by Jay Boyce
“All right lass, it’ll be as you say. You’re a shrewd businesswoman.” He glanced at Eric as if implying that she’d sent him to spy on the prices before she negotiated.
She grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll look at it going forward, but for now, I won’t fuss with it if you have the prototypes I asked for?”
He looked surprised and a little grateful. Apparently what she was asking for was worth a lot less than what he’d earned by upping the pricing of the lighted sculptures. “Of course, I’ve got them wrapped up in the back. I’ll go grab them.” He turned and went into the back, having no fear that the four of them would steal anything.
Jade glanced at Eric, who had relaxed the moment Damian went into the back. “Want to help me write a fair contract tomorrow?”
He snickered, shaking his head. “You’re incredible. Sure, I’ll help you.”
Grinning, she encouraged, “Great, now you go pick out a sculpture you like too. Your office is way too bare.” He just laughed and started to walk towards a corner of the store where a different sculpture had caught his eye last night. She grinned in return as the girls started bringing sculptures to the counter. She raised a brow at the sheer number of them, then started counting and tittered when she reached 8. “Getting one for everyone, are you?”
Tisha bobbed and laughed, “Of course! We couldn’t leave anyone out of such awesomeness, now could we?”
Jade grinned. “Of course not.”
Camille reached inside a little medium sized bag and pulled out five crowns. It seemed she had noticed the two sculptures Eric had brought back and decided to buy them as well. Eric was about to protest, but was silenced by a hard look from Camille before he got a word out. Jade meanwhile, was staring at the bag. She hadn’t heard any clinking coming from it before, and she was pretty sure the way Camille had been walking, she’d have heard something.
Camille obviously noticed her peek and grinned. “Dad lent me his holding bag so that we wouldn’t have to have a servant following us around. I wish he’d do this every time we went shopping!” And then it clicked. She had a freaking bag of holding! She was jealous until she realized she’d signed up for a spatial magic class, and would hopefully soon be able to make one for herself. One that was less like a shapeless, ugly thing. A nice purse or backpack would be good. Maybe even a ring if she could figure out how to make it work.
Damian came out of the back, carefully setting down a medium-sized box that was filled with various things. Why she’d asked for sheets of scored and colored glass, he had no idea. The other shaped, dark glass she asked for made little sense either, nor did the little almost tubes she’d had him make. Either way, it was all relatively easy to do, requiring little skill, unlike his sculptures.
“Perfect, thanks! Can you wrap these up for us?” She indicated the sculptures before him, and he got to work packing them up as she considered the box, finally muttering, “Yeah, there’s no way I can carry that and not break it.”
Camille tapped her on the shoulder, saying with a grin, “Ah ah ah, don’t forget, I have the bag of awesome!” She took the bag over to the box, opening it wide and basically just sliding the box in. It disappeared, and she hung the bag back on her shoulder like it was nothing.
Jade asked a little worriedly, “Uhm… It won’t break in there, right?”
Tisha giggled and answered, “No, silly! It’s a separate space dimension. Your box will be totally fine, and so will our boxes!” That said, Tisha had begun putting the little metal boxes in the bag. Jade was suddenly disappointed that she’d have to wait an entire week to learn spatial magic…
With a thought, she waved at Damian, who seemed cheerful that he’d done business with royalty, and that his work would be displayed–in the palace! “Bye Damian, Eric and I will come back tomorrow to get that contract done.” He looked a tiny bit paler at the prospect that Eric would be coming back with her, then nodded and waved them off as she called back, “Have a great day!”
Their next stop turned out to be just around the corner, though in a direction she’d never gone before. She was amazed as they walked into the decidedly hot store and saw all sorts of beautiful metal figurines on display, along with a host of more practical things. The smell of heated metal settled on them like a blanket. She walked up to one of them, touching the delicate curves of the metal flowers as she turned to focus on Eric. “This is your handiwork, isn’t it?” At his shocked nod, she smiled again. “I thought so.”
“How on earth did you know that?” He asked as one of the employees came out of the shop, obviously having just finished part of his work.
He greeted them cheerfully. “Eric, what brings you here with three such…princesses?” He had trailed off, finally recognizing two of the girls. Jade had to hold in her snicker at his awestruck face.
“Just grabbing a few things, I’ll put in what I take later. You can go back to whatever you were working on.” She almost laughed that she hadn’t even needed to dodge his question as he was distracted by his employee.
“Oh, of course! As you say.” He looked flustered as he retreated, and Jade grinned and poked Eric in the side, making him jump defensively.
“I feel practically invisible walking around with you three! Everyone’s always so deferential.”
“Did people act differently around the nobility where you’re from?” Camille asked curiously as Tisha was walking around inspecting everything with the energy of a bull.
Jade shrugged with a grin. “Not sure. There was no nobility in my country. There were the rich, and I suppose people did treat them a bit like that. So I guess it’s pretty much the same, only without the titles. Different kind of power too, but all in all, we were taught that everyone had an equal opportunity to succeed. The whole going from rags to riches thing was essentially the defining story of my country. It was founded by immigrants seeking religious freedom and liberty from the monarchy of their old country. So they sailed halfway around the world and fought wars for their freedom. But that was hundreds of years ago, so it’s something I’ve only read about in history books.” On the internet, she added silently. No need to confuse them even more.
Okay, she hadn’t planned on giving them a history lesson, but oh well. Camille and Eric looked absolutely fascinated. Tisha, meanwhile, had come back with a pretty metal rose sculpture, peeking with puppy eyes at Eric.
He chortled and then motioned, “Take it.” Tisha grinned and stuck it into the bag while Eric started to put together a few bars of several materials, putting them in a box and handing it to Camille, who didn’t even try to hold it before putting it directly into the bag.
She contemplated Eric and asked simply, “How much? Dad said to get her everything she needed.”
He sighed, told her the at-cost amount of what he’d put in there for Jade, and Camille doled out the money. Jade frowned a bit.
“It’s going to take me a while to pay this all back…”
Camille grinned at her. “Nonsense. First of all, the magic you’re going to do on the sculptures is worth quite a bit more than you think. So you’ll be partially repaying us that way. I’m also pretty sure a lot of your ideas are going to benefit the kingdom as a whole, which Dad is super big on. So just consider this your ‘welcome to the world, it sucks you don’t have family here, so we’ll look after you instead’ gift.”
Jade laughed a little sadly, then nodded. “Got it. And thanks for everything.” Camille’s little blurt had reminded her that she really didn’t have her family here. Granted, she wasn’t as close to them as she’d wished sometimes. She had nothing like the close bonds she so obviously saw with the royals. She envied them a little. Her parents had been kind, but she’d been a constant financial and emotional drain, with them never knowing if any of the treatments would work, if she was going to die on them, etcetera. They’d done their best, but she hadn’t blamed them for funneling most of their time and energy onto her little brother, who was perfectly normal and hea
lthy.
Mom, Dad, Ty… Wherever you are, whatever happened… I hope you’re happy. Live a good life. You deserve it for putting up with my problems for all those years…
Chapter Twenty-Two – Shopping
Camille and Eric both caught her slightly sad and wistful gaze before she came to and smiled radiantly at them. “Okay! What’s next?”
Eric reached over, patting her on the head as he notified them, “I should probably head back. I’ve got a few more things I need to get done.” Jade nodded, because that made sense. He’d only made her appointment for two, so that meant he had other things he was supposed to be doing before then, and he’d had to move them around to accommodate her.
“Sure, thanks for helping! I do have one last quick question that just occurred to me though. Is there like a…place that rents out workshops or something?” Tisha had come over again, staring at them and wondering what she had missed. Camille and Eric looked thoughtful, but Eric replied.
“Most workshops are attached to their stores, as you’ve seen. Except for the ones at Dracona, actually. Every class has its own space depending on their needs. How big of a room do you need? We could probably get you a room there.”
She grinned and bounced happily, “That would probably work out just fine! I just don’t want to turn my bedroom or my room at the library into a workshop, because it’s bound to get a bit dirty and cluttered. So I guess, the bigger, the better, but I can deal with it if it’s small, as long as I have a space. And I need a window, obviously.” She grinned at him and he laughed ruefully.
“Very well, I’ll send a note and see what’s available and have them prep it for you, so you can stop there when you’re done shopping. I assume you’ll want to drop some of your purchases there?” She nodded, and he smiled. “Very well. I’ll be off then; it was a pleasure seeing you Princess Camille, Princess Tisha, Lady Jade.” He bent over, brushing his lips over each of their hands in turn, then opened the door for them as they left the shop and parted ways.
As they walked towards the next store, she had a princess on each arm. It was a little unfortunate, given that she couldn’t touch anyone to siphon, but she figured she’d already bitten off quite a lot with the royal family this morning. Tisha was happily chattering, and Camille asked quietly as they walked, “So, what are you trying to make?”
Jade grinned. “Honestly, a little bit of everything. I’m mostly trying to bring things from my world that made life easier or that I miss, but that are easy enough to make that I can do it with the help of magic. They won’t be the same, because there was a material in my world called plastic that I have no idea how to make, but we used it a lot. So I’m trying to find other things to replace it with. They’ll probably be more durable and environmentally friendly that way, in any case.”
Camille was fascinated. “I’m looking forward to it even more now! I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Such confidence in her was a little confusing, but Jade just acknowledged it with a graceful dip of her head.
Meanwhile, Tisha squealed, though not directly in her ear and not as loudly as the last time. “We’re here! I love Sew in Style!” Jade was peering at the store, wondering why it was so familiar as they entered. Her question was answered as out of the back bustled a very familiar woman and her tiny daughter. The three of them had disengaged in order to enter the shop, and Jade was standing to the side.
Tina took one look at her and launched herself forward, running up and jumping at Jade. With a laugh, Jade caught her and stuck her on her hip like it was the most natural thing in the world, even though she’d totally never done it before. She smiled down at the little girl as she matched Tisha in her happy squeals. “Jade! You came back! And you don’t look like a zombie anymore! Can you heal my knee again? I tripped.”
Jade just laughed lamentably. Out of the mouths of babes… She just walked over to the counter, setting Tina on top of it as she ruffled her hair and sweetly crooned, “Of course, let’s take a look at your knee.” She didn’t mention the zombie bit, and Camille and Tisha had both figured out she really didn’t want to talk about it, though they had confirmed that she was indeed the zombie healer. Tina was easily distracted as she pulled up her dress to show a scabbed over knee. Jade put a hand on it, asking with a quiet grin, “Do you scrape your knee a lot?” She could see the wound in her mind’s eye and was trying to distract her because she could see the beginnings of an infection there.
Glancing at Sharon, she queried quietly, “Sharon, can you get me a clean cloth? This is going to get a little messy.” Meanwhile, Tina was chattering about how she’d been climbing a tree and gotten into a tussle with the neighborhood boys. Meanwhile, Jade was directing her little body to push the infection to the surface, leaving the body clean and knitting the flesh together behind it. She put her other hand behind Tina’s knee as Sharon silently brought over the cloth, looking concerned.
Jade took her hand off the wound itself, taking the cloth as she let Tina ramble on. Camille had caught on that something was abnormal and come over, keeping the little girl’s attention. Cloth in hand, she pushed mentally, and the scab came loose, blood starting to flow along with a yellow pus. Jade quickly mopped it up until she was sure she’d pushed the infection out completely, then had the wound heal up after. Little Tina was a trooper, and she’d only let out a small whimper when Jade had initially pushed the scab off.
When she was done, she heaved a sigh of relief and folded the cloth up around the contamination. She smiled wanly at Tina and complimented her, “You did great! Come on, let’s go wash up.” Tina happily hopped down from the counter now that she was all better and started heading towards the bathroom. Feeling a little drained, Jade handed the cloth to Sharon and commanded, “Touch it as little as possible, you’ll want to burn it and then wash your hands immediately. She had an infection, and now it’s all in that.” She smiled at the three of them and concluded, “I’m going to go help her wash while you take care of that.”
Sharon nodded, bobbed a short “excuse me,” to the princesses, and hurried into the back to dispose of it. Jade had also quickly made her way to the bathroom, helping Tina wash her hands and knee before sending her out, then washing her own hands. Sharon came as she was finishing to wash her hands. “Thank you so much. I thought it was just a scrape, so I didn’t take her in…”
Jade smiled and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. It was still in the early stages, so you would have noticed and taken her in as soon as the signs started appearing. My coming here just caught it a little earlier.” She smiled, then cajoled encouragingly, “Now come, the princesses are waiting.”
“Oh! Right!” She’d been so distracted by her daughter that she’d almost forgotten the princesses were in her shop! She bustled Jade out, who was just grinning, as she quickly got down to the business of dresses with the girls. They picked out the styles they wanted from a little book of drawings that Jade was quite impressed with. Sharon shook her head in bafflement when she was measuring Jade. “I just can’t get over it. You were skin and bones two days ago, and now look at you!”
Jade noticed Camille was paying special attention to what she said and sighed. Then she realized what she was doing, and almost went to bang her head against a wall. How could she have been so stupid!? She was getting measured when her measurements were changing day by day! “Yeah...about that, I just realized that these measurements are going to be wrong tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?” Sharon looked confused, as did Camille.
Jade sighed and tried to explain. “Well, you know how you said I was skin and bones two days ago? My body is growing stronger at an incredible rate due to my special ability. I’m not sure when everything is going to settle. I don’t think I’m going to get huge, but I’ll probably put on a lot more muscle and…” She glanced down at her chest. “You know...” Sharon looked contemplative.
“How about this then, I’ll make it bigger, and then you can come in on Sunday morning, and we�
��ll make any final adjustments. What has been changing the most?”
Jade tried to think, then shrugged. “Pretty much everything. I’ve been putting on muscle pretty uniformly. Sharon nodded. “Very well, I’ll do Princess Tisha’s dress first; then I’ll get the fabric for yours ready. If you can come by in a few days, we’ll do another measurement to see what’s changed and I’ll have more to go on as well.”
Jade grinned. “That works! Thanks, Sharon.”
Camille was frowning now, however. “How are we supposed to buy you clothes if your sizes keep changing?”
Jade shrugged at her a little helplessly. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking about it. We could just get things bigger. It should work well enough…”
“No, that won’t do. You need things that fit correctly. We’ll just have to get some basics and then go again next week. Things like capes or cloaks, scarves, nightgowns, and perhaps shoes. Has your foot size changed?” When she shook her head, Camille nodded, satisfied. “All right, we’ll do that then. We’ll get your necessities and a few things that won’t change.”
They then proceeded to do just that. For what felt like hours, she was dragged shop to shop by two enthusiastic princesses. She ended up with the promised cloaks, capes, scarves, nightgowns, and shoes. She got towels, bathrobes, and a few blankets, one of which she had almost refused to stop hugging because it was so soft. She got various soaps (there were some better quality ones, though still nothing like her world), ribbons, paper, ink, and a single quill (she didn’t think she needed more than that, given she was going to create pens). She had a fancy rug for her room, random various crafting materials she figured would be useful for her experiments, a small table she was sure was not going to fit in the bag, but Camille somehow shoved it in there, a few locked chests of varying sizes to keep her things organized in, and some pretty, but simple, jewelry.
