Beryl sat atop a low stool behind the long, sturdy worktable in Aloise’s loft. Daylight from the window behind her cast long, angled shadows across the workshop’s myriad contents. Aloise’s space was somehow cluttered and organized at the same time. The walls were lined with rows upon rows of long shelves that sagged under the weight of their menagerie of books, artifacts, and other magical odds and ends. A scroll rack in one corner was filled almost to bursting with rolled parchments, each with a neatly-labeled tag dangling from its spindle. The worktable itself was piled with weathered journals, faded maps, and partially assembled or disassembled instruments. The room smelled faintly of peat and indigo ink and mineral oil.
It reminded Beryl of the workroom she’d once had in her potion shop. It was strange to think of that place, the little store that had once been her home. During the years she had lived there, scratching a thin living as she plied her secondary trade, the walls of that shop had, for all real intents and purposes, constituted the outer limits of her world.
That seemed like a long, long time ago, she realized with a start. Things had changed since then. Her world had grown infinitely larger, and infinitely more complicated as well.
Halfheartedly, she turned the page of an ancient history book which Aloise had recommended to her as a suitable diversion. It really was a remarkable book, filled with lyrical poetry about Cuombajj witches and their ritual hexes. On another day, Beryl would have lost herself deep within the text, turning each word, line, and stanza over in her mind as she tried to parse history from legend. But on that day, as she waited for Aloise to return, she found it difficult to concentrate. The words seemed to swim before her eyes, and she found herself reading and re-reading the same few paragraphs without ever really registering their contents.
Outside the window, the sun was just beginning to sink. Aloise would be back before dusk; she always was. The question was whether she would return alone, as she had for the last dozen days running, or whether this time she would bring him with her.
As Beryl went through the motions of reading, she idly traced a finger up and down the fresh scar which ran the length of her left forearm. The thin, white line started just above where her thumb met her wrist and climbed nearly all the way to the point of her elbow. Beryl couldn’t actually remember receiving the wound which had caused it. The one-horned minotaur had been holding his knife beneath her chin when her first pyrokinectic blast had gone off, and she figured that the most likely explanation was that his blade had raked her arm as he’d been blown backwards.
Anyway, whatever had happened and whenever it had happened, she hadn’t felt a thing in the moment, and it was only after she had ‘walked away from the scene of her ambush that she’d looked down at herself and been startled to find that she was covered in her own blood. Mercifully, when Aloise had helped her to get out of her ruined clothes and to check herself over for injuries, the cut along Beryl’s arm was the only new mark they had found, and it had already scarred cleanly over, although Beryl had no more conscious recollection of having healed the wound than she had of receiving it in the first place.
Running her finger along the raised path of the scar, Beryl felt a pang of sadness radiate up from somewhere deep inside. She had enough scars already; they more or less told the story of her life.
Aloise had been kinder to her than she’d had any right to expect, having shown up as she did – uninvited, unannounced, and bloodied. Beryl hated the thought that she was putting the blonde mage out, but Aloise wouldn’t hear a word of it. She’d given Beryl fresh clothes, had insisted on sleeping in a bedroll while Beryl took her bed, and had served her scarred visitor countless revivifying cups of Lys’s tea as Beryl had filled her in on events which had transpired since their last encounter.
Beryl had told Aloise about her life before she’d ascended, and about the strange series of events which had led her to pierce the veil. She’d told her about finding herself and discovering acceptance atop a bed of burning coals. She’d told her about her return home and her meeting with Astria. And she’d told her about Astria’s commission and the search for Fisco Vane, which of course was what had led to her unexpected arrival on Aloise’s doorstep. All the while, Aloise had listened patiently, asked the occasional friendly question, and offered plate after plate of tea cakes and biscuits.
Then, finally, when Beryl’s tale-telling had caught up with the present, it was Aloise who had volunteered to summon Fisco Vane.
“You don’t have to do that,” Beryl had said. “You don’t have to do anything. If anything, you’ve already done too much for me. I won’t ask you to put yourself in danger for my sake.”
Aloise had put her hand atop Beryl’s and smiled. “Don’t talk nonsense,” she’d said. “If I can help you, I’m going to do it —it’s as simple as that. I’m not scared of Fisco, and we’re going to find out what’s going on. Besides, from what you’ve told me, you’re not the only one who has some questions that they want to ask Fisco Vane.”
So, on each day of the past week, Aloise had set off in the morning with Fisco’s coin in her pocket, while Beryl had waited behind to see if the Shark himself would answer the blonde’s summons. But, so far, when the downstairs door opened each evening and Beryl stepped out onto the loft’s railed landing, she had looked down to see Aloise entering the house alone, and Beryl was starting to wonder whether the man she had been looking for was ever going to turn up.
She was actually closing the cover on the history of witches, and thinking about what she would do if Fisco never appeared, when she heard a kind of popping noise reverberate from just outside the workshop door, and a pair of voices suddenly conversing from out on the landing. Before Beryl could stand up, the door swung open, and Aloise stepped through into the room, her cheeks slightly flushed.
“Oh, just come in,” Aloise was saying to the person behind her in the hallway. “I can’t see why you’re making such a big fuss about this.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not that I don’t like to meet new people, Hartley, but I do prefer to arrange the introductions myself,” said a low, rasping voice from outside the door. A few puffs of light, grayish smoke billowed into the room through the open doorway, followed a few seconds later by the cigar which had birthed them and the man who held it clenched between his teeth.
The man was shorter than Beryl had been expecting, and slightly older-looking, too. He had slicked-back hair, and his ears seemed a little too large for his head. But the eyes which stared out from his lined face were sharp. The word which jumped to Beryl’s mind was “predatory.”
Just as Beryl was studying the new arrival, she could see that the man was evaluating her as well. He looked her up and down, and although his overall assessment was fast, the man’s eyes lingered on Beryl’s eye for an uncomfortable second, and she was left with the unmistakable impression that he was committing her face to memory.
The man held her gaze just long enough for the air in the room to start to feel charged, before he made a dismissive little grunt and turned back to face Aloise.
“Nope,” the man said, taking another puff from his cigar. “Don’t know her, never laid eyes on her before.” He turned to Beryl for a second, and said, “Sorry, doll, no offense intended,” before turning back to face Aloise again, and saying, “Plus, if I’d have met her, I’d remember it, and you can be sure of that. Naw, if I tried to kill her, then nobody’s more surprised about it than me.”
From her position near the door, Aloise shot Beryl an apologetic look. “Fisco, this is Beryl,” she said to the man with the cigar. “Beryl, this is Fisco Vane.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Fisco said. He walked past the worktable behind which Beryl sat and moved to stand next to the only chair in the room: a carved, wooden, high-backed seat which looked a little like a throne. The wood had a dark, antique patina, and the chair’s arms and legs had been carved in the shape of coiling sea serpents. Fisco looked at the piece of ancient furniture with an expression of bemused skepticism.
“I’d ask you where you dug this up,” he said to Aloise without turning back around to face her. “Except, knowing you, that would be a literal question, and I’m not sure I’d want to hear the answer.”
After another moment spent examining the antique chair, he appeared to make up his mind, because he sat heavily down into it, his arms resting atop the carved serpents as he cocked his head slightly to one side and turned to look at Beryl.
“Now,” Fisco said, taking his cigar out of his mouth and holding it with its glowing tip pointed towards the scarred woman, “I hear you’ve been telling tales out of turn about me. Believe it or not, I do have a reputation to maintain, and if you’re going to be spreading accusations, particularly in front of impressionable people such as young Hartley, here,” he said, nodding his head back in Aloise’s direction, “then I think I have a right to know who you are, and why you’re looking to be involved in my affairs.” The cigar returned to Fisco’s mouth, and he leaned back in the chair, and waited for Beryl to speak.
Beryl turned to Aloise, and tried to give her a look which somehow expressed both sincere thanks and sympathetic solidarity. “How much did you tell him?” she asked.
“Not bloody much,” Fisco rumbled from his seat over against the far wall.
Aloise nodded. “Just the barest details. I thought you would want to speak for yourself,” she said.
“She asked me if I tried to have you killed,” Fisco said to Beryl.
“Did you?” Beryl asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Fisco said. “Why do you think I did?”
“Because I’ve been across a score of worlds looking for you, and, on the last world I went to, some men attacked me and tried to kill me. And, from what I’ve been able to learn about you, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to imagine that you’re the man who sent them.”
Fisco gave a low, short chuckle. “So let’s start there, then, shall we?” he said. “What exactly did you learn about me, when you were gallivanting across the eternities and asking total strangers to point you in the direction of one Fisco Vane?”
“What did I learn?” Beryl said. “Nothing, and everything. Half of the people I talked to jumped at the mention of your name. Hardly anybody seems to want to talk about you, but what they won’t say speaks volumes in and of itself. Nobody knows you, but everyone knows about you. You’re like a shadow which hangs over half of the shady dealings across the multiverse. Something sinister happens, and nobody’s sure how or why? Maybe Old Smokey did it.” Beryl frowned. “You’re practically a living ghost story. I even found a whole plane where people talk about you like you’re death incarnate.”
Fisco sighed. “And, let me guess: that’s where you were when you got jumped?”
Beryl nodded. “I finally thought I was onto something. I’d been asking around for a few days and getting nowhere when a human woman pulled me aside and put me in touch with a human man with a glass eye, who directed me to a lizardman in the next town over, who told me that he could arrange a meeting with you, for the right price, of course. I agreed to meet with him again later to discuss details, but when I showed up at the scheduled place and time, he wasn’t alone. He was there with a one-horned minotaur, and at least three or four other men, and they were not in a particularly talkative mood. They backed me into a corner, put a blade to my throat, and asked me why I was trying to find Fisco Vane.”
The image of that isolated alleyway and what had happened in it came flooding back into Beryl’s memory, and she shuddered a little bit at the thought of it.
Fisco chuckled again. “You must not have been around much, doll, to fall for a setup like that.”
Beryl’s cheeks reddened a bit. “Either that,” she said, “or I knew I could take care of myself.”
Fisco nodded his head ever so slightly. “I suppose that’s fair enough, given that you’re here now and they aren’t.” His face turned thoughtful for a second as he puffed away on his cigar. “I don’t suppose you can tell me anything else about them, these men who attacked you?”
Beryl shook her head.
“And I’m guessing it’s too late for me to try to have a word with them, if I wanted to?”
Beryl was quiet for a second. She looked up at the ceiling.
“They won’t be answering any questions,” she said.
Aloise moved away from the door, where she’d been standing this whole time, and walked back around behind the table to rest a hand on Beryl’s shoulder. Beryl felt immediately grateful for the gesture of support, whereas it seemed to amuse Fisco more than anything else.
“Let me give you some free advice,” he said, “and Hartley, here, can tell you that’s a rare enough thing, so I’d suggest you listen.” He leaned forward in the chair as he spoke. “The next time you go looking for someone like me — if there is a next time — then a little discretion is in order. See, a man in my business can accumulate his share of enemies, and those enemies can be just as dangerous as the man himself.” Fisco paused. “Well, maybe not just as dangerous, but plenty dangerous still. See, I didn’t send anyone after you. But you aren’t the only person looking for me, and I think it’s safe to say that you attracted someone’s attention when you were throwing my name around from plane to plane. Someone who wanted to use you to get to me. Any idea who that might have been?”
Beryl shook her head again. “I take it you have a lot of enemies, then?”
Fisco shrugged. “It’s unavoidable, for a man in my line of work. Unscrupulous competitors, for one. And, despite my deeply-felt commitment to customer satisfaction, not all transactions are concluded with both parties feeling similarly pleased about the deal they’ve made. Misunderstandings have been known to occur.”
“I suppose I believe you,” Beryl said after a moment.
“Believe whatever you like,” Fisco said. “Doesn’t affect me one way or the other.”
Beryl watched as Fisco put a hand up to his face and rubbed at his eyes. The lines of his brow seemed to deepen as he did, and for the first time she noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. His skin there was a kind of deep, bluish-black — almost purple, even, like smoke stains.
He looked tired, Beryl thought. Bone tired.
“What I still don’t understand,” Fisco said, his hand falling back down to his side, “is why you were skipping across worlds and sticking your neck out in the first place with my name on your lips.”
“I was trying to help my sister,” Beryl said. “The people you’re working for are trying to kill my sister.”
“Now, hold up there,” Fisco said. His back straightened, and his voice came as a kind of a gravelly rumble. “First off, I don’t work for anybody. The only person I work for is me.” He stuck a thumb into his own chest for emphasis. “Second thing, just a minute ago I was trying to kill you, and now I’m trying to kill your sister, too?” He pointed a finger back at Beryl. “Before I hear that I’ve got some sort of vendetta against your whole extended family, maybe you ought to actually tell me just who it is that’s after you and yours, and just why it is you think that I’m involved with any of this business.”
“House Dentevi,” Beryl said. “My sister, Astria, told me that you’re working for — sorry, working with — House Dentevi.”
Fisco frowned. “That a place?” he asked.
Beryl shook her head. “It’s a family. One of the seven Great Houses of Aliavelli.”
“I take it then that Aliavelli is a place?”
“It’s my home,” Beryl said, surprised at how strange those words sounded to her.
“Aliavelli,” Fisco said. He repeated the name, slowly, sounding out the syllables. A kind of distant look passed over his face, and his eyes turned upward ever so slightly, as though he were grasping for a memory which was just out of reach. Then, suddenly, he snapped his fingers. He looked back down at Beryl, and she caught a glimpse of his teeth as he spoke.
“Marble buildings?” Fisco said. “Gold mosaics? Big fountains? A lot of rich folks, all of them knobs?”
Beryl sighed. “That’s it,” she said.
“Aliavelli? Never can seem to remember the name of that place.” Fisco’s head shook slightly. “Now there’s a real nest of vipers. If I were you, I’d ‘walk away from that scene and not look back.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Beryl said. She was quiet for a moment, then she frowned as she spoke. “And if that’s how you feel about my home, then why did you go there in the first place?”
Fisco chuckled. “I liked the décor,” he said.
This time it was Beryl who looked confused. “Ornate?”
“Expensive.”
“I didn’t have you figured as a fan of architecture,” Beryl said.
“I like places that have lots of rich people, and lots of ambitious people,” Fisco said. “And your Aliavelli has plenty of both. Where there are rich, ambitious people, there are usually good business opportunities for someone with my unique talents.”
“And what talents are those?” Beryl asked.
“I help people with problems,” Fisco said.
“Out of the goodness of your heart?”
Fisco blinked, twice, and he almost smiled. “Out of the loneliness of my wallet,” he said. “Hartley didn’t tell you much about me, either, did she?”
“Just like I said I would let Beryl speak for herself,” Aloise said, “I thought I would afford you the same courtesy.”
“That’s one of the things I like most about you,” Fisco said, winking at Aloise. “Your sense of even-handedness.”
“I’ll take that as a complement, regardless of how you meant it,” Aloise said. “But I’m not the one you’re here to talk to.” She gave Beryl’s shoulder a small pat, then stepped back to lean against the wall.
“So the Dentevis engaged you to help them with their… problems?” Beryl asked. That final, euphemistic word tasted bitter on her tongue.
“Oh, I presented myself discreetly to several of your, what did you call them? Great Houses? I gave them all my standard introductory pitch and explained my full menu of services. Your friends in House Dentevi were just the first ones to sign on the dotted line.”
“And what did they want?”
“They were particularly interested in my range of obedience aids.”
Beryl raised an eyebrow.
“That’s what I prefer to call them, anyway,” Fisco said. “Other people have nasty names for them. Thrall collars, mindslavers, things like that.”
Beryl’s eye widened a little bit. The expression on her face changed to one of disgust, which she did not attempt to hide. “So you’re a slaver,” she said.
“No, I’m a supplier.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that you don’t approve of what the people you supply do with the things you supply to them?”
Fisco shrugged. “I don’t approve of winter, but it still snows every year. My feelings don’t enter into it.”
“That must be convenient.”
“It is,” Fisco said.
Beryl had to look away for a second. Fisco’s face had assumed a decidedly smug appearance, and she was afraid that if she looked straight at him, her emotions would run away with her, and she would say something that she didn’t mean to say, or — worse — do something which she didn’t mean to do.
Which, she suspected, was probably just what the clever little man seated before her wanted. Beryl found herself wondering whether he said the things he did mainly to provoke her, or whether he really meant them, too. Probably both, she decided.
But that was neither here nor there. She closed her eye for a second and tried to take stock of how she was feeling: anxious, upset, provoked, even a little scared, too. But that was okay. She was aware of her feelings, and by being aware of them, she could accept them rather than being mastered by them. She gave herself a moment to refocus, to direct her thoughts away from jousting with Fisco Vane — which could do her no good, regardless of outcome — and towards the reason she was there in the first place.
Beryl opened her eye again and looked back up at Fisco, who returned the eye contact with a slight look of amusement.
“So, the Dentevis wanted to buy these… devices from you?” she asked. Again, the euphemism tasted foul in her mouth.
“A full two dozen of them, which I agreed to source — in exchange for a suitable fee, of course. Quality like that doesn’t come cheap. Hard to design, expensive to make — especially for a custom order like these. Myself, I prefer the simplicity of a heavy iron collar, but your lot wanted something a little subtler, a little more in keeping with the local aesthetic. An accessory for all occasions, if you will.” Fisco traced a line through the air around his neck. “Dress it up with a frilly gown, dress it down with a simple robe.”
Beryl felt a chill run down her spine. “So they can be worn in public, and no one will know what they are.”
Fisco’s eyes flashed, and again the word “predatory” flashed unbidden across Beryl’s mind.
“You’ve got a head on your shoulders, I’ll give you that,” Fisco said. He took another long puff on his cigar, held the air in his lungs for a second, then exhaled the fragrant smoke, which curled up towards the ceiling. “I didn’t ask, and I don’t particularly care to know. But that’s the conclusion I’d have come to, were I an interested party.”
Beryl’s mind raced as she tried to think of what the Dentevis might do if they could surreptitiously subvert the minds of twenty or so of the most powerful people on Aliavelli. But it didn’t take that much imagination to see who one of those people might be, and what the consequences would be — not just for Astria, and not just for Beryl herself, but for a whole plane of people caught up in a centuries-old game of power politics in which the rules of engagement were about to change. No matter how clever Fisco’s devices were, so bold a move by the Dentevis would not remain covert forever. And, when it was discovered, retaliation would follow, and the spiral of violence would begin. Houses would fall, people would die — and not just among the named elite. If the aristocrats bled each other dry, even the nameless would be pulled under by the red tide.
In Beryl’s imagination, she could almost hear the screams. That was more than enough to make up her mind.
“You have to call off the deal,” she said to Fisco, her voice louder and more resolute. “You can’t deliver those collars.”
Fisco shook his head. “Sorry, doll, but a deal’s a deal. What I promise, I deliver. I’m not a cheat.” He shot a glance over at Aloise as he said that final sentence.
“So there is honor among thieves after all?” Aloise asked.
Fisco made a show of looking wounded. “I’m not a thief, I’m a businessman,” he said. “And I’m a man of my word. Backing out on a deal’s bad for my reputation, and it’s bad for business.” He turned back to Beryl. “Besides, I’m out of pocket on this deal right now, and I intend to collect the remainder of what I’m owed. I like gold, and I don’t leave debts unsettled. That’s also bad for business.”
“If it’s gold you’re after,” Beryl said, with some urgency creeping into her voice, “then we can work out a different deal. My sister has more than enough gold. She’ll pay you whatever the Dentevis still owe you, plus something more for your trouble. You can even keep your collars, sell them again someplace else. You’ll come out ahead.”
Again, Fisco shook his head. “I like your hustle, but like I said, a deal’s a deal.”
“There must be some price at which a deal isn’t a deal. Astria will pay it. I’ll convince her.”
At the mention of Astria’s name, Beryl saw a little twinkle of recognition creep into Fisco’s eyes, and she felt a lump start to form in the pit of her stomach.
“Your sister, what did you say her name was again?” Fisco said.
“Astria,” Beryl said. “Astria Trevanei.”
The faint ghost of a grin formed on Fisco’s face. “Tall, a real looker, some big muckety-muck even among your important types? Sharp tongue and a quick temper, although she hides the latter much better than the former?”
Beryl didn’t say anything. Fisco correctly interpreted her silence as confirmation.
“And she sent you across the planes with a lot of dangerous questions in your pocket, so that you could report back to her about what mean old Fisco Vane was up to?”
Again, Beryl found herself unable to speak. This time, she managed a nod.
Fisco’s grin redoubled. He leaned as far forward as his seat would permit, and when he spoke again, the relish in his gruff voice was palpable. “Remember how I told you that I made the same offer to plenty of your Great House types? Well, your sister was one of them, and she was plenty interested in what I was selling. She just didn’t want to match your House Dentevi on price. Said that what I was asking was far too much, made me a counteroffer that was downright insulting. But then I’m guessing that she neglected to mention all this to you, am I right?”
“Yes,” Beryl said. The word hung in the air in front of her, lame and lifeless.
Fisco leaned back again and tapped the ashes off the end of his cigar. “You’ll forgive me, then, if I’m skeptical about your chances of convincing your sister to pay up. I suspect that, when she put you on my tail, she was rather hoping that she’d stumbled across a cheaper way to get what she wanted.”
Beryl’s head sank into her hands. Speaking through her fingers, she said, “Astria usually gets what she wants.” Her voice was so low as to be almost inaudible.
She expected a triumphal reaction of some sort from Fisco, but instead the older man just gave a tired-sounding sigh. “Yeah, well, we can’t always get what we want,” he said. “And, in this case, your sister is just going to have to cope with disappointment.” With that, he stood up from the carved chair, straightened the cuffs on his expensive-looking jacket, and brushed a speck of cigar ash from one of his sleeves. “Now, unless you both have some other business with me, I’ll be taking my leave.” And he turned to move towards the door.
Aloise took a step in his direction, as if to try to stop him. “You can’t just leave,” she said.
“Of course I can,” Fisco said. “I’m here as a personal favor to you, Hartley, because in spite of my better judgment I find myself liking you. But there are limits to my interest, and you’ve already had plenty of my valuable time. Furthermore, as much as I sympathize with your friend over there, and her complicated family dynamics,” he said, motioning with his cigar at Beryl, “I’ll tell you the same thing that I told her: a deal’s a deal. I don’t go back on my word.”
“You have to do something,” Aloise said. “You can’t just start a fire like this and walk away from it. Not even you would do that. I know it.”
“Then you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” Fisco said. But he stopped walking and turned to face the blonde mage. “If you’ve got suggestions, I’m willing to listen. But so far all I’m hearing is a lot about what I can’t do, and won’t do, and nothing about what’s in it for me. It’s just the same old song, and it’s getting tiresome.”
“What if you just told me where it was going to happen?”
Both Fisco and Aloise turned to look at Beryl, who was on her feet now. Traces of a tear were visible beneath her good, green eye, but she stood straight, and her voice sounded calm.
“What’s that?” Fisco said.
“What if you didn’t have to go back on the deal? What if you went ahead and delivered the collars, and got the money you were owed?” Beryl said. “But what if I just happened to be there when the exchange took place, and I made sure that the Dentevis didn’t hold on to their new toys? You’d still get your money, and you’d still be a man of your word, but I’d be able to stop things from tumbling even further out of control than they already have.”
Fisco was quiet for a moment. He puffed away at his cigar. Then he nodded ever so slightly.
“I’m starting to like this friend of yours as well, in spite of my better judgment,” he said to Aloise. “I like the way she thinks; she’s more devious than she lets on. You ought to pay attention to her — you might learn a thing or two.”
“Beryl’s not being devious,” Aloise said. “She’s trying to get you to do the right thing, in spite of your better judgment.”
Fisco harrumphed. “Dress it up however you like,” he said to Aloise. Then, turning back to Beryl, he said: “Assuming I agreed to go along with this ruse of yours, what’s in it for me?”
Beryl appeared confused by the question. “You’d get your money,” she said. “It’s no different than if you did nothing.”
“Yeah, but I’m not doing nothing, am I?” Fisco said. “I’m doing you an extra favor. And, for that, I expect a little extra inducement for myself. Say,” he shrugged his shoulders, “an extra ten percent. Call it a convenience charge, if you like.”
“I can’t pay you,” Beryl said. “I don’t have any gold.”
Fisco frowned. “I thought you said your sister was rolling in it?”
“She is. I’m not.”
Fisco rubbed his forehead. “Why don’t people ever have the decency to mention that up front? Somehow the fact that they’re skint never comes up until you’re talking terms.”
“There must be something you value besides money,” Beryl said.
“Don’t presume.” Fisco looked hard at Beryl for a moment, looked her hard in her one good eye, and she again felt the clear and distinct sense that she was being measured and evaluated. Finally, he said: “What else would you offer me, then?”
Beryl had to think for a moment before answering.
What she did next made her uncomfortable — profoundly uncomfortable. But it was the only thing she could think of to do, and doing nothing was not an option.
“A favor,” she said. “A favor for a favor, simple as that. If you do this for me, then I will do something for you at some point in the future.”
Fisco grunted a little bit. He seemed to take a moment to consider what she had said.
“A favor?”
“Yes.”
“Simple as that?”
“Yes.”
“Anything I ask for?”
“Anything.”
“No strings attached?”
“None.”
Beryl could see Fisco turning the possibilities over in his mind.
“And what sort of assurance do I have that you’ll come through for me when I call in this favor?”
“You have my word,” Beryl said.
Fisco harrumphed and chewed the end of his cigar. “That’s not much,” he said.
“You’re a man of your word,” Beryl said. “You said so yourself.” She walked around the edge of the table and took a few steps towards Fisco, so that she stood in front of him at roughly arm’s length. “Well, I’m a woman of my word, too. My word is the only thing of value I have. I’m offering it to you. You can trust me.”
“I’m not a big believer in trust,” Fisco said.
Beryl remembered hearing similar words from someone else not too long ago, and the memory gave her a little shudder. But she shook it off.
“Maybe not,” she said. “But try to look at it this way. You said you already have a lot of enemies. Well, you can leave here today with me as your enemy, or you can leave here today with me in your debt. It’s your choice.”
Fisco’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like being threatened,” he said.
“I’m not threatening you,” Beryl said. “I’m just trying to point out that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
The room was silent for a moment. Then the short man with the cigar seemed to relax a little bit. Beryl again found her gaze drawn to the dark circles beneath his eyes, and the look of tired resignation which they seemed to give him.
Fisco turned to Aloise. “I’m sure that you’ll tell me that I can trust her,” he half-said, half-grumbled.
Aloise nodded. “I do,” she said. “I think you should, too.”
Fisco shook his head. “Trusting the wrong person is going to get you in trouble one of these days, Hartley,” he said.
But, after another moment passed in silence, Fisco extended a hand out towards Beryl.
“A favor for a favor,” he said.
Beryl took his hand and shook it. His skin was strangely cold.
“A favor for a favor,” she said.
Fisco took his hand back and used it to hold his cigar as he looked the scarred woman up and down a final time, before giving his head a quick nod.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he said. “If I regret it, so will you.”
“That’s not going to be a problem,” Beryl said.
“You get a place, and a time,” Fisco said. “That’s it.”
“I didn’t expect anything else.”
“Good. One of my agents will be in touch with you with the details. In the meantime,” he said, “try a little harder to keep a low profile? You owe me, and I intend to collect, which I can’t do if you go and get yourself killed.”
“I’ll do my best,” Beryl said. “Luckily for you, I’m difficult to kill.”
“Glad to hear it,” Fisco said. He turned back towards Aloise.
“Thank you,” the blonde mage said.
“Maybe now you won’t believe just anything you hear about me,” Fisco said. He returned his cigar to his mouth. “Although, remember how you asked me before if I was a killer?”
Aloise nodded.
A grin crept across Fisco’s face. “Well, you’d better watch out for your friend, there,” he said, nodding towards Beryl. “Because she’s a killer, too.”
“I don’t label my friends, Fisco,” Aloise said. “People are more than just the sum of their actions. You of all people ought to appreciate that.”
Fisco just grunted in response. Then he stepped out through the door and was suddenly engulfed by a dense cloud of thick, black smoke. When the air cleared, Fisco Vane was gone.
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