Casimir stared at me.
“They’ll love it. Trust me.”
“It’s an insane idea.” Casimir exhaled sharply. “Have you talked to Henrik about this?” He shot a glance to Murrow.
I squared my shoulders, drawing his gaze back to me. “He told me to get the tea house open and to get the guild members through the doors. This is how I’m going to do it.”
Casimir’s mouth twisted as he thought. He shook his head.
“This is my stake,” I reminded him.
“You have to admit,” Murrow said, surprising me. “It might be brilliant.” I’d thought he had gone along with the idea because he liked it when things were shaken up, but he had my back with Casimir.
“And it might not,” Casimir grumbled. “If you screw this up, it’s on you.” His tone was missing the bite that it usually had. He let his heavy gaze meet mine. A long, tense moment followed before he finally sighed. “What do you need?”
I smiled, excitedly pulling the parchment from the pocket of my skirts and handing it to him. His eyes ran over the list quickly, his lips pursing.
“That’s a lot of gems,” he muttered, refolding it and tucking it into his pocket. “You’ll spend half your coin on this. Why don’t you have Henrik make fakes?”
“We can’t do it that way,” I said. “This has to be different.”
He checked his watch. “Well, it better be quick. I’m meeting Ezra in North End for pickups. He’ll be waiting.”
He turned into the entrance and we followed until he broke off on the second aisle, where the gem merchants were housed. I watched him disappear into the crush of people and Murrow led me farther up the main artery of the merchant’s house, looking back every few steps to keep an eye on me. The crowd parted before him, recognition in their eyes. Lower Vale and the Merchant’s District weren’t the only places the faces of the Roths were known.
When he turned again, he reached out, pulling me in front of him so I could make my way into the next aisle. The smell of earth and spices was thick in the sea air, the stalls filled with baskets and wooden bowls that carried everything from smoking herbs to medicines to barrels of infused vinegars.
When I found the stall I was looking for, I jerked my chin, signaling Murrow in my direction. The wide table was covered in muslin-lined baskets filled with tea leaves in every color. In each one, a wooden scoop was half-buried, and the fragrance filled my head with a thousand memories of Nimsmire.
The tea merchant was a frail-looking woman with hard eyes rimmed in thick lashes. She blinked up at me, instantly curious. “And what can I do for you?”
“Ten pounds of yearling, please.” I pointed to the largest of the baskets, where the black tea was nearly overflowing onto the table.
She slid off her stool with a grunt, shuffling to the end of the stall. She worked quickly, guessing the weight almost exactly as she set the bag into the scale. When she had two five-pound sacks, she tied them closed with a length of twine. “Twenty coppers,” she croaked.
“I’m not finished,” I said, still looking over the baskets. “Do you have any argon’s whisper?”
Yearling was the favorite in Bastian, but it could be found in anyone’s kitchen at home. There had to be more than dice to draw the snakes of the guild from their holes.
Her brows lifted, her hands stilling on the sacks of yearling. “Argon’s whisper?”
“Yes.” I took the lid off another basket, inspecting it. “It’s a red tea with—”
“I know what it is, child.” She almost laughed. “What do you want with a tea like that?”
I looked at her, confused. “I want to buy it. Five pounds. And five pounds of white willow as well, if you have it.”
She stared at me blankly for another moment before she turned, giving us her back. “Argon’s whisper and white willow.” She hobbled to the table behind her, prying the sealed lids off of two small black barrels that sat behind the others. “Haven’t had a request like that in quite some time. Usually sell these to the traders headed up north.”
That was exactly what I was counting on. Eden’s Tea House would be unlike any other in the city. And if I was going to turn it into the heart of the merchants’ society, I had to give people more than one reason to return.
Beyond the stall, I could see Casimir’s head drifting through the crowd several aisles up. He was making his way from one gem merchant to the next, his trademark scowl heavy on his face. If Murrow hadn’t spoken up for me, I wasn’t sure he would have gone along with my plan. I could only hope that Henrik would, too.
I blinked, going still when a face drew my attention to the opposite wall of the merchant’s house.
Ezra.
He walked quickly beneath the high windows, the collar of his jacket pulled up so it hid half of his face. But his gray eyes were stark in the muted light. He shouldered his way past the aisles, headed for the far wall.
My attention trailed back to Casimir, who was speaking with a merchant. Whatever Ezra was doing, he wasn’t in North End like Casimir had thought. And he wouldn’t expect to see any of us here, either. We’d all been given our duties for the day that morning and the merchant’s house wasn’t on anyone’s list.
Ezra stopped at the end of the aisle, glancing back over his shoulder, and my eyes narrowed. His stern face was even darker than usual as his gaze darted over the crowd. As if he was looking for someone. He waited briefly before he made his way to the steps leading up to the balcony that overlooked the trading floor. When he reached the overhang, another figure was waiting. A man.
Curling black hair stuck out beneath a cap, but when he saw Ezra, the man’s face turned slightly. My brow pulled. It was Arthur. The man from pier fourteen. The man who’d hit me.
An unsettled, sinking feeling woke in my stomach as I watched them. Why would he be meeting with Arthur?
Arthur gestured toward the door that led outside and Ezra followed him, disappearing. The bright windows glinted where they looked out over the water.
Maybe, I thought, he was on one of my uncle’s errands. But Henrik had revealed he didn’t trust Ezra and I doubted he’d send him to meet with Arthur on his behalf.
It was more likely Henrik was right. Ezra was up to something.
“Bryn.” Murrow’s voice lifted over the resounding noise of the merchant’s house and I tore my eyes from the windows, looking up at him.
He was studying my face, half smirking. “You all right?” His gaze lifted to the balcony. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” I swallowed, forcing a smile. I dug into the pocket of my jacket for the coin purse Henrik had given me, opening it.
I lied without thinking, and it took a second for me to realize what I was doing. Protecting Ezra. But if Henrik was telling the truth about him working against me, then Ezra didn’t have any loyalty to me. I didn’t owe him any in return.
Murrow looked confused, still scanning the scaffold overhead, but I kept my head down, counting the coins.
The woman held out a hand, waiting, and I dropped the copper into her palm. She checked them twice and when Murrow took up one of the sacks, she hissed. “No, no, boy. That’s not how we do things.” She dropped the coins into a chest behind her. “I’ll have it brought over.” She took a quill and a torn piece of parchment from the counter, looking at me. “Where should I have the tea delivered?”
“Eden’s Tea House. In the Merchant’s District,” I answered, still distracted by the gleam of light on the windows overhead. “On Fig Alley.”
Her brow furrowed and she lifted the quill from the parchment before she even began writing. “I don’t know a tea house by that name.”
I pulled up the hood of my cloak, smiling. “No. But you will.”
TWENTY-TWO
Coen’s reply to the message I’d sent him had been waiting for me at breakfast.
Ezra made an appearance at the table, but everyone was distracted that morning. Henrik, with the collection he was preparing for the
guild; Murrow, with the extra work that Henrik had passed off to him.
Even Ezra was clearly preoccupied with something and I wondered if it had anything to do with him meeting Arthur. I’d kept what I witnessed at the merchant’s house to myself, but I still wasn’t sure why.
Ezra didn’t acknowledge me as I took my seat and picked up the message sitting beside my plate. He had been more elusive than usual, returning home long after everyone was asleep and starting his work at the forge early each morning. I couldn’t help but think he was avoiding me after what happened in the workshop.
I broke the seal of the message and opened it. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, the watchmaker and his son were the only real connection I had to the Merchant’s District and its influential members. Somehow, Simon had climbed the rungs of society’s ladder despite his less than pristine past, and if I was going to get Henrik to take my match with Coen off the table, I needed to ensure the same for the Roths.
Coen’s invitation to tea was exactly what I’d hoped for when I wrote to him. But when I set the envelope down and Ezra saw Coen’s seal in the wax, he stood from the table, not even finishing his food. I watched him disappear through the door and when I glanced back at Henrik, he was watching him.
I’d let Ezra distract me before, but there was too much on the line now. He’d caught Henrik’s attention and that was a risk I couldn’t take.
There was also the matter of him trying to match me with Coen. I didn’t want to believe it was true, but if I was honest, it was my pride keeping me from considering it. If I were Ezra, maybe I’d have done the same. His place in the family was delicate and his lack of shared blood made him the most vulnerable. Another member of the Roths coming in was a threat. Maybe he thought it was one he couldn’t weather.
So why was I keeping his secret about being at the merchant’s house? I wasn’t willing to answer that question, even to myself.
Simon’s workshop was a stone-glazed building that was half-cloaked in morning fog and tucked inside the east corner of the Merchant’s District. The streetlamps still glowed in the thick haze though the harbor bell had already rung. Coen had asked me to come to the workshop, and the request wasn’t without intention. He, or perhaps Simon, wanted me to see the family business. It was all part of the same song and dance I’d seen play out before. Young, eligible woman available for a match, wooed on connection and potential. But I had no intention of marrying Coen or being the bridge between Simon and the Roths.
The door opened to a young woman in a waxed canvas apron. She had a monocle fit to her face and the gold chain glistened as she let it drop into the palm of her hand. “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Coen,” I answered.
She gave a hesitant nod and I climbed the steps, letting the hood of my cloak fall back. The girl waited for me to untie it before she took the cloak and hung it on a hook. “One moment.”
The workshop was clean and organized, with bright light streaming through the high windows. It was nothing like the gloomy, tattered workshop at the Roths’, where a film of soot from the forge and the furnace covered everything in sight. The sharp, high-pitched strike of metal echoed down the stone hallway and the sound of work being carried out behind the walls filled the building. On the wood paneling before the entrance hung a painted portrait of Simon in a brilliant red jacket, a gold watch clutched in his hand as if he was reading the time.
Coen appeared a few minutes later, still buttoning his jacket as he made his way up the hall. He was smartly dressed, but black ink stained his fingertips, like he’d spent the morning with a quill in hand.
“Bryn.” He smiled warmly. “I was very happy to receive your message last night.”
He turned, waiting for me to fall into step beside him as he showed me up the hallway. I slipped my hands into the pockets of my skirts, casting a glance through the open doorways we passed. Smiths and gem cutters were busy over worktables, shaping rounds of silver and gold that would become watch casings and finishing the chains that would attach to them. Simon’s watches were traded at the finest shops and worn by important merchants even in Nimsmire. He had built a name for himself and it had been enough for the gem guild to forget his origins. But it was his son Coen who would inherit the kingdom he’d built.
He watched me as I inspected the workshop. It wasn’t the burden shouldered by an unappreciative son, I thought. Coen was proud of who they were.
“I’ve had them set tea for us,” he said, gesturing to the sunlit room ahead. “If you’d like to join me?”
“I would,” I answered.
The sitting room was draped with luxurious silks on either side of the towering windows and the travertine mantel that framed the fireplace was an almost-translucent white. The room was likely used for meetings with other merchants and guild members. He wanted to impress me.
A beautiful tea set was already laid out on a low table before two plush chairs and I took one without it being offered. My informality seemed to put Coen at ease. He took the seat beside me and leaned back into it, dropping the rigidity of his posture.
“You said you had something to discuss with me,” he said, lifting a hand to the woman standing in the corner of the room.
She immediately made her way to us, setting the small silver basket over the lip of my cup and pouring in one long, steady stream. The smell of the tea was pungent, an expensive heirloom leaf likely brought in from the crofters up north.
When she was finished, I picked up the saucer, setting it in my lap. “You’ve made quite a place for yourself here in the Merchant’s District.”
Coen was flattered. It was almost too easy. “We have. My father has a brilliant mind for business.”
“You admire him,” I observed. It was evident every time he brought him up. He worshipped Simon.
“What’s not to admire? He built everything we have from nothing.”
I’d made the right decision in lying to Henrik about the ledger. I was sure now. Simon was still feared and the stories about him proved him to be dangerous. Giving Henrik leverage against him would only put the Roths at risk. Simon was still doing dirty business on the side, but who wasn’t? Coin was coin and we all needed it if we were going to keep the lives we’d built. For now, their secret was safe with me, but I’d use it if I had to. That, I realized, made me more like Henrik than I wanted to admit.
I stared into my tea, lost in the idea.
“You come from a family who takes pride in their name, too,” he remarked.
I looked up at him. “I do.”
“Except for Ezra, I mean.”
I set my teacup onto the saucer, trying to read him. It wasn’t the first time he’d brought Ezra up in conversation and that was strange. What did he care about the Roths’ silversmith?
“Ezra told me Simon lost him in a game of dice.” I said it offhandedly, but watched Coen’s face carefully.
The faintest flicker of something passed over his expression, but it disappeared before it fully materialized. “That’s how the story goes.”
“Were the two of you friends?”
Coen’s eyes shifted away from me. “Sure. We were the same age and he practically lived in my father’s workshop while he was apprenticing. We grew up together, in a way.”
“Do you think his work is enough to sway the guild on the merchant’s ring?”
Coen thought about it. “There’s one thing that’s not up for debate. Ezra is a rare talent. It’s a talent the gem guild needs if the Trade Council of the Unnamed Sea is going to hold its sway over the Narrows and everywhere else. They would be foolish not to give Henrik the merchant’s ring.” He paused. “There’s not a day that goes by when my father doesn’t regret that game of Three Widows.” He said it on a laugh, but it was restrained and taut.
“Is that why he hasn’t made a decision about Henrik’s patronage?” I ventured into delicate territory, hoping my candor wouldn’t put him off. We didn’t have time for cordiality.
/>
Coen only smiled wider. “He has yet to make a final decision.”
I took a slow sip of tea, letting the silence drop between us. I wanted to know where he’d go with this thread of conversation. Eventually, he bit.
“I hope that doesn’t disappoint you,” he added, taking up his cup.
“That’s not why I’m here, actually.”
“It’s not?” He looked genuinely surprised.
“No. I came to ask for your help with something.”
Now he was curious. He leaned forward, setting his teacup down again before he propped his elbows up on his knees. “All right.”
“I’m opening a tea house next week and I’d like you to come as my guest.”
“Ah.” He folded his hands together. “The infamous tea house.”
My brows lifted. “You’ve heard about it?” That was good. Very good.
“Word about a tea house that throws dice isn’t exactly a boring rumor. But I didn’t know you were behind it.”
“It was my mother’s,” I said. “Her stake in the family. Now it will be mine.”
“Eden Roth.” He said her name with a tone of reverence. “I’ve heard about her, too.”
“And?”
He looked me in the eye. “My father admired her. More than admired her, I think.”
“I didn’t know he knew her so well.”
Coen shrugged. “They were all in the same circles back then. A lot has changed.”
I watched as he swirled the tea in his cup. “That’s why I need your help,” I said, turning to face him. “I won’t dance around it. Your family’s place in the guild has gained you the respect of the Merchant’s District. And I need the tea house to be filled with those merchants when it opens if we’re going to get their votes at the exhibition.”
It was a bold thing to ask when there was no agreement about patronage or marriage made between our families. In fact, if anything, it would be a favor.
Coen studied me. “And what will I get in return?”
“My friendship.” I leveled my eyes at him, not blinking.
Coen smiled, leaning into the arm of his chair conspiratorially. He considered for a moment before he looked up at me. “I suppose that’s quite a fair trade.”
The Last Legacy Page 15
