by Drew Hayes
To my shock, Asha looked cheerier than she had in the foyer of floating plates. If anything, she seemed relieved by the news, which only served to make me wonder if I’d misheard Ainsley’s explanation.
“Asha, are you okay?”
“Huh?” She looked over at me, more perplexed by the question than the issue of how we were going to escape. “Sure. I mean, I was worried for a while there, but it looks like this will be an easy fix, after all.”
Zane and Ainsley were shooting expressions at Asha that perfectly mirrored my own. “Perhaps being locked in the study made you forget, but escrow means there’s no getting at the tools until we’ve decided who the owner is,” Zane told her.
“Right, which is exactly what Fred is here to help me do,” Asha agreed, still unbothered by our dour dispositions. “And this is better in a lot of ways. We’ve got however long we need to do the work, since time doesn’t matter, and according to you, no one will even notice that we’re gone. All we have to do is iron out the will, and whoever gets the tools can pop us out of here.”
“Don’t mean to be a party pooper, but there’s the issue of food and water to think about.” Bubba spoke between bites of shrimp; evidently, he’d taken a handful from the plates in the foyer. I’d have been worried about someone noticing the absent crustaceans when the time bubble vanished, but with the amount of alcohol I’d seen flowing, I sincerely doubted anyone would assume missing shrimp were stolen by a giant therian.
Ainsley lifted her head slightly higher. Now that the situation wasn’t so hopeless, it seemed she didn’t feel quite as ashamed for getting us into it. “We’ve got enough bottled water and food in the panty to last for months. Father always used to say that a mage’s home should be a fortress unto itself, impregnable and self-sufficient.”
It seemed Herbram Clover shared the same thoughts on home-safety as the mages who had built Charlotte Manor. I could only wonder what his children would think of my friend, the animated house.
“And do you also have a stock of blood on hand?” In the silence that fell after Amy’s words, every eye slowly turned to me. Asha was scared, and trying not to show it, having no doubt only just remembered that, as a vampire, I needed blood to survive. Ainsley and Zane both looked more concerned than fearful, regarding me as a potential threat that might need dealing with. Bubba and Amy were worried, but there was no terror in their anxiety. They knew the situation from my vantage point, and understood that the biggest potential issue was me starving myself, as I had no desire to take anyone’s blood, especially unwillingly.
“Never let it be said that I am unprepared.” Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out the enchanted flask I’d purchased in Boarback. “Had a run-in with an unfriendly fellow several weeks ago, and ever since, I’ve made a point of always keeping some emergency blood on hand. Just in case.”
A wave of relief washed over the rest of the room. With my own meals handled, there was nothing to stop us from buckling down and pushing through the paperwork. If anything, this might be a blessing in disguise. Instead of having to carve days out of my schedule to work in, Asha and I could handle the whole thing in one marathon of number crunching.
“Seems as though you’ve got work to do,” Zane said, nicely summing up the situation. It might have been that easy, too, if only he hadn’t kept talking. “But after tonight’s attack, it can no longer be denied that my sister lacks the temperament to run this business. Divide the resources fairly, just make sure that I get the enchanting tools, regardless of how much else you have to give her.”
“You? Your skills aren’t even up to what Father could do, yet you want to take over his business?” Ainsley whirled on her brother, staff trembling in her angry grip.
“My work won’t be as good as what you can manage.” There was no bitterness or bite in Zane’s voice; it was like he’d accepted the truth of the statement so long ago that it no longer hurt him to utter it. “But all the skillful enchanting in the world doesn’t matter if you yell at the clients and scare them away. I can build the Clover business beyond where Dad left it. Meanwhile, you’d be lucky to still get any jobs after a year.”
“The Clover name is about quality. Our enchanting is some of the highest caliber on the market!” Ainsley yelled. “People pay for that, not because you buy them a few rounds of champagne and tell them what they want to hear.”
“We’re not the only high-level enchanters out there. Without that champagne and ass-kissing, they’ll take their business elsewhere.” Zane was a curious contrast to Ainsley. As she was getting more worked up, he seemed to be getting calmer and more detached. It was like watching an ocean smash against a boulder; there was plenty of movement and action, but ultimately, nothing was changed in the end.
“That’s why our work has to get better, so there’s no one out there who can compete with what we do.” Ainsley turned from her brother to Asha, though she needn’t have bothered. All of us, even Bubba and Amy, already knew what Ainsley was going to say.
“Unless I get the tools in the split, I’m not going to sign.”
“For once, my sister and I see eye-to-eye on something,” Zane said. “I, too, am going to have to hold firm on the condition that I be the one to carry on Dad’s business. It’s the enchanter tools, or no signature.”
“Oh, come on.” Asha threw her hands up in the air, a motion I’d thought existed only in expressions, until I actually saw her get so frustrated she didn’t know how else to show it. “You realize how impossible that is, don’t you? We can’t give you both the tools, and we need the damn things to get out of here. You’re literally holding us all hostage by being too petty to compromise.”
“You have my sincere apologies,” Zane said, and admittedly, he did sound pretty darn sincere. “I don’t take any joy in dragging you into this; however, I can’t let my sister undo generations of family achievement by driving off all of our customers. Maybe this seems petty to you, and you might not be wrong, but this business was Dad’s pride and joy. I have to protect it, and if that means inconveniencing you, then so be it. There’s plenty of food and water to live on, and I’ll pay your respective rates until we break free. Consider it a working sabbatical.”
“Do we have rates?” Bubba whispered to Amy, who shrugged her shoulders. It was unlikely either of them had thought about billing, since they were just pitching in as a favor to Richard, but I’d make sure to calculate one for each of them before the matter was settled. I’d be damned if I’d see my friends get nothing for the trouble of living in a pocket dimension.
“Zane’s right,” Ainsley added. “This is more than just a business. It’s the Clover legacy. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure it’s carried on properly, by me.”
“Again, you’re handing us an impossible task.” Asha looked between the stone-faced twins, trying to appeal to their sense of reason. “We can’t give you both the tools. One of you has to cave on this.”
“Then I suggest you make a compelling proposal,” Zane said. “Convince one of us that what you’re offering in the split is a better deal. Otherwise, it’s a matter of seeing who breaks first.”
“Oh, I think we already know who that will be. You love your precious parties too much to be away from them for long. All I need is a workspace and a library to be happy. In fact, I’ve got some experiments to check on. Let me know when the papers are ready to be signed.” With that, Ainsley stomped off into the mansion, nearly knocking over several champagne flutes with the wide swings of her wooden staff.
As she vanished, Zane seemed to deflate, the confidence and surety he’d used to hold back her anger falling away. It wasn’t that he seemed less charismatic, just more weary. He watched his sister go before turning to the rest of us.
“Again, I am genuinely sorry for all of this. How about, for now, you focus on getting the assets fairly divided, like you already were. I’ll try and think of a way to make Ainsley come around by then. For now, though, I think I need a little time to
recuperate.” Zane slipped into the foyer then as well, moving carefully between the plates so that nothing would be disturbed. He didn’t climb the stairs, however. Instead, he grabbed an unopened bottle of champagne off the table and headed to the left, toward a part of mansion I’d yet to lay eyes on.
“Might as well make myself useful,” Bubba declared. “I’m gonna go take stock of the pantry, see what we’ve got in terms of food. Got a hunch that neither of those two is much for cookin’, so I’ll earn my keep by makin’ sure we all stay fed.”
“I’ll try and see if anything I’ve got can break us out of here.” Amy swung her bag around and began to rummage through it. While it only looked large enough to hold a few books and perhaps a water bottle, I’d seen, more than once, just how much bigger it was on the inside. “Don’t think I have any potions that can break dimensional walls, but there’s nothing like necessity to spur innovation.”
“Let’s call that Plan Z.” Bubba tilted his head toward me and Asha. “Best case is these two gettin’ the twins to settle their differences.”
Asha threw a look of hope in my direction, but the best I could muster was a weak grin that was supposed to be reassuring. This was a family matter, and I’d done enough estate work to know those were always more complicated. As much as they claimed it was about the business, there were also decades of fighting, disagreements, and other troubles to contend with, all compacted by the sense of loss at their father’s passing. I wasn’t sure anything we said or did was going to move them before they were ready.
But even if that was the case, we still had to get the estate division done. Until that part was handled, it was impossible to proceed. So, with no other options, I motioned to Asha, and we headed back to the study.
6.
Time was functionally meaningless inside the bubble. Sure, the clocks moved, but with no day or night cycle, only the ever-present red glow of the wall cutting us off from reality, it all just blurred together. The moment we’d been trapped in was nighttime, though, which mattered only in that I never felt the familiar wave of weariness crash over me, signaling that the sun had risen. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, as I’d already gone far longer than usual without the cathartic release of a long day’s rest. Still, I didn’t feel too loopy or out of it yet, so I pushed on. It wasn’t as if I could change the situation, even if I wanted to. My best bet would be asking Amy for a potion, and there was no way something that specific wouldn’t be experimental. As I’ve said before, Amy’s alchemy skills are highly praised and impressive, but even she has to break a few eggs in the process of creation.
Instead of fretting about how long a vampire could retain their sanity without sleep, I focused on getting the work done. Asha and I holed up in the study with her files, working tirelessly to account for every asset, owning, and piece of property in the Clover estate. When she slept, I worked on calculating the value for the tools, poring through old receipts for work done, trying to quantify what the trends in the enchanting market were and extrapolating how much they could earn over the next several decades. It’s not my place to speak about a client’s finances, but suffice to it say that when I finally finished assigning those items a value, there were a lot of zeroes behind it. More impressively, though, there was enough of the estate to make up for the split, assuring each of the siblings an even cut of the inheritance.
Of course, the real problem was that neither of them would accept the half without tools, and that didn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Bubba gave us reports when he came in with meals for Asha. Ainsley only let him in to deliver food, having locked herself away in her workshop, and Zane was in the wine cellar, slowly carving his way through the offerings of every region in France. Neither was talking, except to say that they weren’t going to budge.
“We have to do something.” The words came out of nowhere, Asha and I having fallen into what had become our usual silence as we worked on organizing the assets. She broke that silence, looking up from her work with a pinched, tired expression on her face. “Judging by how often I’ve slept, it’s been three days in here, and I’m going to lose it pretty soon.” Evidently, I was wrong about time being meaningless, at least for those who still had mortal bodies to keep track of.
“We’re almost done,” I said. It was meant to be a hopeful statement, but the words only highlighted the larger issue at hand. We’d been focusing on the work because it was what we could do. Once that was over, we’d have nothing else. It became a waiting game to see which of the twins would break first.
“That’s the problem.” Asha laid her hand on the thick stack of parchment that was Herbram’s enchanted will. “A few more hours of ironing out the detail work, tops, and we’re finished. Unless we can think of a way to find another set of enchanting tools passed through their family, we’re going to be stuck here.”
“Is that an option? Not inherited tools, I mean, but this set has a value. Could we get a set that’s comparable in terms of power?”
“Doesn’t seem likely,” Asha replied. “You’ve seen how important these are to the family; my understanding is that most mages treat the really potent stuff the same way. Even if there was an open market for them, it doesn’t help us in here. That’s the sort of deal we’d have to have in place before one of them was willing to sign.”
“And splitting the items up is off the table?” I’d gone through the history of every piece in Herbram’s enchanting tool kit as I assessed their cumulative value; there were six, in total. If only the twins were willing to divvy them up, then perhaps we could get out of here.
“Doing that would mean they either both get a weakened set, or have to agree to work together.” Asha jerked a thumb toward the window, where that familiar red glow still lingered in place. “These really seem like the kind of people who are willing to work together?”
“Sadly, no,” I admitted. “Though they’d clearly be better off if they were willing to do so. I can’t imagine what’s stirred up so much animosity between them.”
“I’ve got a guess,” Asha said. “We both know this stuff is newer to me than it is to you, but I did a little research when I got offered the job. From what I can tell, Herbram telling his kids to split the inheritance however they saw fit is an oddity in the mage world. Normally, Herbram would have bequeathed the tools specifically to one of his children, essentially choosing which of them he trusted to continue his work. When he didn’t do that, he left them both out of sorts. Neither knows who he wanted to have take over, which makes it all the more important to prove themselves by doing so.”
“Huh. I am beginning to suspect that Herbram Clover might have been something of an asshole.”
“Or just didn’t understand how things are between siblings.” Asha stood from the desk, taking a long stretch that produced audible pops from her back. “I think I’m going to ask Ainsley for a shower to use. Living in these clothes for the past three days hasn’t been my idea of fun, and I’m sure it’s no treat for you either.”
I hadn’t mentioned it, for obvious reasons, but there are precious few humans that can go unwashed for three days and not be picked up by vampiric nostrils. Thankfully, my selective attention was excellent, so I’d put the inevitable scent of sweat and time out of mind, right up until she mentioned it.
“While I’m up there, I’ll see if I can make any headway with her, competitive sister to competitive sister. Maybe you can drum up a conversation with Zane,” Asha suggested.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any siblings to use as common ground,” I said.
“No, but if memory serves, you know your way around a bottle of wine. Seems like common enough ground to start with.” She finished her stretch, laid a pen between the pages of a ledger to mark her spot, and made her way out into the hall.
I worked for a while longer, both to find a good stopping point and to try to plan out what on earth I could say to Zane that would move things forward. Not surprisingly, nothing sprang to min
d. Aside from us being trapped in a dimension cut off from the real world, it was hard to argue with either his or Ainsley’s points. Alone, either of them would falter, Ainsley’s temper driving off customers while Zane’s skill lowered their reputation for quality. With enough work and training, one of them might be able to grow and overcome the limitation, but there would still be lost ground to recover.
Eventually, I faced the fact that no brilliant bolt of insight was going to strike me and rose from the desk to head downstairs. Brooding wasn’t productive, and if I talked to Zane, there was a chance I might uncover something that could get us free. The trip down was quick, though I got a bit turned around near the kitchen, as I’d only seen bits of the massive estate. Fortunately, I finally remembered that people who spend their days in wine cellars don’t tend to take shower breaks, so I sniffed around until I located Zane’s pungent scent. From there, it was just a matter of tracking it through an empty house and down into a wine cellar bigger than my apartment.
I’ll admit, for as much as I like to think myself wise enough to be content with my own earnings, I was filled with jealousy at the sight of their cellar. Climate-controlled, gently lit, and filled with rows upon rows of gleaming bottles. The ones I recognized, which were fewer than I’d expected, were the sort of vintage that sat near the top of wine lists in fancy restaurants, serving as conversation fodder for what kind of person would spend so much money on a single bottle of alcohol. Red, white, even the odd rosé, all lined up in rows upon rows of carefully sorted bottles. It was like walking into a wine library, or museum, and I idly wondered how big my business would have to grow to justify this level of extravagance.
The sound of clinking glass drew my attention to one of the rows at the far end of the room, where I discovered Zane leaning against a wall, a bottle of merlot in one hand and a burrito in the other. At least Bubba had been making sure the mage didn’t wallow on an empty stomach. Slowly, I made my way over, though it wasn’t until I was less than a few feet away that Zane bothered looking up.