man could ever hope to be.” He sighed, relaxing again. “I was six when my Master took me in, and Mason was just a raw recruit, assigned to a fort that guards a desert border no one ever crosses. He was bored and always getting into trouble, so my Master assigned him to teach me. He’s been bothering me ever since.”

That explained the looks they’d been giving each other. ‘Mason’ – if that was his real name, which Pandy doubted – probably would have been in his early twenties or maybe even late teens when he was given a too-serious six-year-old to train. In the eight years since then, he’d probably come to view the younger boy as something like a brother, or at the very least a nephew who’d been forced to live with him while his parents were incarcerated. Which wasn’t an uncommon story in the foster system where Pandy grew up. She’d known kids who weren’t family at all who had bonds tighter than any blood relation.

“So he came to check on you?” Pandy asked, smiling. She was just happy to know that Isidor wasn’t as alone in the world as she’d thought.

Isidor looked away, shrugging with far more nonchalance than she believed he felt. “I guess. He told me he’d get me a job and I could live with him until I could find someplace that’d rent to me, but he just got married last year, and I didn’t want to-” He broke off, clearing his throat, then gruffly added, “Besides, this way I can go to Kestrel and maybe… maybe do something better than be a caravan guard or work in a shop.”

Which actually brought up something Pandy had been wondering about for a while. She’d always assumed that Isidor had been assigned to guard Eleanor in the Gacha Love storyline as well. Then when she was kidnapped, or almost convinced to expose her Nature magic, or whatever it was that happened to force her to leave Knightmere, Isidor would have had to leave Falconet, too. But Pandy could use her spells and skills without spending Corruption Points near him, which meant he was still in the story somewhere when Gacha Love started. The question was, where? He certainly hadn’t been a student at Condor, but almost every non-student character was an adult.

“So you wouldn’t have gone to live with him? If coming here wasn’t an option?” Pandy asked, trying not to sound too interested.

Isidor shook his head. “His wife is nice, but I’m sure she doesn’t want a strange kid underfoot. Besides, he wanted to apprentice me to his father, who really does enchant household items like ovens. It pays well, but it’s exactly the same thing day after day. He didn’t want to do it, so I don’t know why he thinks I would.”

The scowl was back, and Isidor absently stroked Tempest’s head when she poked it out of his pocket so she could look up at him. “I was going to sign on as a caravan guard. I wouldn’t get paid much, not at first, but I’m a lot better trained than most of the seventeen and eighteen-year-olds they get. You can’t join the army until you’re sixteen, but some merchants will take you on when you’re younger. Not the reputable ones, but the ones who don’t tend to ask a lot of questions as long as the job gets done.”

Pandy felt a churning in her gut. That answer didn’t really help, and it actually opened up an uncomfortable possibility. One, game-Isidor might have done exactly as he said he would and joined the military as soon as he was old enough, in which case he could have been one of any number of helmeted guards assigned to patrol the school grounds after the murders began.

But this sounded like in-game Isidor might have gotten involved with some shady people, which might, in turn, have led to him being on the wrong side of those same murders. If that version of him fell in with the Shadow Exchange, which actually didn’t seem all that unlikely, would he have killed innocent people on their instructions? After two years of progressively worse assignments and the disappointment of being unfairly rejected by the Knights, maybe.

Reaching out, Pandy clasped his hand, ignoring the half-hearted snap of a turtle beak less than an inch from her fingers. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she told him sincerely. Then, before he could react, she released him and stepped toward the door leading back to the hall. “Now, I guess I need to get rid of the old oven and finish fixing the rest of the bathrooms. Please make sure Glory doesn’t get us into anything we can’t get out of.”

Just then, a loud neighing sound came from outside, followed by an outraged shriek. Isidor cracked open the door to peer outside, and while he was distracted, Pandy made a break for the stairs. Whatever was going on out there, Isidor and Empress Glory could handle it.