Laurel stormed into Sabrina’s office the next morning with a copy of the stolen records, the news of yesterday’s attack, and about seven half-baked ideas on what to do with them. Rian was on front desk duty this week, but she only tossed him a smile and a wave before blustering into the back rooms.

  “The kids got attacked last night. No one was hurt, it was just a bunch of drunks from the Flat’s looking to let off some steam. But things are definitely getting worse. We’re losing Sabrina and I do not lose.”

  “What do you suggest? Things aren’t exactly smooth sailing here. We’re getting more requests to hunt down mana beasts or dangerous plants than we can keep up with. The transliminal space –”

  “Hidden realm”

  “-- hardly stands out any more. We have towns reporting crops behaving erratically, another of those mana fonts you found in Somorin, a village up by the mountains sent word that the rock seems to be moving. And that’s just a few.”

  “But now, we have something to go off of.” Laurel used a barely perceptible strand of mana to pull the records out of her tattoo and presented them to Sabrina. “I’ve been sitting on these for a few days, trying to figure out how to use them, but I still don’t know enough about the politics to make it work. We only get one chance.

  Sabrina nodded along while she skimmed the documents. “How did you even get this information?”

  “I think we can probably skip that discussion,” Laurel answered. “Ideas on what to do with it?”

  “Give me a moment.”

  Laurel wandered back out to the front while Sabrina gave the records a more thorough dissection. Keeping with her new goal of embracing her sect and all its members, she had a conversation with Rian about his life and goals.

  He was one of their rare recruits that had some experience before joining, having been raised by his grandmother, a village hedgewitch. When news of the sect filtered through the country after the leviathan attack, his grandmother had packed him up and sent him north. He was ready to burn his meridians and he was also the only student she’d found so far that was actively interested with her work on the City Core.

  “I’ve been using the Core cultivation resources for my translation projects,” he told her. “I found a description of the process you used to find the sect house blueprint. Why don’t we do that more often? Wouldn’t that make building and enchanting way easier?”

  “A few reasons. That information, at the current Core level, is limited to the buildings that have housed the physical anchor points. The pedestal’s. I can’t just pull up anything that’s ever been enchanted. If we get enough people to bind themselves we can build some specialty workshops in the City that do some of what you’re asking. If we can get the king to agree.”

  “That’s – that’s incredible. Why wouldn’t we do that?”

  “We will. But there needs to be permission from the king, people to work in them, along with time and resources. For now, I’m pleased with improved air and water quality. Have you seen the harbor lately, or the rivers?”

  Rian was wide-eyed with news of the possibilities, and Laurel made note to send him to a small village to practice at some point. The army was having their budding cultivator corps fly around the country to do the bare minimum to establish Villages and Towns, and keep them from getting mana mutations within the borders. Maybe Rian could help once he had some practice as an initiate. After a half hour, Laurel figured Sabrina either had some ideas or never would, and she went back to the serious business of her visit.

  “Do you know what you have here?” Sabrina wasted no time getting to the point. Laurel used a dome of air mana to make sure their words wouldn’t travel, locking the door behind her.

  “It’s a record of the owning stakes in the Verilian Express. Or it had better be. And a record of who has been endorsing the anti-magic propaganda since the guild was established.”

  “Correct. But I don’t think you realize how big this is. The Express has done this before. It probably delayed steam engine adoption in Merista by at least a decade. The military and the merchants have been scrambling to catch up to Naxos and Laskar ever since. You can bet the Guilds haven’t forgotten. And these documents make it clear that Charles Brin has the largest stake, followed by a frankly unsurprising list of conservative noble houses.”

  “I realize that. It makes sense given what a pain he was when the sect was on trial. But what do we do with it? I can smack him around a bit, I guess, maybe break his arm, but that won’t really help will it?”

  “The way I see it we have two options,” Sabrina said.

  “The first is easy, we go public. We slip these documents to the Weekly Herald or somewhere with enough circulation, and watch the fallout. It would ruin Brin. There’s no way the Merchant Guild would stand behind him, not with the history there.

  “The second option, we go directly to Brin. Make it clear we know what he’s up to, and he cools off or else. Maybe throw in something to sweeten the deal on his end. He keeps his wealth, and his standing with his Guild, in exchange for backing off.”

  “What about the high nobles? I recognize House Tanguy from the trial but I’m still a bit vague on the others, or what the nobles even do. Besides parties around town, which I suppose does take up quite a bit of time.”

  “You and everyone else. They’re mostly merchants and estate farmers nowadays, with extra privileges. But my recommendation would be to ignore their involvement. They don’t have the reach or influence individually to be as big an impediment to our goals right now, and trying to deal with them is a hornet’s nest of ancient favors and political influence. If nothing else, angering powerful noble houses might get the king angry with us.”

  “We publish then.” Laurel nodded. She could do that.

  “We could,” Sabrina said, drawing the words out. “But I’m not sure that’s the best option.”

  “This man has come for us. More than once. Why wouldn’t we destroy him?”

  Sabrina pursed her lips and thought for a moment before responding. “We do that, and the conversation shifts to him and his agenda. We let him keep his power and hold this over him, and maybe we can use it to our advantage.”

  It went against Laurel’s instincts, but she was in a difficult position. Forcing people to bind as official Citizens wouldn’t be tolerated. This felt like an extra half dozen steps when they could just get straight to the point. She hesitated, and she hated that. Sabrina knew how to navigate these political landscapes in a way Laurel never would, not when she had spent so many years in an entirely different world.

  “Blackmail it is then,” Laurel said. She stood and walked resolutely out without giving herself the chance to reconsider. There was no time like the present and she had a few stops to make before the main event.

  She knew the locations of both Brin’s office and his townhouse. In her angrier moments during the trial, she had plotted out a route to eliminate all of the looming threats to her sect in as short a time as possible. As she stalked through the city, the houses getting grander and the streets getting cleaner the higher she ascended, she had one wistful thought after another for the older way of doing things. They were getting less frequent as she acclimated but this whole debacle had stirred her temper.

  The instinct to jump to forthright violence instead of the sneaking, pernicious kind that modern politics demanded was still there, but she was better at controlling it. Instead she was working on the skills she needed to navigate all walks of Meristan society. Even if in the back of her head, she knew that she was hurtling into a collision with the unnamed Laskarian cultivator, who was still pulling strings across the globe. And that confrontation wouldn’t be settled with pointed words or political threats.

  This wasn’t to be a normal visit to a merchant house. Even if she wasn’t going to break his legs, he should still remember that Laurel was a master cultivator of the Eternal Archive, and there were certain things he simply didn’t understand. For the first time in the years since arriving in Merista, she bent the light to make herself unnoticeable. It was so easy she almost dropped the technique in surprise.

  The ambient man leapt to her command, eager to obey. The delicate weaving of strands that had once prohibited her from using the technique in all but the most controlled circumstances, now barely required a thought. It was humbling and exhilarating that her cultivation had come so far so quickly. It was heartbreaking that it was at the cost of her sect and their way of life. Unlike her impetuousness, that pain wasn’t fading, and likely never would. She still thought of her people often, the guilt that she had failed to be there when she was needed, and the relief that she hadn’t died with them.

  Laurel gave herself a shake and a light slap. Too much time wallowing in memories would make her lose the present. Almost completely invisible, she slipped into the building in front of her with no more delay.

  Brin’s trading company was unremarkable, much like the man. There was little in the way of decoration or embellishment, though everything Laurel could see was of the highest quality. The workers went about their business with quiet efficiency. No laughter, but then again none of them looked frightened either. It was inconvenient when enemies were competent.

  Finding Brin’s office wasn’t difficult. It was simply a matter of following the most urgent-looking clerks upstream. The entrance was a door of dark wood, lacquered to a polish, banded in steel. Like he was prepared for a siege, and maybe that was what she was there to do. An older woman in a fashionable gown with a flared collar sat at a desk placed directly in front of the door. The bear guarding the den, if Laurel were to guess. She didn’t bother stopping.

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  Edging silently around the woman, Laurel reached the door and turned the handle. It swung open without a sound, the hinges oiled and well maintained. The door shut without a notice from either the bear or Brin, until with a flick of the deadbolt, she sealed them inside.

  “Yes, what is it March?” the man himself bit out, not even looking up from his desk.

  Laurel dropped her technique and made herself comfortable in the chair across from Brin. The leather was supple and shined, just like everything else she’d seen so far. This man liked quality, and he liked other people to notice that quality. “I think it’s time you and I had a chat.”

  If he was surprised, he didn’t betray it on his face. But with a drop of focus, Laurel could tell his heartbeat had sped up. “Madame Stormblade. My apologies for not preparing a better reception. My staff failed to inform me of your visit.”

  “Yes,” Laurel said with a smile. “I thought it best if it was just the two of us, to start.”

  Brin leaned back and folded his hands in front of him. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Laurel, and thought of all the reasons she might be there. “What can I do for you?” His voice was soft, but held a whisper of threat.

  “It’s come to my attention, Mr. Brin, that you own a controlling interest in the Verilian Express.”

  The pause was only a heartbeat too long. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Madame Stormblade. My business is primarily in lumber, stone quarries, import and export. I’m not in the media market.”

  “Is that right?” Laurel took out one of the copies of the ownership documents, the originals she had made the boys return to avoid any accidental discovery. It was still an impressive replica, Cooper’s training at the University meant the document would have passed most inspections. In particular, the palace seal in the bottom corner looked real from across the room. “This was sent to me the other day. It is the writ of ownership for the Verilian Express.”

  “Funny,” Brin replied. He wasn’t laughing or even cracking a smile. “Such records are, by order of the king, kept private. Only those with an order from the Palace are allowed access, so I’m afraid this is likely a forgery. Whoever sent that is trying to trick you. I know you’re new to our ways here so be assured there will be no hard feelings.”

  Laurel placed the page on the desk gently, holding it down with just her fingertips. “Do you think so?” The man was holding his cool admirably, but he couldn’t resist leaning down to check the veracity. “I wonder if the Herald would care, were I to inform them? I’ve been told this would be a big story for them, but maybe I’m mistaken. I’m not so familiar with your ways, after all.”

  That was as bare a threat as she could lay out. She watched the calculation in his eyes. How could he spin this, how could he get out of it, how could he turn this back on her.

  “What, exactly, are you here for, Madam? I don’t think you’re the taunting type, if you were going to go to the Herald, you would have done so.”

  Perfect. Now onto the actual business. Maybe a competent enemy wasn’t so bad after all, at least once she had already won. “I don’t want to go to the Herald. Why bother so many people? You’re allowed to own a newspaper. But I would very much appreciate it if that newspaper didn’t print nasty things about myself, my family, my background, my pursuits, and my sect’s place in this city.” She leveled her sweetest smile at him.

  Brin’s hand spasmed, but it was the only noticeable loss of control after her demands. “I think you are imagining the hands-off owner of a newspaper having far more influence over what gets published than is the reality.”

  “Hmm, I think not. How about this? I know I’ve given you a lot to think about. Take some time to consider, and we can talk again in a few days.” She stood to leave. “I’m a reasonable woman, Master Brin. If there’s something from me that would make this easier for you, I’m willing to negotiate.”

  Leaving wasn’t quite as easy as getting in. Her camouflage technique wouldn’t work if he was staring straight at her. With a deft manipulation of the ambient mana, she used a puff of air to knock something off a shelf down the hall from the office. She timed her exit with the guardian outside rushing towards the noise, and no one was the wiser.

  This would work. It had to work.

  Slipping out of the building was trivial, and she leaned against the wall to wait for the next step. Men like Brin didn’t take threats like that lying down. It took less than ten minutes to prove her right.

  Three young men left in rapid succession, each with a crisp brown uniform with the Brin’s Mercantile logo embroidered on the breast. Laurel tagged each with a strand of mana as they walked through the door. Pushing more mana into her camouflage she sank her consciousness into the mana flows of the city. The experience was a joy compared to the first time she did this. Like floating in a secluded lagoon instead of trying to survive a whirlpool. Her bond to the Core had developed enough to find traces of her own mana anywhere in the city, and she used that ability now to track Brin’s employees as they spread out.

  The first was on a straight line for the nobles’ district. She’d hoped Brin would keep this to himself but that was never very likely. Laurel instead kept tabs on which houses the man visited. To her amusement, the man paid for a ride on the air cabs to cut down on the travel time. Brin’s bias must be of a practical nature, not true bigotry, and not something so deep-seated that the man’s employees shunned magic as well.

  The other men went directly towards the city record depository and the palace, respectively. The only two places in the city the records like the one Laurel had flashed were kept. If she were the one being threatened, her first option would be to discredit the blackmailer as a thief. Find the missing records, accuse the person of stealing them, then anything that came out later was muddied by a criminal. They wouldn’t find anything.

  She pushed off the wall and started making her way towards the sect. For now, this would have to be enough. Brin might be able to bribe some of the record keepers to check for anything missing. Might even get them to remove the records out themselves, or destroy them entirely. But Laurel was betting he wouldn’t take the risk. The merchant was about stability and guaranteed returns. Bribing a public official, in particular in a way that would leave him open to future scrutiny wasn’t his style. And Laurel had dangled the carrot before leaving.

  It would work. If she repeated the mantra often enough it would have to be true.

  Her mind was still half submerged in the mana flows, tracking the tags on the messengers, when she felt a tug in an orthogonal direction. It led to one of the business districts. The type of place where middle class Verilians that were interested in climbing the social ladder went to buy specialty paper, or tea blends with exotic ingredients. Annette knew someone in almost every shop. But nowhere that Brin had sent a lackey. Laurel ducked into a nearby side street and tucked herself against the wall behind a pile of wood crates. She relaxed her control and let her mind drift towards the disturbance.

  “Fuck!”

  She dropped the fiddly light technique and launched herself into the air. Flying through the city was usually something she avoided, but there was no time to navigate the streets. It was only a minute later when she arrived. One of the air cabs was on the ground, blocking the street with its bulk while the driver cowered next to the control panel. Atop the low barge, brandishing guns, were four figures in dark masks. Two pointed guns at the crowd and the driver, and two were breaking open boxes in what looked like a straightforward robbery.

  Laurel took it all in within the first heartbeat. In the second, she crashed back to the ground, on top of the bandit closest to the driver. She heard something snap and sent a small shock to make sure the man stayed down.

  At the third heartbeat she kicked out at the next closest, shoving him off the barge and into the street.

  By then the other two had leveled guns at her. Laurel twisted her body as the shots went off. A line of fire burned across her left arm. In the last moment before reaching the remaining two thieves, she reminded herself not to kill them, and released the mana in the lightning bolt she’d instinctively prepared. Instead she tossed both over the barge with the second, then flattened them to the ground with a sustained wind.

  The whole thing was over in less than a minute. She took a deep breath and looked around. The driver was gaping at her, the same man who had watched her anchor the black hole obsidian in the first place. More pressing was the crowd of onlookers gawking at the scene.

  “You and you,” she pointed out two passersby that looked like they were used to running around. “Run and find a guard and bring them back!”

  With a delicate application of lightning mana, she caused a continuous shower of blue-white sparks to go off in the air above the scene, acting as a flare. Then she looked down at the thief lying unconscious on the floor of the air cab.

  A sharp nudge with the toe of her boot flipped them over, and she pulled off the mask to get a better look. An unremarkable face, one that would fade into the back of any crowd. She shrugged and tossed his limp form over her uninjured shoulder. Bullets and large explosives were still a problem, especially that close, but she was getting better at dealing with them. Her shoulder hurt but she would be healed by the end of the day.

  Laurel dumped the attacker in a pile with the rest of her prisoners, and then for good measure, went around and removed all the guns she could find, along with the knives, and any purse or pouch that might be useful. That done, she returned to the barge to inspect it for damage. It looked like the would-be bandits were after the cargo and had left the structure itself alone after forcing it to ground. Some scuffs, but who didn’t appreciate a good battle scar?

  Laurel took a perch on the railing and let her feet swing while she waited for what came next.

  The driver finally stopped gaping long enough to approach. “Umm, excuse me, miss?”

  “Yes?” Laurel said, distracted and still scanning the crowd for anything unusual.

  “You’re bleeding, do you need help?”

  “What?” She looked down at her shoulder. Blood seeped through the light blue cloth, dripping all down her arm and onto her hand. A wisp of metal mana, honed into a tiny knife by her willpower sent the scrap fluttering to the ground. Beneath was scabbed over flesh, already well on its way to healing. “It’s fine.”

  If anything, it was great. She was close to being able to evolve all her mana types, and blade would be so much easier than forcing metal into what she wanted every time.

  “Okay. Yes. Of course.” The man’s tone crept upwards, until the last word bordered on a shriek.

  “Hey,” she shouted in a sharp voice. It seemed to do something to break him out of the spiral. “Calm down, it’s fine now.”

  With nothing else to do the driver joined her sitting on the rail. About half the crowd moved on with their day, sensing the end of the excitement. The rest stayed and whispered to themselves. About what would happen next, and who Laurel was, and ‘do you see the sparks?’ and all manner of rehashing the events of the morning. Eventually one of her enforced volunteers returned, panting at the head of a squad of city guardsmen.

  Laurel listened to the driver explain. In stutters and starts she heard how two of the thieves had boarded the cab in the docks, at the same time as the cargo, regular paying customers. They spent the first part of the flight getting to know the porter accompanying the crates. Chatting about who he worked for and what he was delivering. Upon reaching the merchant district with their cargo’s destination, they pulled out weapons and forced the driver to land where their accomplices were waiting.

  It was a decent plan. Normal wagons or carriages that moved expensive goods got lost in the crowds, but the air cabs were easy to track. Especially since there were still only a handful of routes through the city. The merchants that used them for cargo were those that sold expensive or delicate items. Things they wanted to avoid jostling, or avoid long times exposed on the streets. Getting on board and then waiting until you knew the loot would be valuable to enact a plan ensured it would be worth it. Whereas the regular system you would need to know ahead of time what carriage to hit.

  The driver’s narrative stumbled to a halt when Laurel arrived, and she stepped in to finish it off as quickly as possible. Fought off the bad guys, contained for the guards, took ages waiting while she had to sit around. They finished off and collected the criminals, writing everything down and interviewing a few of the remaining onlookers.

  “Come on,” Laurel said to the driver. “Up to the palace, we need to talk to Curson.”

  The man looked more terrified at that prospect than anything that had just happened, but he followed instructions and the cab began to rise. Laurel looked back as a cheer went up from the crowd. People smiled and waved at them and she returned the gesture with a bemused grin. Maybe she should be a bit more direct in combating public opinion if this got people on their side.

  After arriving at the palace and sending for Curson, they got to do the same song and dance. The royal councilor asked quite a few more pointed questions than the city guardsmen, and it was a two hour interview Laurel wished she had skipped. She built herself up for the inevitable argument. They would want to shut down the air cabs, too dangerous, too much hassle, and Laurel couldn’t let that happen. It would be an utter travesty of wasted Black Hole Obsidian, for one thing. More importantly, it would be another arrow in the quiver threatening the sect.

  “Look, we absolutely can’t stop running the air cabs, or delay the additional routes. If anything, in another few months we can add some additional floating structures. Lookout towers, or some higher-altitude defense maybe. We can’t backtrack now.”

  “I agree.”

  “Oh.” That took the wind out of Laurel’s sails.

  “This bump in the road is hardly enough to justify shutting down a venture that has been so profitable for the city. Did you know traffic in some of the major congested areas has been reduced by three percent since we installed the main passenger routes?”

  “I did not know that,” Laurel answered. How did one measure three percent of traffic?

  “It has, and we only anticipate even further improvements. If what you say is correct we can entirely split out cargo and personal transport, and use the first to defray the fees for the second. No, we’ll be keeping the cabs, and we’ll be including two guardsmen on each shift to make sure no further incidents occur.”

  “Easy enough.”

  “Yes, and I suspect the guardsmen will rejoice in a route that requires so little walking. A good solution all around.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  “Good,” the driver piped in.

  Laurel pondered the day’s events on the way back to the sect. Even if she got Brin to stop being actively antagonistic, the damage was mostly done. Other papers had picked up some of the same ideas, even if none were quite as vitriolic in their rage. But the crowds had cheered her today like they had when she killed the leviathan. Perhaps she had been thinking too big when she joked about driving some extra beasts towards the city for her to fend off. These people were unused to magic, any little thing she could do would be impressive or useful. Laurel began to form a plan, one she thought even Annette would be proud of.