Chapter 109: Two of Seven

Chapter 109: Chapter 109: Two of Seven

Lady Reed’s terms took twenty minutes to read and four minutes to agree.

"Point one two percent of TIG," she said, turning the last page of her folder toward Donald. "At this morning’s price, that comes to seven million eight hundred thousand credits. A little more than the lock costs. The Reed Guild pays today, in full, in cleared funds. In return, I take one seat on your Guild’s board, with a vote but no veto, for as long as I hold the shares."

"And if I want to buy them back?" Donald asked.

"Then you pay me today’s price plus ten percent, and I go quietly." She smiled slightly. "I’ve watched you work for two days, Investor. I’d rather be paid to leave than be the next person you liquidate."

Harrow made a small sound that might have been a laugh.

Donald read her again with [Valuation Eye].

[Target: Lady Constance Reed]

[Status: Honest. Patient. Very sure of herself.]

[Note: No bindings. Terms match her stated intent.]

She wanted a seat at the table where the locks would be decided. That was all. It was a fair price for what she was offering.

"Aris," Donald said into the tablet. "Draw it up."

"Already done," Aris said from the other end. "It’s in your inbox. Sign at the bottom."

He signed. Lady Reed signed. Aris countersigned from the Kingsgate as TIG’s administrator.

Eleven minutes later the funds cleared. Donald moved them from the holding company’s account onto his black data-card, and from the card into the System ledger, the same way he had with Silas’s cred-drive months ago.

[Deposit: +7,800,000 Credits.]

[Current Balance: 8,210,000 System Credits.]

He stood up.

"Come with me," he said to Harrow and Lady Reed. "Both of you. I want witnesses."

---

The Council Chamber was empty. The six chairs stood around the silver ring with nobody in them. The seventh, Dragonheart’s chair, had a gold edge along the cloth that covered its carving.

Donald stepped into the circle.

He didn’t bother with [Arcane Reading] this time. He knew exactly where the dark keyhole was. He raised his right hand over it.

"[Hostile Takeover]."

[Target: Council Ward, First Lock (S-Rank)]

[Status: Unheld.]

[Appraised Value: 7,200,000 System Credits.]

[Current Balance: 8,210,000 System Credits.]

[Purchase Confirmed?]

"Buy it."

[7,200,000 Credits Deducted.]

[Current Balance: 1,010,000 System Credits.]

[Ownership Transferred: First Lock now held by The Investor.]

The first keyhole filled with gold.

The new thread rose through the stone and ran up the leg of the First Seat, the chair Harrow had sat in for twenty-two years. The dark wood took on a faint golden shine along its edges.

Under the Hall, far down, the anchor went still again.

[Dimensional Tear Anchor: Resonance 63.4% → 41.0%. Dormant.]

[Council Ward Status: 7 of 7 locks held.]

[Locks held by The Investor: 2 of 7 (First, Seventh).]

Then a second window opened, one Donald hadn’t seen before.

[Investor Tier Progress: Silver → Gold.]

[Gold Tier Requirement: Secure the anchor of a major city.]

[Progress: Aldmere Council Ward, 2 of 7 locks held directly. Anchor dormant.]

[Status: Requirement met in part. Hold 4 of 7, or turn the anchor, to advance.]

He read it twice and closed it.

Lady Reed was standing at the edge of the circle with her arms folded, looking at the two gold threads.

"Two of seven," she said. "The Investor holds the first lock and the last. Everything in between is held by people like me." She looked at him. "Do you understand what that means?"

"It means if anything happens to the Masters holding the other five," Donald said, "I’m the one who has to buy them."

"It means," Lady Reed said, "that Paimon can’t wake this anchor anymore by emptying chairs. He’d have to empty five of them. And all five of us now know what to look for." She unfolded her arms. "You’ve made the Council of Westmark the hardest lock in the world to pick, Investor. I wanted to see that before I died."

Harrow stood at her side. He was looking at the First Seat, at the gold shining along the edge of the wood.

"I’d always thought," he said quietly, "that when I finally left that chair, I’d feel lighter."

"And?" Donald asked.

"I do," Harrow said. He sounded surprised.

---

Taeyang Holdings withdrew its bid at one in the afternoon.

There was no statement. The filing simply disappeared from the Westmark market board, and TIG’s share price fell back to where it had been the day before.

"That’s the noise gone," Aris said when Donald got back to the Kingsgate. She had her tablet on her knees and the market feed running beside it. "You see? They never meant it."

"No," Donald said. "It was only there to keep us looking at the wrong thing."

"There’s something else." Aris held out a sheet of paper. It was thick, cream-colored, and printed with a small black sun in the top corner. "This arrived by courier fifteen minutes after the bid came down. It’s from the chairman of Taeyang Holdings. Park Jae-won."

Donald took it.

To the Investor, the letter read, in neat, careful script.

You have done something in Westmark that nobody in thirty years has done. You have locked a sleeping anchor with your own money. In my country, we have one of our own, under the city of Hanseong. Our lock is held by my Guild alone.

I would like to invite you to Hanseong, as my guest, to talk about the future of anchors. I promise you that no one at my table will offer you wine.

P.

Donald read it three times.

"Harrow said Paimon’s ring has been on Taeyang’s chairman for fifteen years," Sylvia said from the window. She had been there the whole time, quiet. "That letter is from Paimon."

"Or from a man who’s been wearing a ring for fifteen years," Donald said, "and just watched someone break one."

Sylvia turned and looked at him. "You’re going to go."

"Not yet," Donald said. He folded the letter and put it in his jacket. "First, we go home. Helena has an anchor to turn."

---

The Ashford airship landed on the roof of the TIG tower two days later, a little after dusk.

Evelyn was waiting at the edge of the landing pad. She didn’t run to meet them. She stood with her arms folded and her black hair blowing in the wind off the Glass Field, and she waited until the ramp came down and Donald walked off it.

Then she crossed the pad in three steps and threw her arms around his neck.

"I felt you get hurt in the Archive," she said into his shoulder. "Through the tether. Right in my chest."

"That was Sylvia, not me," Donald said. "She took a halberd to the ribs."

"I know." Evelyn let go of him and looked past him at Sylvia, coming down the ramp with Helena and Damian. "I felt your heart jump when she did. That’s how I knew."

Sylvia stopped at the bottom of the ramp. She looked at Evelyn. Then at Donald.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Donald remembered exactly what she had said to him in the dark of the Training Matrix, eleven days ago.

When we come back from Aldmere, I’m not stopping at a kiss.

Evelyn looked from one of them to the other, and grinned.

"Go on," she said to Sylvia. "He’s all yours tonight. I’ve got a city to watch."