“Enough for an outcome that satisfies me, yes.”
“You may be overestimating your limits, Mr Asano.”
“I have a friend who says pushing our limits is how we grow beyond them.”
“Then what now?” Dorgan asked.
“Now I complete the contract. I’m sorry it will interfere with your daughter’s plans, but she should really be thanking me. It had far too many potential failure points.”
“You aren’t going to ask why the daughter of a crime lord is trying to excise corruption from the Adventure Society?”
“That’s obvious,” Jason said. “She gets rid of Lamprey and the Magic Society becomes less corrupt because almost anything would be. She moves on to smoothly cleaning up her branch of the Adventure Society. She culminates that time by capping it off with the renegotiation of the city’s service agreement in a couple of years. Cleaning up one of the Adventure Society’s rotten provincial branches gets her promoted up and out of Greenstone, putting her secrets behind her. That promotion lets her climb the ladder instead of just moving on. Is that more or less it?”
“Yes,” Dorgan said darkly. “Mr Asano, let me make something clear. If you do anything to derail my daughter's ambitions, I will see you dead, consequences be damned.”
Jason held out his hand for Dorgan to shake.
“I think we understand each other, Mr Dorgan. Sharing your daughter’s secret is worthless to me. Only keeping it has value.”
Dorgan shook Jason’s hand.
“Do let me show you to the door, Mr Asano.”
105
You Aren’t in Control of What Happens Next
Sophie woke up. Unfamiliar ceiling, something around her neck. She moved and there was a clink of chains as she realised her wrists and feet were manacled. Her body was under a soft, thin sheet. Memories came rushing back as her head cleared. The chase. Getting clear, only to feel the poison eating into her. Fighting a body desperate to close its eyes, knowing they wouldn’t open again. Pushing past her limits to reach the clinic and stumble in through the back. Falling onto the rack of glassware as she finally succumbed.
Sitting up was awkward in the manacles, her leg irons connected to her wrist irons by a length of chain. Her eyes were crusty and blurred. She probed the thing around her neck with her fingers. A thick metal band, padded just enough to not dig into her neck, but not enough to be comfortable. It felt enervating to the touch, as if it was draining her somehow.
“Power suppression collar,” a male voice said. It was casual and friendly, which seemed sinister in the circumstances. She rubbed the accumulated gunk from her eyes and looked around.
She was in a white, tiled room on a padded table. There was a man in a chair in the corner, observing her from over an open book. It was that friend of Jory’s, whose name she didn’t remember. He used a bookmark to keep the page and shoved the book into the air, where it vanished. Dimensional storage space. She had heard he was an adventurer.
“Good morning,” he said. “Sorry about the manacles, but you’re very good at running. It was your friend who changed your clothes and cleaned you up while you were asleep. If she left any sharp implements on your person, I’d appreciate not being stabbed.”
“Belinda’s here?” she croaked. Her mouth was gluggy.
“She’s upstairs,” he said. He stood up and walked over to her, plucking a glass out of thin air to offer it to her.
“Juice,” he told her as she eyed the glass warily. “If I wanted to dose you with something, I had all the time in the world.”
She took the glass and sipped. The juice was icy cold, sweet and delicious. She gulped down the rest and he took the glass from her hand. There was a sink in the room where he walked over and started washing out the glass.
“The others wanted her to be the one here when you woke up,” he said with his back to her, “but I need you to understand that you aren’t in control of what happens next.”
“Who are you?”
Darkness started rising off him like shadowy flames, engulfing him. It was like a void, with stars twinkling in the depths. She hadn’t taken a good look during his pursuit and their brief fight. It was beautiful but also gave a sense of hidden dangers. It was odd to see on a man doing the washing up.
“Jason Asano,” he introduced himself, and the darkness vanished again. He dried the glass with a cloth and returned it to his storage space before retaking his seat across the room.
“I didn’t realise who you were until the mask came off,” he said, “which is how I knew you’d come here. If you lived that long. You were already recovered when I arrived but quite thoroughly unconscious. Apparently, when you get healed up from comprehensive injury, it takes a while to sleep it off.”
“How did you catch Belinda?”
“Like you, I wasn’t working alone. My friend, Clive, tracked her from the staging point you two set up.”
“She’s not easy to track.”
“Also like you, I’m the fast one, while my partner is the one with the know-how. I have some good news for you, though. We caught your friend out of thoroughness, not knowing who you were, but the Adventure Society contract stipulates catching a thief, not thieves. We’re going to let her go.”
“But not me.”
“No,” he said. “You, we’re turning in. We—that’s me, my partner and Jory—have been discussing what to do next. We need you to convince your friend Belinda not to try something reckless to get you out of this. That ship has sailed and now the only way out is through.”
“So, what now?”
“My friend, Clive, figured out that your goal was to hit the city’s spirit coin vault. He even thinks you had a chance at succeeding, which is impressive. Not a good chance, but still. I assume the point of your foolhardy scheme was to net you enough money to buy your way out from under Clarissa Ventress.”
“What do you know about it?”
“I know she put you up to these robberies. And I know why, which your friend tells me you don’t.”
“Island politics.”
“Yes,” he said, “but it didn’t start that way. Do you know who Lucian Lamprey is?”
“Some kind of Island big-shot,” Sophie said. “Likes to spend his time at the fighting pits.”
“Yes,” he said. “Your friend told me a little about your issues with Cole Silva, another member of the Big Three. You play dangerous games.”
Sophie frowned.
“Sometimes, all your options are bad. It sounds like my friend has done a lot of talking.”
“You and I fought two days ago,” he told her. “You’ve been asleep a long time, which gave me time to do some digging around.”
“Two days?”
“Yes.”
“Then people already know we’re here. Ventress, Silva.”
“Dorgan too,” Jason said. “The Big Three trifecta.”
“What’s Dorgan’s interest?”
“We’ll get to that. With all the eyes on you, right now, it would be best if your friend occupies Jory’s guest room for a while. Between his affiliations and his recent acknowledgement by the Healer, no one will try anything. Not so long as she stays here.”
“You brought up Silva,” Sophie said. “Why? Ventress didn’t send us to provoke the Island over him. Too big a risk.”
“No,” he said. “My understanding is that Silva has a very strong interest in you. Can you tell me about that?”
She looked at Asano, lounging casually in the chair, not knowing what to make of him. She didn't recognise where he was from, ethnically speaking. His skin was lighter than the local humans and much lighter than hers. His features were a little too sharp to be handsome, but his short hair had an appealingly silky lustre.
He waited patiently for her to respond as if he didn’t have a care in the world, which she was confident wasn’t the case. This had to be a big deal for him. He might seem casual and in control, but he wanted something from this conversation, leading her to his objective like a heidel to water. She decided to let him, for now. If she knew what he was after she might find some leverage, or at least learn some things along the way.