Favio had been thinking about Mikayla's birthday for a week.
I knew this because he had mentioned it four times in passing during meals, each time framed as something casual and each time containing slightly more information than the time before.
By the fourth mention I understood that the birthday was in two days, that Mikayla was turning eighteen, and that Favio had no idea what to get her and was hoping someone would solve this problem for him without him having to ask directly.
I told him I was doing the scheduled shopping run that morning.
He and Celina were ready at the gate before I had finished the sentence.
We gathered near the Sequoia tree before leaving. Favio was in the particular mood of someone with a specific task and a short timeline, which for Favio meant he was talking more than usual and at a slightly higher register.
"She turns eighteen." He said. "After that, she lives separately. Makes her own decisions. Finds someone to start a family with." He said it the way people say things that have been true for so long they've stopped examining them. "That's how it goes."
I looked at him.
"Has anyone asked Mikayla what she wants?" I said.
Favio and Celina looked at each other.
"It's just how it's done." Celina said. Carefully.
"Harold is thirty-six." I said. "That's twice her age."
The look between them shifted into something more complicated.
"Eryndor isn't struggling anymore." I said. "Nobody here needs to rush into a family to add to the numbers. There's enough. Everyone is doing well. She should do what she wants because she wants it, not because it's expected at eighteen."
Favio was quiet for a moment. He had the expression of someone turning a new idea over to check its weight.
"We'll talk about it." He said finally. "Privately. At home."
That was enough. I had said what needed saying. The rest was theirs.
We teleported to Amlada's capital.
The jewelry shop was near the market's northern end, the kind of establishment that kept its best work in cases rather than on display, requiring a conversation before anything worth seeing came out. The owner recognized quality customers now in a way she hadn't the first few times I had come through the capital. The fabric helped. The bearing helped more.
I let Celina lead, since she knew her daughter and I didn't, and she moved through the cases with the focused energy of someone who had been thinking about this longer than the past week and had specific things in mind. Favio followed her, offering opinions when asked and looking slightly overwhelmed by the selection.
They found something. A bracelet, delicate work, the kind that would last. Celina held it up and looked at Favio and he nodded with the immediate certainty of someone who has been waiting for the decision to be made and is relieved when it is.
I paid for it.
Favio started to say something about that.
"Birthday gift." I said. "From the settlement."
He closed his mouth and looked at the bracelet in the case with an expression that had moved past the argument he had been about to make.
We went to Amanda's shop next. I dropped the Chilper herb supply and ordered a birthday cake, which Amanda handled with the brisk efficiency of someone who had been making occasion cakes long enough that the specifications didn't require much discussion. She had a flavor in mind immediately, based on what I told her about who the cake was for, and I didn't question it.
"The tea is still selling." She said, counting out my share from the agreement. She set the coins on the counter without making ceremony of it. "Winter ended two months ago and we're still going through three batches a week. People are ordering it specifically. Asking for it by name."
"What name." I said.
"Warmth tea." She said. "One of my staff named it. It stuck."
I collected the coins and stored them. The name was acceptable.
We teleported back to Eryndor. Celina and Favio went immediately into preparation mode, the kind of quiet, coordinated activity that parents do when they're organizing a surprise and don't want the subject of it to notice.
Celina pulled Helene and Savina into the kitchen within minutes. Favio started having a conversation with Gringo and Kalan that involved a lot of meaningful looks and low voices.
I turned toward the gate to handle the Medalline delivery.
"LEIGH."
Torra was already running.
Frostina was behind him, moving with the particular energy of someone who had heard a keyword and followed it.
"I heard party." Frostina said, arriving at my side. She said it with the directness of someone cutting to the relevant information. "A party needs alcohol."
She looked at me.
She had no hidden barrels left. The welcome feast had taken the last of them. This was, dressed up as enthusiasm for Mikayla's birthday, a supply request.
I looked at her.
She looked back.
"Fine." I said.
Torra grabbed my arm before I had finished the word. Frostina took the other side with practiced speed.
I teleported us to Medalline.
We arrived in the merchant guild's entrance hall.
The staff startled, which was the standard reaction to people appearing in the middle of a room without using the door. Then they recognized us, which was the second standard reaction, and the startling converted into something more managed.
The guild master appeared from his office with a speed that suggested he had been informed of our arrivals reliably enough to be ready for them.
"Welcome." He said. Warmth in his voice, the kind that came from a calculation rather than a feeling, but not unpleasant for it. Fear and profit made for attentive hosts.
He had not forgotten what happened at the capital market. He had also not forgotten the auction returns from the first batch of goods I had sold through his guild, which had exceeded his projections significantly. Both of these facts lived in his expression whenever he looked at me, occupying the same space without quite resolving into a single emotion.
He led us to his office.
Torra went immediately to the chair he had decided was his during the first visit and sat in it with the proprietary comfort of someone returning to a familiar spot. Frostina positioned herself near the window and looked at the city below with the expression of an ancient dragon pretending to be a person and finding it increasingly natural.
I set the colored Tarant fabric on the desk.
The guild master looked at it.
He didn't say anything for a moment.
He reached out and touched the edge of the yellow piece. Then the deep green. Then the blue-silver one that caught the light differently depending on the angle.
"These are." He stopped. Started again. "These are produced in color."
"Yes." I said.
"Not dyed."
"No."
He understood what that meant. Natural dye faded with washing, with light, with time. Fabric produced in color at the source didn't fade the same way because the color was structural rather than applied. The white Tarant fabric I had brought before had been the most valuable textile in Philantria by market consensus.
What was on his desk was something the market hadn't established a consensus on yet because it hadn't existed before.
"Ten gold per meter." He said. He said it without the usual negotiating softness. Twice the white rate, stated as a fact rather than an opening position. "I won't put this on the open market. I'll run it as an auction. Private buyers, selective invitations, controlled release." He looked up. "My commission from the auction, plus your standard rate. You'll see a separate accounting for the auction returns."
I looked at him.
He had priced it correctly. He had presented it straightforwardly. He had offered a structure that protected the value instead of flooding the market with it.
He had learned something from the first conversation.
"Keep doing that." I said. "Treat us well, price things correctly, and you'll be the first call for everything that comes out of Eryndor."
The guild master absorbed this with the stillness of someone receiving information they intend to act on.
"Understood." He said.
Frostina, from the window, had been following the negotiation with the particular attention she paid to things that involved me doing something she found impressive.
She turned when the business portion of the meeting concluded and looked at the guild master with the expression of someone about to make a separate inquiry.
"Do you stock rum." She said.
The guild master blinked.
"Several varieties." He said.
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
"For the party." She said.
I gestured for the guild master to proceed.
Frostina's expression achieved something close to the one she had worn when the ice cream had been replaced.