Of Sea and Shadow (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 1) Read Free Page B

though he took in such sights every day.
    One hundred silvermarks, he guessed. Then he spotted a collection of pocketwatches, hung on the wall and arranged in a tasteful display. At least fifty silvermarks apiece. Maybe a goldmark for the frame. The snarling head of a Kameira, something like a lion with a head of sterling silver, mounted over the coat-rack.  
    A hundred goldmarks? More? Who could you hire to stuff a Kameira, anyway? Is that legal?
    Altogether, the house positively reeked of money. Walking beside him, Calder’s father adjusted his fake glasses and blew out a fake moustache. He was trying to appear nonchalant, but Calder could all but feel his excitement.
    Their host, Mister Karls Dunwood, led them to a spacious office walled in polished logs to make it resemble something like a hunting lodge. A stonework hearth against one wall enhanced the effect, and an array of more stuffed heads—black bears, twelve-point bucks, and even what seemed to be a young Nightwyrm—completed the impression.
    Mister Dunwood had a seat at his desk and gestured for his two guests to do the same. He had to use his left hand, as his right had been replaced by a blunt silver hook. An accident at sea, they’d been told.
    “Before we begin, can I offer you anything by way of refreshment?” Mister Dunwood asked, his smile revealing several gold teeth. “I received six bottles of the Shiftapple Ninety-six from Nathanael Bareius himself. You’ll never taste another like it, I assure you.”
    Calder’s father, Rojric, chuckled politely. “Perhaps if my son weren’t with me, then I would accept, but he’s a bit too young. It would be rude of me to exclude him so.”
    Their host gave Calder a gold-speckled grimace. “He is more than welcome to wait outside. Business meetings are no place for children, I’ve found.”
    This was all part of the plan, and Calder had rehearsed his part. He drew himself up, indignant. “Excuse me! I am twelve years old, and I have been attending such meetings with my father since I was nine and a half. We are partners in this endeavor, sir!”
    Mister Dunwood laughed, trying to appear amused, but he rubbed the base of his silver hook with his one remaining hand. His eyes shifted between the two of them.
    They had selected their appearance carefully: two matching blue suits, immaculately tailored. Their red hair was slicked back with grease in precisely the same manner, and they even sat with the same affected posture.
    After trying once to get the child out of the room, Mister Dunwood would realize that he could not separate the pair, and continue while ignoring Calder as much as possible. That was the plan.
    And, indeed, matters proceeded as they expected.
    “Of course, sirs,” he said. “I would not hope to separate the noble family of Fairstreet.”
    ‘Fairstreet’ was the name of an alley through which they had happened to pass a few weeks earlier.
    “It’s unusual, I know,” Rojric allowed. “But where else would I send him? His mother, may her soul fly free, was taken by drink. I did what I could to save her from her fate, but when one is set on the road to self-destruction...alas, her liver failed her only two winters past. If he does not learn the family business, then where is he to go?”
    Calder’s mother lived not an hour’s walk from this very building. He could barely remember her face.
    Mister Dunwood bowed his head solemnly. “Fate can be cruel. But let us not linger too long on the past. It is the future that concerns us today, is it not?”
    Rojric smiled beneath his orange mustache. “It is indeed, Mister Dunwood. I have a buyer who is willing to secure the future for all of us if you can produce what you claim. Pending the verification of a Reader, of course.”
    “I have taken the liberty of securing such verification myself, in fact. The document will be provided along with the object itself.”
    Calder shifted in his seat, letting his posture slacken, resuming his