by Kaylin Lee
Ambrose stilled, his narrow face settling in a blank, indecipherable mask. “I don’t understand, my lady.”
“My mother wasn’t a fool. She was brilliant. So either these aren’t her notes, or my father has lied to me about her my whole life.” I swallowed hard. “Which is it?”
He glanced once at the paper, still expressionless, but I thought I detected the slightest tremor in his hands.
“Her father owned Bank Argentarius’s largest competitor,” he said quietly. “She was her father’s heir—the apple of his eye and his bank’s top analyst. When your father married her, he got the bank too. Bank Argentarius doubled its reserves, and the most brilliant banker in the city became his.”
“But my father hated my mother.” I sounded weak. I straightened my shoulders and cleared my throat. “Why would he hate her if she was so brilliant? So important to the bank?” So much like me?
Ambrose frowned. “I think it was because she forced him to face his humanity,” he said after a long pause. “Or the lack thereof.”
Chapter 17
Wrong, wrong, wrong. How could I have been so stupid?
“You stricken idiot,” my father hissed. He lifted one hand as though to strike me, then dropped it as voices echoed in the hallway outside my office.
I flinched anyway, even as a voice at the back of my mind insisted my father would never actually harm me. He cared for me. He needed me. Didn’t he?
“How could you make such a careless mistake?”
“I’m sorry, father. I’m so—”
“What does it matter now? A foolish calculation error and we’ve lost thousands of marks. You’ve humiliated yourself in front of the whole bank,” he snarled. “And I won’t accept another mistake like this.”
We didn’t lose thousands of marks, I wanted to scream at him. We only made a few thousand less on the investment than we could have, if not for my tiny mathematical error in the original investment proposal. And if he weren’t too lazy to check my forecasts himself, it never would have happened.
Instead, I lowered my head and nodded. “I’m deeply sorry. It won’t happen again, Father. I swear it.”
He curled his lip. “See that it doesn’t.”
He left me alone in my dark, quiet office. I pressed cold hands against my cheeks and fought to calm the helpless fury inside me.
I’d spent fifteen years striving to live up to my father’s impossible standards. Somehow, if I was just smart enough, beautiful enough, tough enough, he’d finally come to care for me. Or, if not care, at least show me a bit of kindness.
I stood abruptly and went to the window. Evening was falling on Galanos Avenue, the luminous streetlamps glowing as they flickered on one by one. My mother had been beautiful and brilliant, and he’d never shown her kindness or love. He’d hated her. He’d never even mourned her passing in the plague. One day, she’d been there. The next—gone. Her name was only ever mentioned with loathing after that.
Why was I still trying to gain his approval? Who deserved my loyalty more—the mother who’d loved me for a few short years or the father who’d tormented me for fifteen?
I clenched my fists so tightly, my nails dug into the palms of my hands. The sharp pain brought me no relief from the darkness of my thoughts.
“He’s never going to love you,” I said quietly, and the bleak words seemed to lower the temperature of my office. “He’s never going to change.”
The finality of my words seemed to unlock something in my chest. A jolt of energy—a sudden power. I wasn’t giving up. For the first time in my life, I was fighting back.
As always, when I was desperate to be rescued from my father, Prince Estevan came to mind. But this time, a fanciful waltz and imaginary moonlit embrace did nothing to quell my fury. I needed more from the royal hero in my mind.
“Just as paranoid as his father, but twice as brutal,” my father had once said of Prince Estevan.
The Beast of Asylia had killed three would-be assassins so far this year, one with his bare hands, or so the rumor went. The Procus patriarchs were desperate to get rid of the royal line and expand their own power, but not one of their underhanded attempts had succeeded yet.
I rolled my shoulders and exhaled.
Just as paranoid as his father, but twice as brutal? Sounded like a good approach to me.
An hour later, I was still staring out the window, my fingers tapping restlessly on the slim wallet that held my extravagant monthly stipend. It was three times more than he allowed for either of my sisters, as my father had assured me every month for the past two years.
Ambrose cleared his throat. “Would you like to take dinner in your office, my lady?”
I shook my head and tapped the wallet again. “I’ll need you to work late tonight, Ambrose.”
“Of course, my lady.” Ambrose bowed. “How may I be of service?”
“How many small import shops in the Merchant Quarter compete directly with our own trading companies?”
“The smallest ones? About fifty, I’d imagine,” he said, his brows furrowed.
“And which ones would you say are the greatest threat to our trading companies?”
He coughed. “You’d know better than I would, my lady.”
“Yes.” Sometimes I just didn’t want to be alone in my own head any longer. “Tell me anyway.”
“I suppose it would be those with the best position in agricultural trade, now that the trade routes are fully opened,” he mused. “The ones with strongest Lerenian ties.” He listed off three mid-sized shops in the Merchant Quarter. “Would you agree?”
“I would.”
Ambrose hovered by the door, and I went back to staring out the window at dark Galanos Avenue below. I tapped the wallet one more time, then held it out to him.
“I want a one-third stake in each,” I said. “They’ll protest at my price, but they’ll give in if you keep pressing. They need cash for expansion this season, or they’ll miss the chance to grow with the new trade routes.”
He nodded, then bowed again as he slid the wallet into his jacket pocket. “Yes, my lady. I’ll visit them each tonight.” He paused. “But I believe it would be wise to make such investments through a discreet channel. Do you agree?”
I let out a short laugh. “Yes.” I returned my gaze to the window. “The more discreet, the better.”
Chapter 18
I reached for a fresh, sharp pencil and continued my calculations. Bank Argentarius was flourishing, and soon, Asylia would be too. I, on the other hand, was starving.
I had only myself to blame. This was exactly what I deserved for showing pity to a housemaid and covering for her clumsy spill. My own appearance mage had betrayed me to my father, and now I was paying the price—I was locked in the bank, without food, and I wouldn’t be released until I’d finished a month’s worth of market forecasts.
My stomach ached, empty and hollow. My eyes burned. I’d finish soon enough, and my father would finally let me out. He had to, didn’t he? The bank clerks would be back from the Founder’s Day break in the morning. Tomorrow, I would continue my fourth year at the Royal Academy as though nothing had happened during the short break from school. As though I hadn’t spent three days imprisoned and starving in the offices of the wealthiest bank in Asylia.
“The price of Lerenian flour—currently one mark per pound,” I muttered as I wrote. “In the event of a warm, wet spring and subsequent bumper crop of wheat, I forecast the price to decrease to one-half mark per pound. In the event of a drought year—”
Someone tapped lightly on the door. “Lady Belle?”
“Come in.”
Ambrose entered, his eyes creased with shadows, concern heavy on his thin face. His pale scalp showed through thinning hair. He’d aged a great deal since I’d first started at the bank. “Do you need anything?”
I snorted and shook my head, refocusing on my work. “I know my father forbade you from helping me or bringing me anything. Just go. I’ll
be done soon enough.” I hoped that was the case.
Ambrose nodded and shut the door.
The deep blue sky outside my window dimmed and turned black as night fell, and I squinted in the light of the small luminous on my desk. I couldn’t be bothered to stop writing long enough to go turn on the brighter ceiling luminous.
I scrawled out one last word, then signed my name and formal title at the bottom of the forecast with a flourish. “Done.” I dropped my pencil, leaned back in my chair, and squeezed my eyes shut, but my mind wouldn’t stop racing with thoughts of crops, imports, and price fluctuations.
Was I hungry? Tired? I wasn’t even sure what I wanted anymore. It had taken me three days to complete my punishment, and now I no longer knew where I ended and Bank Argentarius began.
I opened my eyes and stood, but the room began to spin like it had been caught in a late-summer storm.
Ambrose entered without knocking. “Eat this, Lady Belle.” He helped me back into my chair and shoved a small bowl of grey paste into my hands. When I didn’t move, he scooped up a bit with the spoon and popped it into my mouth.
I gagged and spat it out. “What is this poison?”
“Victus, Lady Belle. Like the commoners eat. Anything richer will not sit well with you after so many days of restriction. You must eat. Please, try, my lady.”
I swallowed the first bite, then two more. Exhaustion tugged at me, and I set one elbow on my desk, collapsing heavily onto it. “Will it always be like this?”
Ambrose moved the bowl away from me and frowned. “What do you mean, my lady?”
“Him. My father.” I gestured to myself. “And … this.”
Silence greeted my words, and I peered up at Ambrose, raising one eyebrow at his lack of response.
“I don’t believe it has to be,” he said at last. “You’re an Asylian citizen, after all. You have rights. But while you’re in the Argentarius clan, yes, he will rule over you. There is little doubt.”
“I’m not sure I can do this much longer,” I whispered as my eyes drifted shut. “Maybe I should leave the family completely.”
Ambrose was silent for a long moment, and just when I thought he’d left the room, he spoke. “Maybe you should. But will it be enough?”
I pried opened my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Leverage, my lady.”
Chapter 19
The icy, snow-covered city sped by outside my father’s fomecoach window. Another day at the Royal Academy. Another day closer to graduation, to freedom—just four months away.
The moment I held that graduation certificate in hand, I would petition the Ministry of Justice for emancipation from the Argentarius clan. I wouldn’t be a Procus lady any longer, but at least I would be free of my father, and after three years of secretly investing in his competitors, I certainly held enough outside assets to build a life independent of him.
“—listening to me, daughter?”
My father’s sharp voice startled me. I tore my gaze away from Prince Estevan’s palace, where I’d glanced out of habit once again, and focused on my father instead. What had he been saying?
“Lord Galanos is open to negotiations,” he said slowly, a biting, condescending edge to his voice.
“Negotiations?” My mind drew a blank. We hadn’t discussed acquiring any of the Galanos trading companies in years.
“He’s willing to offer his second son.” My father looked annoyingly satisfied.
“For—”
“For your hand, foolish girl. He’ll offer his second son and two of his best-performing trading companies, in exchange for a one-twentieth share in Bank Argentarius’ profits. And the bank’s ownership will stay in our clan, of course. He knows I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I swallowed, suddenly ill. “Only his second son?” It took all my might to make the words sound as empty as they did.
“He’s putting up a fuss about giving his heir up to our clan, in keeping with my requirement for the bank ownership to stay in Argentarius hands. He’s an old-fashioned patriarch.” My father patted my knee, and I strove not to flinch away. “Never you mind. You’re a true Fenra lady, after all. Impeccable blood. You deserve the best, and your blood will be a great asset to his family line. These are just the earliest negotiations. We’ll see if we can get you the first son. If not him, at least one or two additional trading companies.” He chuckled. “You can never have too many, right, Belle?”
“Never.”
“I’ve set a timeline to help things along. Men like Galanos sometimes need a bit of pressure to make decisions. You know how it is. The wedding will be no more than three months after your graduation day. And if he fails to agree to our terms by your graduation, I have Deorsa waiting in the wings with an alternate offer for your hand. His investments are not as strategically beneficial as Galanos’s, but they will expand the bank by almost as much.” He leaned back against the fomecoach seat and nodded. “Once your wedding is set, I can finalize your sisters’ negotiations. They’ve certainly waited long enough. But of course, we’ll set the precedent with you. The city’s patriarchs must acknowledge the unmatched value of an Argentarius daughter.”
We pulled up to the Royal Academy as I fought to keep from losing my breakfast right there in the coach.
“Top marks, dear.” He patted my knee one more time as the driver opened my door. “You’re one of my best assets, and I need your performance to be excellent during these talks.”
“Top marks,” I echoed numbly. “Yes, Father.”
Chapter 20
My fingers brushed the small, folded paper in my bookbag. Behind me, paper rustled as Ella turned the page of her final exam.
I checked Professor Jace one more time. His back was still turned.
Ambrose’s note shook in my nervous hand as I pulled it from my bag and set it on my exam. I broke the wax seal with the end of my pencil and flattened the note on the exam, my heart pounding.
“Discrepancy,” Ambrose had written, his spindly scrawl hurried but still neat. “Smuggling suspected. BA brokerage arm has recorded the following transactions with different companies, all registered to the same address.”
My breath caught as I skimmed the copied transactions beneath his note. He’d found it.
We’d searched for two years to uncover my father’s fraud at the bank. What had begun as a simple search for leverage had become a quest as dear to me as breathing.
Bank Argentarius was far more profitable than it had any right to be. It had been for years. As I expanded my own investment portfolio to include several smaller, competing banks in addition to competing trading companies, I’d realized our profit margins and investment returns were consistently much higher than those of any other bank. Ambrose and I were certain my father was using the bank for more than the official business of loans, investments, and trade deal brokering. For two years, we had used our work in the bank as a cover to search for proof, and now, we’d found it. A hint of it, anyway.
I’d research these companies, and I’d discover what he was smuggling, and then I’d go straight to the Ministry of Justice. He’d have no chance to block my emancipation plea from the palace dungeon, much less use my marriage as a bargaining chip.
I released a breath and allowed myself a tiny, celebratory smile. Freedom was just within my grasp. Days out, at the most. I’d done it.
Behind me, Ella screamed.
Chapter 21
I woke up sobbing.
The small room was dark. A warm, callused hand gripped mine as I cried. The pain in my head was gone, but the crushing grief in my chest was excruciating. Ambrose was gone. My mother was dead. My father had nearly killed me. The memories the healer had restored tore me into shreds, ripping my heart so viciously I could barely breathe.
“Is it your injury?” Estevan leaned close, his hand tense on mine. “That worthless healer—I’ll kill him if he failed to heal you this time.”
I rolled to my side, gripping his
hand with both of mine and pressing it to my forehead in a vain attempt to ease the pain in my memories.
It was an eternity before I could stop crying long enough to answer. “No,” I gasped. “No healer.”
Fresh tears came in overwhelming waves, and I held onto Estevan’s hand like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.
“I remember everything.”
Chapter 22
A narrow, lumpy bed prodded my back. I shifted and opened my eyes. The room was dim, with a low ceiling and no windows. The scent of dried blood and old dust made my nose itch.
I got to my feet. The constant pain in the back of my head had disappeared, and the skin on my neck was perfectly smooth. I stretched my arms over my head, then massaged my neck, pain-free for the first time in weeks.
I looked down at the wrinkled dress I’d been wearing when my father’s man forced his way into my bedroom. It was stained with blood and smelled of sweat. I shuddered and ripped it off.
There was a small bathroom adjoining the tiny bedroom, so I rinsed my body quickly in the bath, then toweled off and donned a plain dress from the wardrobe—a drab, brown garment that wouldn’t have suited the lowest maid in the Argentarius compound.
I glanced in the mirror as I pulled my hair up into a twisting bun at my crown, then tied it in place with the jab of a crooked hairpin I’d found beside my bed.
I ran my hand over the back of my head one more time, marveling at the lack of pain. Then I squared my shoulders. I remember everything. I had my hope—my plan—my fight for freedom. I may have lost everything else, but at least I had myself now.
I lifted my chin and opened the door. I needed food, and I was done waiting for things to be brought to me. I turned right, and someone coughed behind me. I whirled around.
“Lady Belle?” A familiar, muscular man with short hair and tan skin stood beside my door. He wore a nondescript black uniform and held a crossbow loosely over one shoulder. I took a step back, but he held out one hand. “I’m with the Sentinels, my lady. Prince Estevan asked me to bring you to his office when you woke.”