Two scents lingered over the breakfast table.
The scent of last night's soup.
And the scent of black wax.
It was not the scent of morning so much as the scent of last night's threat sitting in the middle of the table.
Ria looked longer at the white envelope on the table than at the soup. An invitation bearing the crest of House Seradin. It was too late to be an invitation, and folded too prettily to be a threat.
"Brother. Are you really going?"
"I have to."
Kael tore off a small piece of bread.
"It is the person who called for the meeting who is paying for it."
Ria wore the expression of someone who did not understand, while Rowan wore the expression of someone who had tried to understand and given up. Only Mira was half-smiling.
Edric was grave.
"Young Master. If you refuse, Seradin gains a pretext. If you accept, there is a chance you will be isolated within their estate."
"That is why I am going."
"Pardon?"
"Isolating someone costs money. People to shut doors, people to clear rooms, people to serve tea, people to keep someone waiting. Nobles believe they can move people around for free, but in truth, it all costs money."
Mira nodded.
"Even humiliating a guest costs money. If you do it cheaply, the rumor sounds cheap too."
Rowan asked earnestly,
"Does expensive humiliation have better quality?"
"People remember it longer."
"That is not good."
Ria grew more anxious.
"Why go to a place like that?"
Kael looked at Ria.
In his past life, Ria had not asked questions. After the family fell, she had lost too much. People who have lost everything forget how to ask in the first place. The Ria of now was still asking. To Kael, that was no small recompense.
"We need to know what they think we are worth."
"Our price?"
"Whether they are trying to buy us cheaply, or break us at a high price."
Ria stared at Kael for a long while.
"Do people have to be calculated that way too?"
The dining room fell silent. Mira's smile stopped, as did Rowan's strange questions.
That question hurt more than a blade.
In his past life, Kael had always calculated. The deaths of soldiers, the hunger of the territory, the fall of his family—he folded them all into a single cell in a chart. And so the ledger closed, and the Empire collapsed.
"There are times when you have to."
Kael spoke.
"But you cannot end by reducing people to a price."
"What does that mean?"
"A price is for finding out who is trying to steal something from you. You must not put a price tag on those you are trying to protect."
Ria could not answer. Instead, she untied the old pouch around her neck.
The reserve seal of the Riorden Barony.
It was an item Ria had kept hidden after her father collapsed.
"Take this."
"Ria."
"Mother said that the person who protects a house is not only the person standing at its door."
Ria pushed the pouch toward him.
"If you are going to protect us from outside, I think you will need it."
For a moment, Kael could not say anything. The old, worn, almost weightless pouch. Yet within it was proof that Riorden was not over yet.
"I will borrow it."
Ria smiled faintly.
"You have to pay it back."
"Of course."
Kael tucked the pouch containing the seal inside his coat.
"What is borrowed must be returned."
Edric opened his document case.
"Whom will you choose to accompany you?"
"You are coming. I need a witness for the documents."
"I expected as much."
"Rowan is coming too."
Rowan immediately nodded.
"As an escort?"
"As an escort, and as eyes."
"Would Miss Mira not be better suited as eyes?"
"You see where people will draw a blade. Mira sees where they will draw money."
Mira raised her hand.
"So I am coming too?"
"Because you will be the quickest to laugh at the price Seradin is trying to pay for us."
"That is something I do well."
Rowan said,
"Is laughing in front of your opponent also a tactic?"
"A very old tactic."
"I will learn it."
Mira looked Rowan up and down.
"You should not learn it, Sir. It will show too honestly on your face."
"I can smile too."
Rowan lifted the corners of his mouth very slightly.
Ria said carefully,
"That does not look like a smile. It looks like a threat."
"Then it will be useful as a tactic."
Kael unfolded the invitation.
`The young master of Riorden is invited to the House Seradin Accounting Office.`
The handwriting was neat and the paper was expensive. But Kael saw the costs behind the words before he saw the words themselves.
[Entertainment Expenses: Disbursed in Advance]
[Waiting Room Assignment: For Lower-Ranking Nobles]
[Guards: 8 Inside, 6 Outside]
[Conciliation Budget: Partial Settlement Proposal for Riorden's Debts]
[Pressure Points: Marriage Proposal for Ria Riorden, Servant Wages, Purchase of Warehouse Rights]
Kael smiled quietly.
"They have prepared with great care."
Mira leaned closer.
"Is that a good thing?"
"It means their intentions are bad, but they spent money."
"Then it is a good kind of bad thing."
"Something like that."
Edric's face hardened.
"Has Miss Ria's marriage proposal been included as an item too?"
"Yes."
Ria drew in a breath. Rowan's hand was already near his sword hilt.
"It is not time to draw your sword yet."
"I know."
That was what he said, but Rowan's eyes were cold.
"Seradin is not trying to do anything to Ria right away. They have simply put her on a price list."
"Is there much difference?"
"There is. A price list can be torn up."
Ria clenched her hands tightly.
"Because of me..."
"No."
Kael answered at once.
"Because you are here, they have revealed their calculations. That is not a weakness. It is a clue."
Ria did not look as though she fully believed him. Still, she did not cry. For Kael, that was enough.
The dining room door opened.
Selena Riorden entered. She had the expression of someone who already knew about the invitation. She was neither surprised nor angry.
"Seradin is quick."
"A little quicker than expected."
"Good families are quick with invitations and late with apologies."
Mira laughed quietly.
Selena placed a hand on Ria's shoulder.
"You are going?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"No."
Selena looked at Rowan, Mira, and Edric in turn.
"Then remember one thing. Do not trust the treatment you receive at the Seradin estate. Fine tea means they want you seated for a long time, a low chair means they want you to raise your chin, and warm words mean cold terms are waiting behind them."
For a moment, Kael said nothing.
"Have you been there before?"
"No. But I have dealt with many people from houses like that. A person waiting outside the door often knows the temperature of the inner room better."
It was experience that could not be written in a ledger.
Kael bowed his head.
"I will remember that."
"When you return, the meal will be cold."
"I will eat it."
"Then that is enough."
Selena did not try to stop him. That made Kael pause for a moment instead.
In his past life, he had believed his mother did not understand him. Now that he looked back, Selena had not always merely tried to hold him back. She had only tried to distinguish between when she had to let him go and when she had to stop him. Kael had been the one who failed to make that distinction.
This time, he had to leave with somewhere to return to.
The estate of the Marquess of Seradin differed from the Riorden estate.
If the Riorden estate was a house that had endured for a long time, the Seradin estate was a house built to win. High walls, windows set at exact intervals, black statues on either side of the front gate. As the carriage approached, the estate did not grow larger. It made people smaller.
Rowan looked out the window and said,
"There are four gatekeepers."
"That is only what you can see."
"Are there others I cannot see?"
Kael looked at the top of the wall.
[Surveillance Costs Paid]
[Locations: North Corridor, West Stable, Tower Left of the Main Gate]
"Three more."
Rowan's eyes moved.
"Confirmed."
Mira sighed.
"We are being inspected like merchandise, not welcomed as guests."
The carriage stopped before the main gate. A gatekeeper approached and looked Kael up and down. It was practiced rudeness.
"Are you Young Master Kael of Riorden?"
"It would be troublesome if the people who sent the invitation did not know."
"It is a verification procedure."
"Procedures are fine. Calling it a procedure when you insult someone only makes it look cheap."
The corners of the gatekeeper's eyes tightened.
[Additional Stipend: Attending to Lower-Ranking Nobles]
[Note: Provoke Pride, Observe Reaction]
[Personal Debt: 42 Silver Owed to a Gambling Den]
Kael met the gatekeeper's eyes.
"Forty-two silver."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. The gate was cheaper than I expected."
Mira laughed softly. The gatekeeper could no longer meet his eyes.
The main gate opened.
The garden was beautiful, but there was only one path. Even the path guests walked offered no choice. The soil under the shrubs had been freshly turned. The gardeners had not been tending the decorations. They had been erasing footprints and wheel tracks.
[Trace-Clearing Costs]
[Time of Completion: Dawn]
[Subject: Outside Carriage Route]
Rowan said quietly,
"The path is strange. It is wide, but it would be difficult to escape."
Mira looked at the garden.
"Even a noble's garden can be made into a prison."
"Displays of wealth and prisons are relatives."
Servants stood in a line at the entrance hall. They had all lowered their heads, but at the same angle. Rehearsed greetings. Rehearsed silence. Rehearsed indifference.
The youngest servant among them had ink stains on the back of his hand. He had the hands of an errand clerk more than a servant. He was trying not to look at Kael's group, but his pupils trembled every time Rowan's scabbard brushed against something.
Mira said softly,
"It is a house where even how to smile is taught."
"And how not to smile."
Kael answered.
The Seradin estate had not hired people. It had hired people's reactions. The skill of not being surprised when one should be surprised, not asking when one should ask, and pretending not to have seen what one had seen. That skill, too, came with wages, debt, and vulnerabilities.
Red lines appeared before Kael's eyes.
At first, he thought they were the flow of money. But the lines did not run from pocket to pocket.
They ran from neck to neck.
[Loyalty-Maintenance Costs]
[Target: 47 Employees of the Seradin Estate]
[Method of Payment: Wages, Debt Assumption, Retention of Weaknesses]
[Cost of Leaving: Collapse of Livelihood]
Kael stopped walking.
Mira asked,
"What is it?"
"There is a price on them."
"On the goods?"
"No. On people."
At that moment, a clerk in a black uniform appeared from within the entrance hall.
"Lord Viktor Seradin is waiting for you."
[Order to Make Them Wait: 1 Hour]
[Purpose: Psychological Pressure]
[Condition for Change: Unexpected Reaction]
Kael smiled.
"You said he was waiting, but you were planning to make us wait."
The clerk's eyelid trembled slightly.
Mira whispered,
"My, they saved on tea expenses."
"Nobles spend other people's time as though it were their own money."
Kael entered the entrance hall.
"Today, I will collect the interest too."
Before the Accounting Office, the clerk said,
"You must surrender your weapons before entering."
Rowan's eyes narrowed.
Kael shook his head.
"Then write this down. The House Seradin Accounting Office restricted the escort rights of an invited guest."
Mira immediately followed up.
"Reason for restriction: security of the Accounting Office."
Edric took out a record sheet. For the first time, the clerk looked flustered.
A low laugh sounded from inside the door.
"Enough."
The door opened.
More ledgers than swords lined the walls. The man behind the desk slowly raised his head.
Viktor Seradin.
In his past life, that name had lingered like a shadow in the margins of every ledger from the Empire's final days.
He smiled.
"You are far more troublesome than the rumors suggest, Kael Riorden."
Kael entered the room.
"You called for me more cheaply than the rumors suggested."
Viktor's smile deepened.
"Then let us appraise your price again."