"-and I want it in writing!" Aiko's voice crackled through the communicator, bright and relentless.
"Alright, alright, I'll work on it, I have an expedition coming up so I'll see you in a week or so."
The call ended with a soft click. Sunny set the communicator on the table and let out a long breath, aware of Gemma watching him from the other side with the expression of a man who had just watched someone sign a deal with a very small, very enthusiastic devil.
"Are you sure about this?" Gemma asked.
"About what?"
"Aiko." He leaned forward and lowered his voice, though the rest of the Hunters had long since drifted back to their card games. "I'm pretty sure she counts coins in her sleep. She is obsessed with money, Sunny."
"Of course I'm sure," Sunny said.
"That is not as reassuring as you think it is."
"You're just saying that because you still owe her soul shards. A person who loves money that much isn't going to lose any of it. I'd trust her more than someone who claims they don't care."
Gemma stared at him.
'Besides,' Sunny thought as he looked around the room, 'This lot deserves to be fleeced'
He stood, stretching until his joints popped, and rolled his shoulders. "I need you to do something for me. Get the Hunters started on collecting memories. Anything they find in the Chained Isles and The Dens. And materials, too. Anything Kido's people could use to craft them. Monster parts, ore, whatever looks valuable."
"We can't bring any of it back," Gemma said. "Not without storage memories. Everything we gather stays in the Dream Realm."
"I'll figure something out."
"You say that as if you have an idea."
"I have a headache," Sunny said, heading for the door. "And a feeling that I'm about to have a lot more of both."
***
The dining hall of the Immortal Flame manor was far too large for four people.
It had a long table of dark wood that could have seated thirty, a ceiling hung with chandeliers that cast a warm, golden light, and a row of tall windows that looked out on a garden Sunny had been told was lovely but had never once had time to look at it.
The four of them had clustered at one end of the table.
"Doofus!"
Sunny winced.
Effie sat in her wheelchair across from him, grinning like a shark, a fork already stabbed through a roll.
"I heard you came limping into the manor this morning," she said. "You should have said something! I would have lent you my chair."
"I was… only limping a little."
"Half the staff is taking bets on how long it took you to recover."
Cassie covered her face with her hands. "Effie, please."
"I'm just saying!" Effie turned to Nephis with a look of deep, sincere admiration. "And you, Princess. Gods. I'm so proud of you. Word is you were very… assertive."
Nephis, who had been calmly cutting her meat, looked up. "Thank you."
"Don't thank her!" Sunny hissed.
"I mean it. Dominating doofus, making him limp. That's how you show who's on top!"
Nephis considered this with the seriousness she gave to everything. Then, very quietly, she said, "To be fair, if I didn't have my healing, I'd be the one limping."
The table went silent.
Sunny choked on his water, Cassie made a noise like a startled bird, and Effie's fork slipped out of her fingers and clattered against her plate.
"…Say that again," Effie whispered.
"I said-"
"No! No, don't! I heard you!" Effie's eyes were enormous. She looked at Sunny in disbelief, then back at Nephis, then at Sunny again,. "The doofus did that? Him? With the-" She gestured vaguely at him. "-noodle arms?"
"I do not have noodle arms!"
"How big is he?"
"EFFIE!"
Nephis blinked, thought about it, and began, "Well, he-"
"NOT AT THE DINNER TABLE!" Cassie shot to her feet, hands raised, her face so red it was visible even through her blindfold. "Please! I am begging you! There are people trying to eat!"
Effie pouted, slumped back in her chair, and picked up her roll. "You're no fun, Cass."
"I am very fun. At appropriate times."
"Sure."
Sunny stared at his plate wishing the world would swallow him whole. He could feel his ears burning. He wasn't sure whether to be mortified, flattered, or both.
Mostly he decided on mortified.
They ate in an uneasy, slightly-pink silence for a few minutes. Effie ate the way she always did, like a starving wolf, Cassie nibbled at her food while pretending nothing had happened, and Nephis ate with calm, impeccable manners. Sunny was halfway through his plate when a fork slid sideways, quick as a snake, and speared one of his roasted potatoes.
He looked up.
Nephis was chewing, serene and innocent.
"Neph."
"Hmm?"
"That was mine."
"It was on your plate."
"That's what 'mine' means."
She tilted her head and looked at him with those wide, innocent silver eyes. He felt his resolve crumble.
He grumbled something under his breath. Then he loaded his fork with a piece of meat and a bit of potato, held it out, and stuffed it directly into her mouth.
Nephis blinked.
Her eyes widened. She chewed slowly, and for the first time that evening she looked genuinely, pleasantly surprised.
She swallowed. Then she looked at him, and opened her mouth.
There was no sound. There was no need for one.
'She's doing the bird thing.'
Sunny sighed.
He loaded the fork again.
"Oh my gods," Effie whispered. "They're feeding each other."
"I hear it." Cassie said faintly.
"Don't look," Effie advised.
"I'm blind."
"That's what I'm saying."
Sunny ignored them both, though his cheeks were burning. It was, he reflected, a very strange thing to be happy about.
Once the plates had been cleared and the dessert had arrived, a creamy something with berries that was the second-best thing Sunny had eaten all week, he cleared his throat.
"So. About the business."
Three heads turned toward him.
He told them the plan. Buying and selling memories, supplying the Hunters' finds to Kido's artisans, building a name. He left out the reason, which was a very large and very secret clan, and when Effie narrowed her eyes and asked why he suddenly cared about money, he said, "Because I'm tired of being poor," which was true.
"Fair," Effie admitted, and went back to her pudding.
"The problem is transport," Sunny finished. "The Hunters can gather what they find, but they can't carry anything back to the waking world. Do the Fire Keepers have any storage memories I could buy?"
Nephis thought it over. "They have a few that can move items between the Dream Realm and the waking world, but they're all small. A pouch at the most."
Sunny scratched his head.
'A pouch. That's no use to anyone.'
And even if they were bigger, he wasn't keen on taking the Fire Keepers' only reliable storage. They needed them, and he had no wish to start his business by robbing their supplies.
"I'll buy a new one," he decided. "A bigger one. I'm not taking yours."
"That will be expensive," Cassie noted.
"That's what the business is for."
"But you don't have a business yet." She pointed out.
Sunny narrowed his eyes. "What are you getting at?"
"Well~ There was this idea I had…" She started leadingly.
Sunny's eyes widened. "NO! Absolutely not! We buried that idea!"
Cassie smirked at him. "We tabled it."
Effie looked between the two of them. "What's this idea?"
Cassie smiled sweetly at her. "It's a surprise."
Sunny shook his head. "It's nothing worth discussing, and we're done talking about it." sighing he looked to Nephis. "I'll be starting my expedition to shipwreck island tonight, I've been putting it off long enough."
She looked dejected at those words. "Oh… how long will you be gone?"
"It shouldn't take more than a week or so."
Nephis hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Okay, stay safe."
They finished their dessert, said their goodnights, and parted ways in the glowing hallway. Sunny headed for the front door and the long ride home. Nephis and Effie went downstairs to the basement, where the sleeping pods waited. Cassie murmured something about work and disappeared down the corridor toward her office.
***
Cassie closed the office door behind her.
She leaned against it for a moment, feeling the cool wood against her back, and listened to the silence.
Then her legs gave out, and she slid slowly down to the floor.
She wasn't sad. That was the strange part. She was happy, so happy for them that it hurt. She could imagine Sunny's face when Nephis opened her mouth for another bite. She had heard the soft, exasperated fondness in his voice. She had heard Nephis laugh, a real, unguarded laugh, at the dinner table, in front of other people.
They had both been so lonely, for so long. They deserved this.
She pressed her palms against her eyes.
But every shared look, every tiny gesture, every private joke that she wasn't part of, was a reminder that the two people she loved most in the world had found something that didn't include her. They hadn't meant to leave her behind. They hadn't meant anything. That was the worst part. There was nobody to blame.
She sat there for a long while, listening to her own breathing.
'I'm fine,' she lied to herself. 'I'm fine. I'm happy.'
After a while, she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, stood, brushed off her skirt, and walked to her desk with her chin held high.
Tomorrow, she told herself, she would smile again, and it would be easier.
***
"So," Cor said. "Let us go over this again."
The lamp on his desk cast a warm circle of light over the paperwork, the shadow coin, and the two unhappy people sitting across from him. Jet had her boots off the desk, for once, a sign that she was taking the conversation seriously. Kurt had his hands folded in his lap and the tightly controlled expression of someone attending his own funeral.
"When you were at Sunless's house," Cor continued, "what did you feel?"
Kurt's jaw tightened.
"I'd rather not say."
"That was not a request."
Kurt exhaled. For a moment he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, and when he finally spoke, his voice was low.
"A compulsion. An overwhelming one. I felt… I felt as though I had to serve him."
Silence.
Jet, who had heard this once already, studied the ceiling. Cor steepled his fingers and said nothing for a long moment.
"Could you resist it?" he asked at last.
"I don't know." Kurt rubbed the back of his neck. "At the time, I didn't know it was there. I only knew I wanted to be polite. Now that I know… I think I could. Maybe."
"Maybe?" Cor repeated.
"Maybe," Kurt said, unhappily.
"What if we got him some mind-protection memories?" Jet suggested. "If something's tugging on his head, that's the obvious fix."
"They're expensive," Cor said.
"So is losing a Master to some kid."
Cor considered it. Charm memories of that caliber were not cheap, and the department's budget was already stretched thin. But if it was just for Kurt, a single memory, it might be possible. He had friends in the Supply Division who owed him favors.
"I'll see what can be done," he said. He turned to Kurt, and his expression hardened. "In the meantime, I need you to order the other shadow aspect holders to stay away from where Sunless lives. Come up with some reason that doesn't make anyone curious as to why"
"Yes, sir."
"And nothing about this leaves this room. Not the compulsion, not the anomalies, not the fact that Sunless is of any interest to us at all. If anyone asks, he is simply a promising independent. Understood?"
"Understood."
Jet raised a hand. "Does that include me?"
"You know it does, Jet."
"Just checking."
Kurt stood, saluted stiffly, and left. The door clicked shut behind him.
Jet stayed in her chair, tapping her fingers against her knee. After a moment she said, "You think the kid is the Shadow Clan after all."
"I think," Cor said slowly, picking up the coin and turning it over in the lamplight, "that we were meant to believe he is not."
The engraved serpent devoured its own tail, gleaming softly.
***
A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter!