Kael draped a newly crafted military cape over his shoulders. Similar to the old one but decorated with royal green and discreet emeralds. Just above the Eireindaile family crest on his right shoulder sat a custom gold chain-fringed epaulette that reached his elbow.
This had cost him the second to last family crest, which was a little troublesome.
He had studied the crests since acquiring them and gotten nowhere. The question that had occurred to him, and many others, was obvious. Why didn't a talented tailor simply craft them and sell them on the black market?
As it turned out, each family crest was produced by the Royal Noble family using thread that only a specific mote they owned could create. He might be able to reverse engineer that mote given a few more years, but a crime of that calibre had yet to be recorded by anyone.
Kael stepped into the clinic and removed his gloves.
"Long time no see, Valerian."
Sielle sat behind the front desk, browsing a newspaper.
"It has. Have you been well?"
Kael didn't acknowledge that he had been gone for months.
"I noticed you haven't visited in some time." Sielle closed the newspaper.
"I had my reasons."
Sielle glanced at his arm. "I'm sure you did. I'm hoping for a new batch soon."
"I'm working on it."
"Work faster."
Kael gave him an unimpressed look.
He couldn't really argue. They had made a clear deal and he was the one who had broken it. No matter how much reason there was to do so, it didn't justify breaking his end of the deal.
"I will. But it will take some time."
Sielle rose from the chair.
"Why is that?"
Kael folded his hands behind his back.
"The ingredients aren't easy to source, and refinement isn't something you can rush. I'm sure you understand that."
Sielle scoffed and placed two heavy bags on the counter.
"Here. Six thousand mindstones. I took a few hundred extra as compensation for the delay."
Just as he was about to walk out, Kael grabbed his shoulder.
"You've been careful?"
Sielle glanced back. "My life is on the line too. Of course I have."
Kael nodded and released him.
Things had changed since their first meeting.
The Stone Coffins could no longer be sold openly. Everything had moved to anonymous word of mouth, individual trades only. It slowed the sales considerably, but it left almost no traceable thread. And even with the reduced volume the demand hadn't eased. The Stone Coffins were still selling faster than he could produce them.
Kael sat down and rolled a card between his fingers.
"Stone Coffins…"
He murmured to himself.
Counterintuitive to a rank one, it wasn't the refinement anymore that posed a problem for Kael, but the ingredient itself. Or more exactly, one ingredient. By now, he had to have killed over fifty mortals to collect the hearts needed. If you didn't count the murders themselves, the crime rate had to have dropped exponentially. He only killed drug addicts and criminals, after all.
And while there wasn't any shortage of mortals, it was starting to become difficult to find ones that didn't gather attention when killed.
Just as his mind began to wander the small bell above the door rang as it swung open.
Kael had never seen Luke smile so carelessly. He stepped inside mid-laugh and pulled a fair haired girl in behind him.
He froze when he saw Kael.
"Weren't you supposed to get your cape fixed today?"
"I had that done this morning."
Kael tilted his head.
The girl peeked past Luke's shoulder, her eyes widening.
"Mister?"
Kael smiled and rose.
"Sylvia."
Luke's eyes moved between the two. They knew each other?
Kael walked over and extended a hand.
"Please. You're our guest. Valerian is enough."
Luke's jaw nearly hit the floor.
He had never once been offered a handshake. He hadn't even been given permission to use the first name.
"Wait. Wait. How do you two know each other?"
He raised both hands.
Kael and Sylvia glanced at each other and shared a small laugh.
"By chance. She happened to be nearby when I was curious about a statue."
That sentence made no sense to Luke but he couldn't bring himself to push it. At least the introduction had gone smoothly.
"However." Kael crossed his arms. "I did ask you to tell me beforehand, didn't I?"
Sylvia laughed when Luke became flustered. Apparently watching a Luminaire get scolded was funny.
"I thought you'd be out."
He finally managed.
"No matter." Kael sighed and turned to Sylvia. "Just know our hospitality isn't usually this bare."
She shook her head. "It's perfectly fine."
And she meant it. She hadn't expected someone like Luke, a Luminaire, to spend time with her at all. Having a noble treat her as an equal was more than she could have thought to ask for.
Kael stepped aside and let the two in.
"Luke." He tossed a miniature hammock toward him.
Luke fumbled with it before finally securing it. "What is this?"
"Something comfortable to sit or lie on. We really need to invest in some chairs." Kael paused. "Keep it."
Rank one motes had lost almost all monetary value to Kael, especially ones he knew the recipe for. Giving one to Luke cost him nothing. And besides, he was running an experiment.
Taking inspiration from Cain, who had swindled him on a refinement back in Velthoria, he had noticed that by placing a primordial eye tendril into a mote just before it finished refining, he should technically be able to re-summon it from Luke's inner realm once, even after Luke had replaced his Will with his own.
"You sure?" Luke looked like he was struggling to keep up with what was happening.
"Of course."
Kael left the two of them alone.
Kael dragged two lifeless bodies through the sewers.
"This is going to affect business."
He muttered it to himself and tossed them into a canal of water.
It was the best solution he had been able to arrive at. And not one he had arrived at quickly. He had always known the surface supply would eventually run thin. That was inevitable from the start. What he hadn't fully worked out was how dependent the Stone Coffin operation would make him on the sewers for income. The two things pulled against each other in a way that had no clean resolution. There was no helping it now.
What he did have however, was familiarity. Not just with the tunnels and its turns but with the people operating inside them. He knew who to remove without stirring anything unwanted.
'Twenty three hearts.'
He scanned his surroundings one last time before climbing a ladder to the surface.
It was a few hours past midday, when the streets were at their most crowded.
He dropped the hearts at the clinic and walked to an estate agent just outside the second layer.
"Valerian."
An elderly woman behind the counter greeted him. The same one he had dealt with when he bought the estate that was now Velarific Wellness.
"Here to buy another?"
"I am."
Kael sat down across the desk from her.
The sun had dropped behind the walls by the time the deal was finalised.
Kael stood in front of a building directly beside the clinic.
"Let's see."
Having learned from his previous purchase he had spent considerably more mindstones this time. The building was old, clearly, but the door stayed on its hinges and he wouldn't have to worry about stepping through the floorboards.
It had been a shop once, a long time ago. Which was exactly what he needed.
Its size was roughly twice that of the first, with a similar living space on the second floor.
Kael cleaned the floor and dusted the shelves. Washed the windows. Moved the furniture into something resembling order. Then he walked to the clinic to collect the miniature hammocks.
Luke and Sylvia sat at a table playing cards over glasses of juice.
He paused at the door and looked at them.
They were both teenagers, caught in that particular age where you are convinced you have already arrived at adulthood while everyone around you is still silently waiting for you to catch up. It was the age of performance. Of proving something. You pushed away from your parents not because you no longer needed them but because needing them felt like evidence against the case you were building for yourself.
And yet it was also one of the most consequential ages a person ever lived through. Not because of what was decided, though decisions mattered, but because of what was being formed underneath the decisions. The way a person processed failure. Whether they ran from difficulty or turned toward it. The private standards they set for themselves when no one was watching. These things calcified slowly and became the architecture of everything that followed.
Most people didn't realise they were building something permanent. They thought they were just getting through the week.
"Sylvia."
She set her cards down and straightened, hands finding her hips.
"Yes?"
"Do you happen to need a job?"
Luke turned at the words too.
"I— What kind of job?"
"I'm opening a refinement shop next door and I need someone to manage the desk when I'm away. I'll pay you, of course."
"I'm… still in school."
She said it while fiddling with the hem of her dress.
"That's fine." Kael shook his head. "Come after school when you have time. Whenever that is."
Sylvia looked down at the cards thoughtfully. It wasn't that she didn't want to earn something on the side. But she lived in the second layer, not the first, and there was her studies to consider. She wasn't sure she could keep up with both physically.
"Aside from a budget for the shop itself, which you can use however you like to decorate and furnish it, I'll pay you a few mindstones per month."
Kael said it with a smile.
"Mindstones?"
She couldn't quite believe he'd said it so casually. A few mindstones per month was roughly what both her parents earned combined.
Kael waited a moment longer.
"You'd also be working next to Luke."
He said it like an afterthought. It wasn't.
She looked at the table.
"I suppose… I could find the time."
Kael nodded towards the exit.
"Come then. I'll show you the ropes. Luke you come too so you can help each other out if needed."
Having shown them both around, Kael turned to face them.
"Any questions?"
"Actually, yes." Sylvia looked at him with mild confusion. "You say you're opening a mote and refinement shop, but you're only selling one type of mote. I don't know how Luminaires work, but shouldn't there be more variety?"
Kael smiled.
"Don't worry too much about the details. I'm more capable than I look."
She didn't really follow, but she couldn't argue either. Luminaires were so far beyond her frame of reference that half of what they said probably wasn't meant to be understood.