This isn’t something I can clean up with a simple scrubbing. I take a fresh cloth to the counter anyway. I have a shop to open. And if eight vampires didn’t stop The Daily Grind, one djinn certainly won’t.
2
Blue Lotuses
Rakan
The vault sits two hundred feet under the surface of the city. The lift down is a private one, walled in living rock, and it’s been running on the same magic since the bank’s founding.
I don’t have business at Lindwurm today. Sigurd does. I came down with him because the alternative was staying alone with my own thoughts, and I am avoiding those.
By my side, Sigurd leans against the wall, slowly tapping a tentacle against his lip. “There’s something on your mind today.”
He sees right through me. Of course he does, because how could he not? He’s my oldest friend, the kraken who couldn’t be putoff even if I were to wish him away. Most days, it’s reassuring. Today, not so much. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sigurd shoots me a disbelieving glance but doesn’t comment on my obvious lie. But I won’t get away with it. He’s bound to pounce on me again once his business with the bank is settled.
The lift doors open onto a stone chamber the size of a cathedral. Vasili Drachen is at the far end, on his hands and knees, sorting a chest of uncut emeralds with his clawed hand.
He’s not a small dragon. He stands taller than I do, broader through the shoulders than Sigurd. There’s a leather apron tied over his suit, and a peacock feather serves him as a quill. I know for a fact that this particular breed of bird has been extinct for nine hundred years. But that’s never been an obstacle for the dragons of Lindwurm Capital.
He greets us simply, as is the dragon way. “Rakan. Sigurd. Well met.”
“Well met, Vasili.” Sigurd stops by a column of stacked ingots, watching the dragon work with the same patience he brings to most things. “I trust we didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“I always have time for my oldest customers,” Vasili replies. He holds an emerald up to the light and sets it in a small wooden tray to his left. He makes a small note on the parchment floating by his side. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to multitask today. Three of my appraisers have been off this week with the flu. Not tomention I’ve begun to suspect that, even hale, they couldn’t tell a flawless stone from a rudimentary fake.”
I cross the vault and watch him as he carefully moves through his hoard. If I wanted to, I could easily sort everything in this vault with a thought. But I don’t, because dragon magic is on an entirely different level. Even djinn don’t dare to meddle in their affairs.
“If your staff is incompetent, you should fire them,” I say instead.
“I’ll fire them on Monday. It’s more satisfying to do it after they’ve had a full weekend to relax.”
I almost smile. No, he won’t. Vasili has been the head of Lindwurm Capital for nine centuries. He’s one of the very few creatures in the world whom I treat with something resembling formality. He prefers the old courtesies, and I prefer to indulge him.
He’s also much kinder than he looks. Knowing him, he’ll be giving those employees of his a raise, just to make sure they recover from their flu.
But I’m not here to argue with Vasili about his quirks. I’m also not here for myself today. Sigurd is. He steps forward and sets a slim leather folio on the lid of a closed chest beside Vasili.
“One of my ships went down off the cape last month,” Sigurd says. “The insurers have paid out on the hull and the cargo.”
Vasili sets down his quill and takes the folio in his clawed hands. He doesn’t open it. He doesn’t need to. “A clean settlement, from what I saw of it.”
“The hull and the cargo, yes,” Sigurd replies. “I’m here about the crew. Forty-one of them. The standard policy doesn’t cover what their families are owed, and I won’t have it settled at standard.”
Vasili looks at him for a long moment, his slitted eyes seeing far too much. He understands what Sigurd is saying without it having to be spoken.
Some things matter not just because the law enforces them as the norm. We, as monsters, remember the days of old as humans never will. We don’t live in a kind world, not even now. But once upon a time, someone was kind enough to build a road between humans and monsters. That has worth.
“What did you have in mind, Mr. Eiriksson?” Vasili asks Sigurd.
“Pensions for the spouses, lifetime, indexed,” Sigurd replies. “Education for any children under twenty, through whatever level they want to take it. A lump sum on top, generous enough that no one has to argue about it later.”
Vasili nods slowly. He doesn’t ask about numbers. He knows, by now, that Sigurd doesn’t hoard wealth. Not as a dragon would. “It will take a week to set up the trusts properly. Two, if you want them administered through three jurisdictions for the families abroad.”
“Two weeks is fine.”
Vasili opens the folio and turns it toward Sigurd. He hands him the fountain pen—one that’s probably almost as old as this bank is. Sigurd signs, and the paper flashes.
