The woman regarded him for a long moment before leaning back in her chair, her lacquered nails tapping on its arms.
“Buy out,” she repeated. “You seem to be under the impression that I have some measure of ownership over my workers. I can assure you, everyone under my employ is free to leave whenever they see fit.”
Adrissu hesitated. “But surely they are under contractual obligations to you. A portion of their earnings goes to you, correct?”
“There are contracts in place, yes,” she said, then sighed. “Which one of my workers are you interested in, headmaster?”
“Volkmar,” he said brusquely. Clearly, his attempts at subtlety were in vain here. “Whatever he earns you in a year, I will pay triple that amount to you now.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Volkmar,” she repeated again, then laughed. “You’re in luck, then. He’s one of my only workers whoiscontractually obligated to stay. He’s paying off his late mother’s debt.”
“I will pay it,” Adrissu said.Thatwas sure to be its own conversation—who his mother was, and how they ended up in debt to a brothel—but he would much rather hear it all from Volkmar, and later.
“You don’t even know how much he owes.”
“It doesn’t matter. I will pay it,” he insisted.
“His debt is in the amount of...” she started, then reached for a box of small scrolls on her desk. Filing through them, she selected one and unrolled it, looking it over quickly. “As of today, he still owes two thousand, one hundred and seven gold to the Garden.” Her eyes flickered back up to him. “I’d estimate he brings in about a thousand gold per year. We can call it five thousand gold to buy him out and end his contract.”
It clearly did not add up—if Volkmar owed two thousand gold, Adrissu highly doubted that he brought in one thousand gold to the brothel a year, unless the establishment took out such an exorbitant amount that its workers lived in poverty. She was almost certainly taking advantage of him; but for all that he bristled in indignation, five thousand gold was not so steep a price to pay to ensure Volkmar never had to return here.
“Done,” he said, ignoring the way her eyes widened as he reached for his coin purse. With tight robes and slim silhouettes being the trend, he had only a small purse tied to his belt, but he emptied its contents on her table. “This is fifty gold pieces. Consider it a deposit, and I will bring the remainder to you tomorrow.”
He could practically hear her mind working as her eyes flickered between him, the gold on the table, and the parchment in her hand. She had expected him to balk at the price—or at least to call her bluff, to try and bring the price down, so that she would have grounds to refuse. He did not care. There was no price he would not have paid to bring his mate home.
“Well, headmaster,” she finally said, clearing her throat. “You… drive a hard bargain. Let me amend the contract.”
She scribbled over a fresh sheet of parchment in silence for several minutes before presenting it for him to sign. When he did, she took it along with the gold, eyes downcast.
“I must warn you,” she said, looking back up at him as he stood to leave. “I’ve been in this line of work for a long time. This happens every once in a while, some lovesick patron comes to beg me to release the object of his affections. Usually they’re grateful for a little while, but this life is all they’ve known, and eventually the gloss starts to wear off. They usually come back.” Her mouth pressed into a hard line. “Volkmar grew up here. This is truly the only life he knows. You may be wasting your money.”
Adrissu stifled a smirk. “I will take it into consideration, Madam Crowe,” he said, bowing his head stiffly, then he left without waiting for her to reply. He passed through the atrium again—the same woman was singing, but two of the couples that had been lounging before were now gone.
When Adrissu arrived in the entry hall, Volkmar was waiting for him, dressed in a tight, thin white robe that was nearly see-through with how sheer it was. It was barely a step up from walking around topless, the way he had been, but the sight of it made Adrissu instantly hard. Getting him to Saltspire Tower without devouring him first was going to be difficult.
A relieved smile crossed Volkmar’s face as Adrissu strode in.
“Everything alright? Elle said you went to go talk to Madam Crowe,” he said, a slight hint of nervousness in his voice.
“Yes. I... paid ahead a bit, so we’ll have some extra time,” Adrissu said. It wasn’t a complete lie, after all. “So we have plenty of time to get to know each other.”
Volkmar’s grin became wicked, the lust in his eyes nearly palpable. “Oh, I intend to,” he breathed, and took Adrissu’s hand. “Let’s go.”
It was their first direct contact, and Adrissu’s fingers buzzed with the sensation of Volkmar’s skin against his own.
Adrissu was sure that they garnered stares as they walked, but he could only focus on the sensation of Volkmar alongside him, their fingers entwined. It was strange, he thought, to feel this way about someone that was not Ruan, while knowing that somehow itwasRuan. Even if it was not the shape of Ruan next to him, it felt familiar and right. Lightly, he rubbed his thumb up and down the back of Volkmar’s hand, and the human grinned up at him almost shyly.
“You live in the big tower on the cliffs, don’t you?” he asked, and Adrissu nodded. “And you walk all the way to town? That seems so far.”
“I enjoy the exercise,” Adrissu replied, shrugging. “It doesn’t feel like such a long walk when you make the trip every day.”
“I don’t think you’re in our part of town every day, though,” he said, a teasing lilt in his voice. “I think I would have noticed you before if you were.”
When he thought back to it, he had walked down that side street perhaps once or twice before, but evidently not when Volkmar had been out. Part of him stirred with jealousy that he might have beenoccupiedthe last time he’d been down that way, but he did his best to push it aside. He would not let some phantom of the past mar the incandescence of their reunion.
“Well,” he said slowly, returning Volkmar’s wicked smile. “I think I found what I was looking for.”
The human laughed, his head tossing back the way Ruan’s would when he was particularly tickled by some joke or remark, and Adrissu’s chest constricted with familiarity. He had ached for this for so long.
