He stood on the street outside the shop with his kitchen uniform and nothing else, hands at his sides, snow falling on his shoulders.
He turned his face up toward the sky for a moment. Turned it back down. Rolled his shoulders. Stood there a little longer.
Then he came back inside.
"Amanda." His voice had the particular quality of someone reporting something they are still slightly amazed by. "It works completely outside. Standing in the snow. Wind and everything. I didn't feel cold at all. I felt warm."
The other two staff members immediately started eyeing their own coats.
Amanda turned to me slowly.
"How much for a satchel?" She asked. Straightforward. Already past the amazement and into the part of her brain that ran a business.
"It's a sample." I said. "I'm not selling it."
She opened her mouth.
"What I want," I said, "is for you to pass word of it along. Tell others about it. Or put it on your menu as something special. Something your shop is known for." I looked at her. "We can discuss profit sharing. I'll give you full monopoly over the herb. No one else in the capital will have access to it through me."
Amanda went quiet. She was thinking, and she wasn't trying to hide that she was thinking. She looked at the satchel, then at her staff, then back at me.
"One condition." I said. "The source stays anonymous. Where it comes from, who supplies it. That doesn't leave this shop."
She held my gaze for a moment. The illusion I wore didn't show her my real face, but it showed her enough of my expression to understand that this wasn't a preference I was expressing.
It was the line.
"The source stays anonymous." She said. "You have my word on that."
She meant it. I could tell the difference between someone agreeing to get what they wanted and someone agreeing because they understood why it mattered.
Amanda understood.
"Then we have something to discuss." I said.
Torra, who had been watching all of this with the focused attention of someone following a very important negotiation, tugged my sleeve.
"Brother Leigh. Can we pick the cakes now?"
Torra's patience had officially run out. He turned to me with that pout that meant the adult conversation needed to wrap up immediately as far as he was concerned.
"Brother Leigh. The cakes." He pointed at the display with both hands.
"You're being rude. We're talking." I said.
But I was already moving toward the display.
Torra lit up and started pointing out his picks one by one, explaining each choice to me like I needed the full reasoning behind every selection.
Rafa joined in beside him, equally invested in the decision making process.
I nodded at each one.
Then I noticed Kalan.
He was standing slightly apart from the boys, looking at the strawberry cake in the far corner of the display. Just looking.
Not saying anything.
Not pointing.
Not asking.
Among the residents, Kalan had always been the quiet one. While the others had grown comfortable enough to correct me, ask me directly for things, tell me what they needed without hesitation, Kalan still listened more than he spoke.
His volunteering to come today had been one of the rare times he had said out loud what he actually wanted.
I looked at the strawberry cake. Then at him.
Then I turned to Amanda.
"Everything." I said.
Amanda didn't even blink. This was not the first time I had purchased everything a shop had. It had happened enough times across enough shops in the capital that my name had quietly started circulating among the merchants.
The man who came in and bought the entire stock. No one knew the face behind the illusion, but they knew the habit.
The staff moved immediately, already practiced at this. They pulled out the secure packaging and started working through the display with efficient hands.
Even the patisserie joined in, all three moving freely in just their work uniform now, no coat, no layers, completely unbothered by the draft coming in under the door.
Amanda turned to the three of them and set plates down on the nearest table.
"Sit. Eat something while we talk." She set out slices of cake for Torra, Rafa, and Kalan, then flipped the sign on the door to closed.
The shop went quiet except for the sound of them eating.
Amanda and I took the corner table.
I reached into my item box and pulled out a magic scroll. I set it flat on the table between us.
In my past life, I had sat across from people in boardrooms who smiled through negotiations and spent the entire time looking for the gap in the contract they could slip through later.
I had learned early what that looked like and what it cost to ignore it. I had never ignored it twice.
Here, I set the scroll calmly. No pressure. Just thorough.
Amanda looked at it and straightened slightly in her seat.
I laid out the terms.
I would supply Chilper herbs once a month, timed to my regular shopping schedule in the capital. The supply would run through winter only.
Since the season was already halfway through, I would leave her what I had brought today to start with.
She would be the only seller in Amlada. The herb itself was not for sale. What she could offer was the tea, as a menu item, prepared and served in her shop.
If a customer pushed to buy the raw herb directly, she was to inform me first. No exceptions.
Amanda nodded along, following each point carefully. I could see her already projecting forward, imagining the winter menu, the customers coming in from the cold and leaving warm in a way no artifact shop in the capital could match at that price.
Then I reached back into my item box and set a small magic stone on the table beside the scroll.
I had made it during a slow afternoon in the settlement when I had nothing pressing to do. A communication artifact. I had tested a few different monster stones for it before settling on one from a Peacallo. Wind magic was the cleanest carrier for this kind of signal.
Anything could technically work, but I didn't build things to just technically work.
"Tap it twice and say my name." I told her. "It connects directly to mine. If something comes up, if someone asks about the herb, if there's a problem with the supply, you use this."
Amanda picked it up carefully and turned it over in her hand.
"That's all it takes?" She asked.
"That's all."
The tea was already working on her staff across the room. The patisserie was telling the other two something, gesturing at his uniform, grinning.
Amanda had watched her shop transform in the span of one visit from a customer she thought she knew.
She then picked up the quill, with a smile on her face.
"Where do I sign?" She asked.
Just like how thorough I am, Amanda read through the scroll carefully from the top. All over again. Her eyes moved steadily down each clause, pausing at the right places, going back once to reread a condition. I noted that.
Then she stopped.
She looked up at me.
"The price and the profit share are blank." She said.
I looked at her and said nothing.
She held my gaze for a moment and then looked back down at the scroll. The blank spaces sat there between the other terms, waiting.
It wasn't an oversight. She had read enough of the contract to know nothing else in it was accidental. Every other clause was precise down to the word.
She set the quill down.
"I can't fill these in." She said. Not defensively. Just honestly. "I don't know the market value of the herb. I've never seen it before today. If I put a number down without knowing what it's actually worth, I'd either be cheating you or cheating myself, and I don't want to do either."
She folded her hands on the table.
"I have a friend. An herbalist. She works in the palace and has been doing research for years. She's careful and she's trustworthy. If I bring her a sample, she can give us an accurate value. Then we'd both know what we're actually agreeing to."
I looked at her.
The palace. That was the part that gave me reason to pause. Anyone connected to the palace was connected to the network of people who served the king, the nobles, the court.
People who asked questions and kept records and talked to other people who asked questions and kept records.
People, who's connected to empire.
I turned it over and the hesitation settled.
For the safety and security of the settlement, I should decline. But...
I am Leigh now. And no one can stop me if I ever decide to destroy this world.
I am confident enough that no trouble would befall. Since, I've already found the place I call home. And I'll do everything to protect it.