Chapter 22 – Heir of Misfortune

	Getting up and over the fence on the eastern edge of the property was probably our best chance.  Every other side had tall foliage that would be very noisy if we landed on it.  We’d seen the two gate guards near the front move off towards the raucous noise of Grayson and his men’s disturbance pretty quickly after it had begun.  It hadn’t taken much.  We’d spied on them briefly from the safety of an alleyway in the opposite block, after cutting back around the buildings so we wouldn’t be seen on their stretch of road.
	They’d mostly seemed. . . extremely bored.  One of them had even been sitting, drinking from a flask.  Just as Finn had predicted, not exactly professional soldiers.  Bad for them.  Good for us.
	There were two more around the back of the building, but none on the side where Finn had jammed the service door, and the guards around back were much further away from it and blocked from sight.  Since we’d had to wait an additional day to come here, there was a chance the jam was no longer there, but that’s what I was coming along for.
	Finn found what he deemed to be the best spot along the fence line for us to get up and over, where there was very little foliage and it was a straight shot across the open expanse of walkways and lawn towards the door.  He reached out for the fence, then seemed to think the better of it, holding his arms up to me.
	“Would you mind?”  He asked, hopping up.
	I easily grabbed him about the waist and lifted him, his hands gripping my shoulders.  We’d done this quite a bit by now, although usually for a different reason.  He did give me a brief kiss on my forehead as he scrambled up higher, and I smiled, lifting him with ease.
	He placed one foot carefully on the top of the metal fence, then swung himself up and over with a grace I knew I wouldn’t manage.  It was barely taller than me, hardly a difficult climb, but I still struggled for the first few moments.  I’d been hoping it would be like climbing a tree, which I wasn’t half bad at.
	It was not like climbing a tree.
	Still, I managed.  Eventually.  Awkward as a newborn foal and the fence rattled as I rolled off the top of it, landing with a thud I was certain the whole world heard.  But we waited there, frozen, for a few moments.  And nothing.  We could hear the distant sounds of shouting.  It was hard to tell if it was from Grayson’s men or the guards, but there was clearly quite the ruckus breaking out over there.
	“We may not have much time,” Finnegan whispered fiercely.  “Come on!”
	We hurried for the side of the large building.  In many ways, the scale of this place was helping us tonight.  The Immigration Offices were at the end of a block, fenced in on all sides, with another large building up against the grounds on the left.  We were coming at it from the right, the side of the building that formed the end of the block.  If it were a smaller structure with guards protecting both major entrances, they’d be closer together and might stand a better chance of seeing or hearing us.  But this building was, while rectangular, still as wide as several longhouses on the short side.  The guards around back would not be able to see us approach unless they came around the building.
	We made it up to the side door without being spotted, (as far as I knew) and descended a narrow flight of steps to the recessed alcove where the servants’ entranceway was.  Finn glanced about quickly, then tested the doorknob, grinning when it clicked and turned.  “My pin’s still broken off in the lock,” he said triumphantly.  “Ha.  Alright, then-“
	But when he pushed, the door shuddered to a stop pretty quickly, hitting resistance.  Frowning, he tried again, then cursed.  “Dead-bolted, I think,” he growled out.
	“Well, this is why I’m here,” I said, gently pushing him aside. 
	He gave me a clear path, and I took a step back before charging into the wooden door, leveling the sort of kick at it I would have used to clear ice on the river back home.  It splintered and cocked in, and one more kick saw it buck in entirely.
	“That was a little loud,” Finnegan winced, moving inside ahead of me.
	“Sorry,” I whispered, “there wasn’t really a way to do that quietly.”
	“I think we’re- yes, this way,” he directed, moving off down the far narrower hallway than the ones we’d traversed when I’d been inside.  We moved past a few dusty rooms full of brooms, spare furniture tipped on its side and gardening tools probably meant for the grounds, before we reached a door that opened far more easily into the main building.  
	I began to recognize somewhat where we were at that point.  It looked like we were at the other end of the long hall of meeting rooms and offices we’d come to on the first floor yesterday.  Rather than head back down the way we’d learned then though, Finn just followed the hallway fully to the other side.  There’d been a staircase on both sides, if memory served.
	The stairway was cavernous and hollow, with a chamber of three flights upwards that echoed every noise, which meant hustling up it in the dead, dark stillness of this place sounded far too loud to my ears.  At any moment, I was expecting we’d run across another guard.  Someone inside.  But there were no lanterns lit.  No light of any kind.  And no fires either, judging by how cold it was in here.
	This massive building really was empty at night.  It boggled the mind.	
	Especially so, because while it might be a false comparison to say my people would never have wasted shelter like this, it wasn’t as though the Otherwolf city was too rich for such problems.  If they simply had the resources to shelter everyone in their huge village and still have a place like this go empty at night?  That would be fine.  But in the short time I’d been here I’d seen dozens of people on one stretch of the pier district sleeping in the streets or in the shells of abandoned buildings with no rooves, let alone walls.
	It was like letting food spoil when your people were starving.  I couldn’t understand it.
	I didn’t have much more time to think about it, though.  A bit out of breath by the time we’d rushed up the three- really six flights, because each story had two staircases- the Records Room was the very first door we arrived at on this side.  We’d found what was quite possibly the fastest route, thanks to Finn’s memory.
	“Now, the clincher,” he said with a long breath, producing the key ring from beneath his coat.  He began testing each key in the lock, going down through one, two, three, four of them, each one not suiting.  I began to panic.
	The door looked heavy, bound with crossed iron riveted in.  I was our only way in if this didn’t work and I wasn’t entirely certain I could take down an obstacle this reinforced.
	But the fifth key. . . worked.  Finn gasped audibly, leaning his head back for a moment, mouthing a quiet ‘thank you’.  Then he turned the key with some obvious force, the lock groaning and giving way at last.  He pushed the door open tentatively, peering inside for a moment before ushering me in.  
	Before I stepped inside, I pulled out a chunky candle we’d purchased specifically for this from my belt pouch, and Finn used the moonlight streaming in through the window to light it with a match, a very useful thing they sold here in the cities that I’d marveled at since he’d first shown me one.  We’d tried to get an oil lantern for this too, those I knew about, but they were apparently very expensive, mostly because of the oil.  The candle had been an easy, cheaper alternative, but the light was meager.
	We moved through the cluttered, unfortunately very large room slowly, walking within our small circle of light.  The air in here was stale and stunk of ink and paper, but not like the old book smell at Josef’s.  There were reams of new paper everywhere, smelling vaguely like the mills they’d come from.  Finnegan moved aside a few stacks here and there, testing the paper stock between his fingers.  Eventually, he gave a disgusted noise
	“We don’t have time for this,” he concluded.  “I can’t gauge them well in the dark, anyway.  Got to focus on the stamp. . . .”
	We moved past an area full of cube shelves, covering an entire wall, unnerving in how even they were.  It reminded me vaguely of a honeycomb, except the lives stored within these boxes were people’s lives.  Probably thousands of them.  I wasn’t even sure what they kept here, since the cards went to individuals.  Maybe copies?  Maybe other information on them?
	“That’s it,” Finn suddenly snapped, striding across the room towards a work table of some sort.  I lifted the candle high and tried to follow him, but he was more nimble than I at navigating the cluttered place.
	The work table was pretty neatly-organized, but covered in a variety of items.  Bottles with ink dark as pitch inside sparkled in the candlelight, there were boxes with Amurescan writing on them and a can full of quills, and one very large metal device bolted to the end of the table that looked like a long blade on a hinge, likely for cutting paper.
	The final item was also made of metal by the look of it, save the wooden part of the handles, of which there were two.  The closest Otherwolf item I’d ever seen like it was a. . . waffle iron, actually.  Which I’d only seen used in town once, but I’d always remembered it because, you know.  Waffles.
	This one probably wasn’t meant to be heated up over a fire or a potbelly stove to cook delicious batter, but it seemed like it probably functioned much the same at pressing a shape in to whatever you put inside.  The square area in the center was a little bit larger than one of those cards, the perfect size to house one inside, then close.  Finn took hold of it and opened it reverently just once, confirming my suspicions.
	“This is definitely it,” he said, excitedly if quietly.  He began to lift it, seeming momentarily surprised as he struggled up with it and held it out for me.  “Fuck, it’s heavier than it looks.”
	I took it from him.  “I’ve got it,” I assured him, handing him the candle.  
	Finn looked once more to the table, then just grabbed up one of the stacks of paper sitting there, tucking it under his arm.  “This many not be the right stock, but we need to get the hell out of here.  It’ll have to do.”
	We made our way back out the room and Finn didn’t bother locking the door behind us.  We’d already broken a door to get in, it’s not as though they weren’t going to realize they’d been burgled or what had been stolen.  
	I was lagging behind him a ways, so I nearly ran into Finn when he stopped at the base of the first floor landing.  He put an arm out, stopping me.  I could see his ears rigid and tipped towards the dark hallway beyond.
	I soon heard it, too.  Voices.  Distant footsteps, tentative and slow.  More than one person.  I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it was clearly coming from inside the building.
	My heart hammered in my chest so loudly, I was certain they could hear it.  Finnegan’s body was still beside mine, his hand slowly slipping down to where his pistol was.  I reached for his wrist, shaking my head.
	His eyes were nearly black in the dark, and he stared up at me helplessly, as if asking me what I wanted him to do.  The truth is, I didn’t know.  I just didn’t want to kill someone over this.  As far as I was concerned, it just couldn’t be worth it.  Theft was one thing.  Murder?
	My tribe would move, if we had to.  We’d go to the Basin.  I’d argued with myself every night since we’d hatched this plan over whether or not the future of my family, the possible pain and suffering they would have to endure from being displaced, could be worth the lives of a few guardsmen.  I think Finnegan would have said- yes.  If it were his family.
	But I. . . I just could not bring myself to feel that way.  No matter how I tried to justify it in my mind.  I’d never be able to live with it.  I still had nightmares about biting that Jackwald man.  About watching my father drive a spear through another.  And we’d been defending ourselves then.
	But a distant noise broke me from my reverie, and gave me hope.  Finn had heard it too, I could see his expression shift.  Footsteps on stairs, ascending.  They were walking up the other flight of stairs on the opposite end of the building.
	Finn and I waited, taut like a bowstring.  I trusted his ears more than mine, so when he snapped to attention and whispered a fierce, “Go!  Now!”  I did as he said.
	We rushed down the hallway at a half-run, being as quiet as we could.  Fortunately the floors here were stone, not wood, so they didn’t give or creak.  I had never been so grateful for the building’s solid construction.
	We found our way back out the way we’d come in.  The door I’d kicked in was tipped against the wall now, it hadn’t been before.  The guards from the other side must have come to investigate the noise.  
	As we emerged into the evening air, Finn’s ears tipped in each direction, listening intently.  And he sniffed the wind.  I did as well, catching the faintest scent of the two canine guards who’d come through here, but little else other than the crisp, cool winter air and the smoke from the buildings all around us.  I snuffed the candle now that we were outside and stuffed it back into my pouch.
	There was a distant shout, followed by another, echoing across the courtyard.  It was hard to tell where it had come from, but it probably had something to do with the rowdy Privateers we’d hired.  We couldn’t possibly see from here how that was all going, but I was hopeful the shouting meant those two guards were still busy.
	“You think they’ll end up getting arrested?”  I asked Finn in a low voice.
	He shushed me a bit, glancing back behind us, then looked out towards the fence line, scanning the dark street.  “I don’t know,” he whispered incredibly quietly.  “I’m more concerned that our ride hasn’t shown up yet. . . .”
	“She said she was going to watch their weapons for a time,” I said, softer than before.   “Maybe they needed them after all.”
	“We’ve been in there at least ten minutes,” Finn said, striding across the courtyard with me towards the fence, “maybe more.  She should be here by n-“
	I pointed, as Odina and the three horses came into view, appearing under a lantern, a block away.  She must have been hiding with them around the opposite building.
	Finn and I jogged the remaining distance towards the fence, and waved her down.  She sped the horses to a trot to close the gap a bit more quickly, then began untying our two from her saddle horn, pulling her pony right up alongside the fence.
	“Well?”  She asked expectantly.
	I held the device up for her to see with a smile, and she gave a satisfied grin right back.  But it didn’t last long.  Her eyes moved to stare past me for a moment, and then widened.  “Over the fence!”  She exclaimed.  “Now!”
	“Th- HALT!”  A frantic male voice shouted from far behind us, back towards the building.  I glanced only once back over my shoulder, seeing exactly what I feared.  Two men making their way up the stairs that went down into the servant’s entrance we’d broken into.  They must have heard us and looped back around.
	I looked back towards Odina and the fence separating us at exactly the point where one of the men was dropping to a knee, pulling out his rifle.  In a snap decision, I turned the press to its side and pushed it through the bars of the fence.  “Take it!” I pleaded with her.  “Go!”
	She hesitated a moment, but then Finn joined in.  “Take it!”  He insisted.  “Get the hell out of here!  We’ll meet at the ferry landing.”
	She looked me in the eyes for only a second longer, then nodded and set her jaw, taking the press and tucking it under one arm, before spurring her horse with a kick and bolting down the street with a lout clamor of hooves.
	I’d grabbed Finn up and was hoisting him up and over the fence when the first shot came.  It missed us by a few feet at least, hardly surprising from that distance in the dark, but it pinged on the metal fence with a crack and a subsequent ricochet that scared the piss out of me.  I’m not even sure where it eventually ended up.
	Finnegan cleared the fence entirely with a jump, and landed hard on the other side, tumbling onto his side with a grunt of pain.  I only hoped he’d not reopened his wound or broken something.
	The second man did not seem to like his chances with a rifle.  He began charging me instead, remarkably bold considering he was half my size.  But he looked stocky and tough, and I’d certainly learned by now that my size alone did not win me fights.
	I took a running start and jumped, easily grabbing the top of the fence and hefting myself up and over it, all of my weight briefly resting on my waist and leaving me suspended half over it for a moment.  The man reached me at that point, and I felt him grab for my leg, yanking me hard back in the other direction.
	If I’d been wrestling the canine on the ground, I’m certain I would have had him in strength.  But awkwardly balanced, half over a fence, he didn’t need to be as strong as I was to get the better of me.  I felt I was losing ground.
	Finn was getting up on his horse, shouting my name.  His hand was going down to his pistol again.  For one frozen moment, I realized that he absolutely would not leave me here, would not surrender or let me surrender.  He’d kill these men if it meant we both got out of here.
	Gritting my teeth, I pulled my leg back and kicked, as hard as I could.  I felt my clawed foot connect with skull, and the man let go, tumbling to the ground behind me.  I laboriously pulled myself back up and over, tucking and rolling as I hit the ground on the other side.  My ears rung and my head swum for a moment, but when I forced myself up, I made sure to look back at the guard.
	He was rolling on the ground, also trying to get to his feet.  But he seemed to be conscious, and not bleeding out.  I felt better about that than I did that I’d made it over the fence.
	“Tuli!”  Finn’s horse reared and he quickly wrested it back under control, gripping the reins tighter.  “Come on!”
	My horse was, thankfully, considerably calmer.  We spurred them into a gallop and took off down the opposite street Odina had taken.  I wondered at that, but trusted Finn to guide us through the maze of this city.  It turned out we weren’t going terribly far off-course, he took us around a couple of blocks before looping back to the street named after the ‘Pier’, named so presumably because that’s where it led.  We slowed our horses to a trot once we’d gotten a safe distance away, although honestly, once we’d gotten over the fence we had probably been safe from pursuit.  It would take the guards some time to get to horses, if they even had any.
	That was the point at which Finn and I allowed ourselves to relax.  He was the first to start chuckling, but even I had to huff out a laugh, eventually.
	“That was terrifying,” I muttered.  “Not at all funny.”
	“I have to admit, stealing from the government is a first even for me,” he said wryly.  “Unless we’re going to count taxes.”
	“I’ve never understood very well what those are,” I admitted.  “Except that they make certain things cost more.”
	“Well you’d best learn,” Finn grinned at me, “you’re going to be a landowner soon.”
	“Becoming citizens just means we can own land, Finn,” I reminded him.  “We still either have to purchase it, or use it the way the Otherwolves do to claim it under that homestead law.  Which would defeat the object.”
	“I’ve got some thoughts on that,” he assured me.  “We’ll get you your land back.  Don’t you worry.”
	We’d galloped a ways from the Immigration Offices, so we weren’t far from the pier by the time we’d slowed enough to talk.  I could smell it in the distance, a few blocks from here.  The ferry ran all throughout the day and night, on the hour.  I’d lost track of time, (not that I understood it as well as the Otherwolves did anyway) so I wasn’t sure how long we’d have to wait for it, but I was anxious to get there in case we missed it and had to wait the full hour.  That might give the guardsmen time to track us down.
	“Do you think Odina’s made it there yet?”  I asked Finn as the scent of salt water grew stronger.
	“Likely,” he replied.  “She had a head start.”
	“I hope we don’t miss-“
	I’d learned by now that I had a much better sense of smell than. . . really anyone I knew.  Canines, felines, literally anyone I’d ever met.  It was so normal to me, so much a part of my life, that I hardly thought about it in context with other people.  But when I caught something on the wind, buried beneath the blanket of other scents in the overpowering assault on the senses that was this city- it didn’t at first occur to me that Finn hadn’t smelled it yet.
	Every part of this city smelled of canines.  Their fur, their filth, their musk, even the parts of their scent that I liked, that I associated with Finn.  But there was a distinct difference between the subdued, ever-present essence of canine, and the sharper tingle I got when a herd, of men or animals, was near.
	I’d realized it too late.  The smell was coming from ahead and from behind us.  It was everywhere.
	“Finn. . . “ I said, pulling my horse to a stop half a block from the pier.
	He looked back at me curiously, also pulling his horse to a stop.  When he presumably saw the fear on my features, he reached for his pistol.
	“Not another move,” a voice hissed from above us.  Almost directly above us, which was disturbing to say the least.  I looked up slowly, seeing a set of eyes peering down at us in the dark, and the glint of a rifle, but little more.  Someone was perched on a balcony, leaning out of a nearby building.  Canine.
	Another soon made their presence known, on the other side of the street.  Also somehow in someone’s residence.  Pointing a rifle at us, also canine.  The moon was bright tonight and my night vision was good besides, I swore I could see a woman and a child behind that man, hunkering in the room inside.  They looked terrified.
	And then they were coming out of every alley.  Emerging from behind barrels and crates along the pier, ahead of us.  Five, then ten.  Well over a dozen.  And they kept coming.
	All armed.  All canine.
	Finn looked to me, then around us.  I’d never seen him so shocked, so utterly at a loss, in all the time I’d known him.
	Had Grayson betrayed us?  Had the soldiers from the Immigration Offices somehow gotten armed help this fast, and knew where we were headed?  How?  
	How was this happening?  Why now?
	“Hands up, Ambrose!”  One of the men ahead of us shouted, rushing us in a crouch and posting behind a barrel with his rifle.  Despite the fact that there were over a dozen gunmen with weapons trained on us at this point, I could smell the fear in the air, and most were acting warily and taking at least partial cover.  Nearly every single weapon was pointed at Finn, only a few seemed to be interested in me.
	One of the men, an enormous canine almost as big as the mastiff we’d seen in the Basin, seemed less concerned than the others.  He was approaching us at a slow lope, flanked on either side by two other men with pistols.  He had a mane of fur around his thick-jowled head, like a lion.  But he was very clearly still a dog.
	As he stepped into the lantern-light, I saw something pinned on the lapel of his coat that made my heart sink, and everything snapped into place a lot more clearly.  A familiar silver badge.  They all had them, if I looked for them
	Jackwalds.
	“You don’t know how lucky you are, whelp,” he growled out, his voice a thick, angry baritone, “that he wants you unharmed.  Although he did say ‘mostly’, if’n I remember right.”
	I’d been watching him, so I hadn’t noticed the two men approaching Finn from his left-hand side until they grabbed at him, wrenching him down off his horse.  The wolfdog struggled for only a moment before they threw him to the ground, one of them kicking him in the ribs while the other grabbed for his shoulders to haul him to his feet.
	“Finn!”  I cried out, stumbling out of my saddle and making it all of a foot towards him before the cobbled street in front of me exploded in a small eruption.  I wasn’t sure who’d fired at me, but it had been close enough that it might not even have been an intentional miss.
	“Tulimak-gnh-!”  Finn winced sharply as he was dragged upright again.  “Don’t!  Ikan!” 
	The Nontawlik word for ‘no’ was what ultimately stopped me in my tracks.  I watched, heartbroken, as they yanked his hands behind his back, one of them pulled his pistol from his hip, and the other began to manacle him.  “Finnegan Ambrose,” one of the men not involved, standing off to the side, spoke, “you are hereby under arrest by decree of His Majesty’s Court of High-Born Etiquette, the Carvecian United Provinces, and the International Treaty for Criminal Misconduct.  I am Officiating this arrest for the Jackwald Detective Agency, on consignment by one Gezan Archambault.”
	“Archambault was right,” the big dog grunted as he crossed the remaining distance towards us, “he’s a goddamn snake in the grass, this one.  Lout’s already speaking the savage tongue.”  He raised his voice, even though it wasn’t necessary at this distance.  “Your Brave here ain’t gonna save you, Ambrose.”
	Finn was glancing around as much as he could while being man-handled.  It occurred to me as two men moved cautiously in behind me what- or rather who- he was probably looking for.  So far, it didn’t seem like they’d gotten Odina.  But maybe they already had and they’d dragged her off somewhere else. . . .
	I couldn’t smell her.  It was hard to catch one scent among the mass of bodies we were surrounded by, but hers was familiar.  She might have been through here earlier, it would have been hard to tell, but I was confident at least that she wasn’t on this particular road now.
	The big dog leaned down once he was within sniffing distance of Finnegan, until they were practically nose to nose.  He dropped his voice to a low rumble.  “Did you really think you could flash our tin around this city- our city- and we wouldn’t catch wind of it?  What happened to those boys who went after you in the north, Ambrose?  Hm?”
	Before Finn could respond, he cuffed him across the muzzle.  To his credit, Finn didn’t cry out, but the crack of the man’s fist against the side of his nose made me wince, and when the wolfdog brought his muzzle back up slowly, there was blood dripping from a nostril.
	“Did’jou kill my boys?!”  The man demanded in a roar, inches from Finnegan’s face.  His shout echoed off the brick buildings lining the empty street.  Distantly, I heard faint sobbing from one of the open windows along the balconies the Jackwald men had posted in.  It didn’t sound like one of them, though.  It was probably the occupants inside whose homes had been invaded.
	“I swear to God Almighty,” the maned dog shook his head, leaning back.  “I hope whatever that man wants you for, he’s done with it right quick. . . because I plan t’see you dragged through the neighborhoods of those mens’ families, with your guts strung out behind you, feedin’ the damn crows.  The audacity,” he spit on him, “of you usin’ our badges for some cheap con job. . . .”
	“Your men,” Finn said, between labored breaths, “fought well.”  He licked at his nose, at the blood still leaking from it.  “But they lost.  I shouldn’t have to tell you- that’s a risk we all take when we make our living with games of death.”
	The canine seemed to consider his words for a moment or two.  He even turned, glancing back at his men.  But then he spun, and belted Finn across the muzzle again.
	“Stop it!”  I bellowed in Nontawlik.  The men around me had yet to manacle me, although I’d seen one of them considering it.  But I don’t think the manacles they had would fit me, and that seemed to be what was holding him up.
	“Would you put a muzzle on the damn savage?”  The big man said irritably, looking towards the now four men who were surrounding me.
	“Captain, we can’t even get manacles on this’un,” one of the Jackwalds near me admitted, looking at my arms.
	“Then bind him with rope,” the boss said dismissively.  “Forest, you were with the navy, weren’t you?  Make sure he can’t slip them.” 
	He whistled at his men, gesturing towards the horses.  “Take everything- search everything.  I’m not even sure if Archambault wants the bear, but bring him along.  We get first crack, before the County House’ll want to talk to interrogate them about whatever bullshit they pulled in the Immigration Offices.”
	My hands were soon bound, looped with rope tight enough that I began to lose feeling in my fingers pretty quickly.  I watched, my heart hurting, as Finn was hauled to his feet once more.  His knees had given out after the last blow, and I could tell from a dark stain that had appeared on his vest that his wound had in fact reopened.  
	He stared across the street towards me, body slumped and weak, his ears and tail tucked.  His scent, the one I felt so much comfort in, that I dreamed about at night, was once again sullied with blood and fear.  I’d hoped. . . I’d hoped so much that we were past this.  That we’d put this part of our story behind us.
	“Nadu ek inut,” he croaked softly.  ‘I’m sorry’.

	The coming hours were a blur.  We were moved across the city, farther from the few areas I’d come to know than we’d ever been so far.  I wasn’t even certain we were still in Debriss, or if we’d moved into Arbordale itself, the main city.  It was so hard to tell.  They’d put us in the back of a boxy wagon, with only one small, barred window on the back.  Finn sat across from me for the whole duration of the trip, silent.
	We might have spoken to one another, except there were two of the Jackwalds with us inside the wagon, with pistols primed and ready in their hands.  They seemed to be taking no chances with Finn.
	Or with me.  Now that he was disarmed, they were guarding me equally, if not more than they were him.  Knowing I made these men nervous, even while disarmed, even while they were all armed, gave me some idea of how a man like me was regarded by these people.  Whether it was because I was a ‘savage’ or because of my size alone, I couldn’t say.  But I decided for now, it was best not to dissuade their fears.  
	Finn had spoken to me, on the two occasions he had dared, in Nontawlik.  I took that as a sign that he hadn’t given up all hope that we’d get out of this somehow, because he was clearly still trying to stick to our agreement from earlier.  Make them believe I didn’t understand their language.  I wasn’t sure how it would avail us now, but I wasn’t missing out on much by not speaking to the Jackwalds, if their reaction to Finn doing so had been any indication. 
	But. . . this was grim.  I didn’t need to see the utterly destroyed look on Finnegan’s face to grasp that for myself.  These men, this organization, already had a hateful, vicious reputation.  They were canine-dominated and aligned with this nation’s powerful, which meant they had no fondness for tribal men or outsiders to begin with.  And they knew that we must have killed some of their own to obtain the badges we’d used.
	I couldn’t imagine how much Finnegan must have been blaming himself now for using those.  But they’d been integral.  I don’t know how we would have done what we’d done without them.  We’d all agreed to the plan, we’d all thought it was a good idea at the time.  We probably could have foreseen it might get the attention of the Agency somehow, but. . . but I don’t know.  We probably would have agreed the risk was worth it.  After all, it worked.  The whole thing had worked.
	Until now.
	Over the course of the ride, I began to grapple with the very real possibility that I might die tonight.  Very soon.  I might never see the sun again.  They might even kill me before Finn, if they thought I was of no use.  For whatever reason, this Gezan clearly wanted Finnegan alive.  But me. . . .
	I found that I was. . . not calm, but more resolved to the thought than I’d ever imagined I might be, dying at such a young age.  Odina wasn’t in the wagon.  It was seeming more and more likely they hadn’t caught her, hadn’t even thought to, the more I considered it.  After all, Finn and I had been very careful not to involve her in every part of the plan, so that she could be a scout for us.  They may not have even known we worked together.
	And she had the stamp press.
	Without Finnegan, it might be slightly harder for her to have the Citizenship Cards made, but Finn had made it clear many times that he wasn’t exceptional at forgery.  She could find someone else.  And if the worst happened tonight and she and I never saw one another again, I had no doubt that she would make sure my family was taken care of.
	It wasn’t that I wasn’t scared.  I was terrified.  I desperately wanted to see the morning.  My family.  My home.
	But if I died here in this foreign city, if my life blinked out in a moment on the whim of one of these men with pistols, had this all been worth it?  It. . . was hard to say it hadn’t been.
	It took me some time to really hone in on what it was I was feeling.  It was pride.  In myself.  It was so rare a feeling for me, it felt completely foreign at first.
	I was proud of something I’d accomplished here.  Even though it might cost me greatly.  Honestly, even if Odina failed to complete the task.  I was proud of myself. . . for trying.  And for holding to what I believed, throughout it all.  
	Even in the midst of all of this, I was. . . I don’t think I’d ever felt better about myself.  As a person.  I could die knowing I’d given literally everything I had, my future, all of it, for something greater than myself.  My family.  Dozens of people, far from here in the home I loved, struggling against an unfair world.  I’d tried, so hard, to make that world just a little bit more fair to them.  And even if I’d failed, that had been worth trying for.
	I hadn’t done it like Uki and Kissima, by lashing out and killing.  I hadn’t done it like my father, by giving in and trying to work within their laws.  I had done it my own way.  Somewhere in-between, with cleverness, tenacity, and the help of others.
	I knew, looking across at Finnegan, that he felt nothing for himself but loathing right now.  He saw this as entirely the opposite.  He felt he’d failed.  	
	I wanted so badly to give him the blossom of hope and self-worth growing inside me.  I felt. . . whole.  At last.  This winter, I’d been tested against the worst odds and I think I’d found out who I was.  And I wasn’t ashamed of myself any more.
	I wanted him to feel whole, too.  I only hoped he’d have the chance.
	The wagon came to a jarring stop somewhere.  I could see nothing outside, except dim light.  The men guarding us waited until the door unlatched, before instructing us to stand and pushing us out into the street with guns to our backs.
	It turned out we were backed up against an alleyway, and a narrow one at that, so it was nearly impossible to tell where we were.  But my nose availed me once more.  That familiar scent of salt and fish, old rotting wood, bad smoke. . . we were still in Debriss, near the pier district.  We’d gone backwards, but over land this time.
	We were funneled down the alleyway and into a small back door I had to stoop and shove my shoulders past to get inside.  It was like the one we’d used earlier tonight, clearly meant for servants, and it led to a narrow staircase and equally narrow door up top.  But once we cleared that, we entered into what was actually a very expensive-looking, well-appointed building.  
	The hallways here were unusually wide, the ceilings unusually tall, the wood paneling on the walls a deep mahogany.  A long, patterned, elegant carpet ran the length of the hall, paintings hung in gilded frames, and the place smelled of incense, covering the otherwise unfortunate odors seeping in from outside.  All of the paintings on the walls depicted ships, many of them if the sails were any indication, far larger than even the Arbor Express.
	In contrast to the well-to-do visage of this place, the hall was also crowded with many more rough-hewn, armed canines, all wearing Jackwald badges.  There were another five men up here that I’d seen so far.  One of them was waiting at the end of the hall, near an open door.  Something strong and cloying wafted from the room, smoke likely from some kind of pipe, but intense and unpleasant.
	The big maned dog with us moved ahead of us, heading into the room while we waited outside.  He wasn’t quiet when he spoke, nor was the man he was speaking to, so I heard every word of their conversation.
	“We got him.”
	“You’d best not have brought me another black mutt with a white patch, Captain.”
	“It’s him,” maned dog said with certainty.  Then there was a clunk, as something heavy was set down on wood.  “The pistol’s a match, and I took a close look.  The scars are dead on.”
	“Bring him in.”
	“He’s got a Brave with him,” maned dog continued.  “Some savage guide.”
	There was a pause.  “. . . of course he does.  That explains how he got here in one piece.”  A long pause, and then a fresh whiff of that strong smoke.  “Bring them both in.  I’m curious who the young heir associates himself with.”
	That was our cue.  The men behind us shoved us forward, and we cleared the much higher, wider threshold into the room, and finally put a face to the man who’d been haunting us since the first day I’d met Finnegan Ambrose.
	I’d never met a seal, but I’d heard many stories of the whale hunting people, of their hard life up north on the distant island of Enok, and their battles against the enormous animals that inhabited the oceans and fed their tribes.
	The massive, leathery-skinned man stood behind a large wooden desk in the center back of the room, framed by two nearly floor-to-ceiling windows split into many panels.  Beyond was the port itself, lanterns barely illuminating buildings and streets in the distance, the masts of ships rising like a barren forest.  The man himself was- and I don’t say this often- actually taller than me, if barely.  And heavier too, by the look of it.  He had no distinctive edge to his face, his ‘muzzle’ becoming his neck with a few intersections of folds of skin, and nothing more.  His hide was peppered in uneven black spots, he had a thick moustache of whiskers that would have rivaled my fathers’, and the blackest eyes I had ever seen.  He wore an open, unbuttoned, but still very fine vest over an equally fine shirt, which he’d rolled the sleeves on up to his elbows.  His arms were ropy and corded with muscle, and despite his somewhat protruding stomach, I had no doubt he was as strong of body, if not stronger, than I was.  It looked like he wore a coat too usually, but it was hung over the back of his chair.
	The room felt a little warm to me, too.  But maybe that was fear.
	He lifted a webbed, clawed, thick-fingered hand to his mouth to pull out a chunky brown smoke stick of some kind, clearly the source of the smell.  He crushed what was left of it out in the ash tray on his table, right near where Finn’s pistol was lying.  I saw Finn eyeing it.
	So did he.
	He gave a guttural chuckle.  “Never stop calculating your odds.  All of life’s a gamble.  Some people take a lifetime to figure that out.”
	“He’s manacled, don’t worry,” the maned dog said, glaring at Finn.
	“Damn if you aren’t just the spitting image of your old man,” the seal said with a fanged leer, slapping a hand to his thigh.  “Ha!  Look at that.  Look at those eyes,” he leaned over the desk on the last word, his own dark gaze locking on Finn.  “That’s pure, raw hatred right there, gents,” he chuckled darkly.  “Undiluted.  You don’t get anything that pure out of Pedigree boys.  Ironic, ain’t it?”
	He leaned back slowly and began to wind his way around the desk, the floor groaning beneath his footsteps.  His thick, finned tail swung behind him, clearing the space around him.  Even the Jackwalds stepped back and made way.  I had never seen a man whose presence shamelessly dominated so much of the room before.
	“You’ve got to come up from the dark. . .” he continued, his voice like gravel cracking beneath a wagon wheel, “. . .from the filthy, bleak cesspools of this world. . . to have eyes like that.”  
	He stopped before Finn, staring down at him.  “Murderous eyes,” he breathed out in Finn’s face.  “Ain’t that right, Ambrose?”
	Finn stared straight back into the black, glassy gaze of the man.  And at length, only uttered a defiant, “Fuck you.”
	The seal laughed roughly, his smile revealing many more sharp teeth.  “There you have it, lads.  That’s a real man.”  He looked around the room.  “All this time your Agency’s been failing me, and I’ve torn you damn well apart, not a one of you’s had the stones to do what the little bastard here just did.  And you weren’t even shackled.”  He paused, then looked to the Captain, the maned dog.  “Speaking of.  You can take those off now.”  He began to move back around the desk, to his chair.  “Ambrose and I can’t very well talk business with things bein’ as they are.  And which of you beat on him?  That blood’s fresh.”
	“He fell off his horse,” the maned dog said, gesturing to one of his men to undo Finn’s manacles.  Finnegan hid his surprise well, but I saw him looking towards me uncertainly, over the turn of events.  “What about the bear?”  Maned dog asked. 
	The seal gave me a curious look, then shrugged.  “I don’t know what to make of him, to be honest,” he said.  “Is he fluent in the King’s tongue?”
	“Not sure,” the Captain replied.  “Ambrose spoke to him in savage speak, though.”
	“Nanka,” the seal said, with a thick accent.  “Ah kowa Amurescan?”
	I thought I did a pretty good job of looking at him uncertainly.  It wasn’t hard.  His Nontawlik, what little of it he likely spoke, was poor.  He’d obviously meant to ask me if I spoke Amurescan, but his pronunciation was horrid.
	“Only a few words,” I said in Nontawlik, deciding to test how well he understood it, if he didn’t speak it well.  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
	He stared at me blankly, then glanced around the room.  “Can anyone make sense of savage-speak?”
	I wanted to say it’s your language.  Or at the very least, closer to his peoples’ dialect than Amurescan was.  I wanted to express how angry I was that he’d clearly forgotten where his ancestors came from, that he’d come so far away from us that he’d gotten to the point of calling us ‘savages’, like the hateful men he surrounded himself with did.  But I stayed silent and grit my teeth, trying not to show how I felt on my face.
	“Ice bears are dim, lazy cannibals,” Gezan said, staring straight at me as he did.  “Barbarians who prey on people as much as feral beasts, when they’re hungry.  You never see them any more though, because they’re fading from the world.  And good riddance.”
	I knew what he was trying to do, immediately.  I kept my expression as placid as I could manage, staring back at him.  It was hard, but I knew what was on the line.  I dug into the resolve I’d found in the wagon, and found fortitude there I hadn’t thought I was capable of.
	In time, he leaned back and looked to Finnegan again.  “I don’t know where you unearthed this beast, Ambrose,” he said, “but you’re fortunate you kept him well-fed.  This country isn’t fully civilized, yet.  There’s taking risks and then there’s naivete.”
	“What do you care?”  Finn asked quietly.  His tone was disaffected, but I could tell he was probing.  “You’ve been sending your guns here after me for months, now.  Like you give a fuck about my well-being.  Don’t bother pretending.”
	“My boy, I care very much about your well-being,” the man said.  Despite the words, his tone sounded sinister.  Angry.  Like the statement itself was hard for him to push out.  “I’m paying these men here triple to bring you before me intact as you are now, in case you weren’t aware.  I’ve been looking for you for a very long time.  Longer than you likely realize.”  He spread his palms out.  “Just trying to arrange a little sit-down, is all.  That’s all this is.”
	“You’ve got a strange way of going about it, then,” Finn growled.  “Your hunters have dogged me across two countries now, using lethal means to procure me for your little ‘sit-down’.”  As he spoke, he massaged his wrists where the manacles had been removed.  It looked like they’d put them on too tightly, just as they’d bound me.  
	“I’m not sure if you realize this or not,” the seal huffed out a mirthless chuckle, “but you are a very hard man to get a hold of.  I was downright civil about it with my agents in Amuresca.  Certified Couriers, a few Private Investigators. . . armed, sure.  You’re a professional killer, after all.”  He reminded him of the fact with a certain amount of relish.  
	I was having trouble pinning down what this man was about.  His affect was jovial, but also threatening, and he seemed to delight in repeatedly reminding Finn of his profession and lineage, but he also did so oddly respectfully.  I didn’t detect any actual revulsion from him when he called him a ‘killer’. 
	Finn remained silent, so Gezan continued.  “You’ve no official residence, save that gutter you crawled out from, and the whores there were of no help.  All my men got out of them was that you had no surviving family.  You kept ducking my Invesigators. . . so. . . you tell me. . . what was I to do?”
	“Was there ever truly a warrant out for me?”  Finn asked, flatly.  “That last duel-“
	“Oh, there’s a Pedigree family none-too happy their son is dead,” the seal replied.  “Didn’t take much convincing to have them put in a complaint.  Does that make you feel better?”  He taunted.  “To know the warrant’s fabricated?”  Before Finn could respond, he waved a hand.  “It’s gone.  A’ight?  Just as soon as you return to Amuresca, I’ll have it waived.  It was thin to begin with.  Just a way to track you down.  And no one across the pond is going to care about some backwater hicks you killed on the frontier.  The Crown Law doesn’t have to know about anything you may have gotten up to while you were here.”
	“You. . . want me. . . to go home?”  Finn asked, disbelievingly.  “What the hell is going on here?  What do you want from me?”
	Gezan gave an unnerving, knowing smile.  The smile of a man who held many secrets, and many lives, in his hands.
	“First thing’s first,” he announced, reaching beside him to a drawer in the desk, which he unlocked with a key on his belt and pulled open.  He produced a wooden box, setting it down heavily on the desk and sliding it towards the Jackwald Captain.
	The maned dog glanced back furiously at Finn, before looking down at the box and undoing the latch with a meaty paw, opening it up.  Inside were stacks of coin, the like of which I’d never seen before.  Silver, but glittering like gold.  Large.  He began to count each of the stacks.
	“Twenty stacks, ten each, platinum crowns,” Gezan said distractedly.  “It’s all there.  Unless you’re doubtin’ me.”  He ground the last words in, stalling the Captain as he counted.
	The maned dog paused for a moment, then closed the box before finishing.  “It’s fine,” he said, looking back to Finn.  When he spoke, that fury was still there, barely below the surface.  “This murderer,” he huffed, “tarnished our Organization’s good name, in our city and beyond.  He killed my boys up north, we don’t even know how many-“
	“That’ll be it for now,” Gezan said, casually.  “You and your men can leave.”
	The maned dog and the Jackwalds in the room all reacted to those words uncomfortably.  “What are you planning to do with him sir, if you don’t mind my-“ the Captain began.
	“That ain’t really your business anymore, is it?”  The seal asked steadily.  “Your job here’s done.  I’ll keep in contact, and your boys on employ down at the pier can pass on anything more I need, in the future.”  He turned to look out the window for a moment, shoving his hands in his pockets.  “The stevedores are planning to unionize soon, I’ve been hearin’.  I’ll have plenty more work for you coming.”
	“The bear wasn’t part of the bounty,” the maned dog said, glancing at me.  
	Gezan waved a hand.  “I don’t care what you do with the bear.”
	“Get him moving,” the Captain said, snapping at two of his boys.  I felt someone grab my bindings, yanking me back towards the door.  A flash of panic overtook me.  They were going to separate us!
	“No!”  Finnegan called out.  Gezan regarded him, getting an interested look.  Finn visibly calmed himself, and said, “I want my guard, damnit.  I refuse to be alone in a room with you.  And un-tie him.”
	Gezan seemed to consider it for a few moments.  The Captain spoke up, “He wasn’t included as part of this-“
	“The savage is worth nothing,” Gezan reasoned.  “You’re just going to beat your outrage outta him and hang him.  Shame on you lads.  We’re supposed to be the civilized ones.”  The maned dog grit his teeth and growled, but the enormous seal seemed non-plussed.  “If Ambrose feels safer with his savage guard, he keeps him.  I’m a reasonable man, and it’s a small concession.”
	“You alright being left alone with the two of them, sir?”  A man from behind me asked, as he began to un-knot my bindings.
	“Yes I am,” Gezan replied, confidently.  “The bear’s a child.  Hardly a mark on him, still lean for his kind.  He’s no Brave.  Guide, likely.  Looks worse’n he is,” he glanced at Finn.  “And this one’s a reasonable man, like myself.  Weighin’ his options.  I can tell, we’re going to have a good dialogue here.”
	Feeling slowly returned to my hands after I’d been freed from the restraints.  I probably should have been feeling better about our chances, all things considered. . . but everything about this was strange.  As the Jackwalds left the room, I began to wonder if what we’d been left to was worse than what they’d had planned for us.
	Once they were gone, literally a second or so after the door closed, Gezan’s features grew serious and he curtly asked, “Where are the manifests, Ambrose?”
	“I’m glad at least I was right about one thing,” Finnegan said, holding a hand over his side where he’d started bleeding again.  It didn’t smell too bad, not a lot of blood, but I’m sure it must have hurt like hell.
	“Not even bothering to deny it?”  Gezan shook his head.  “I have to admit, the more I get to know you, the more I like your style.”
	“It’s my only leverage,” Finn said pointedly.  “And I’d rather not die tonight.”
	“The letters, too,” the seal grated out.  “All of it.”
	Finn arched an eyebrow.  “You know about those.”
	“Mrs. Parkinson confessed her sins quite unwillingly, from what my Investigators told me,” Gezan said.  “But when a Templar is questioning you, there is nothing a God-fearing Amurescan won’t spit out.”
	“I’d heard you had bought men of the cloth,” Finn said.  “But a Templar?”
	“As far as she knew,” the seal said.
	“The papers are all somewhere safe,” Finnegan stated.  “Your boys may have tracked which ferry we were using, but I’m guessing they didn’t get much farther than that, or you wouldn’t be asking.”
	“You fucked up, Ambrose,” Gezan shook his head.  “You gave me a merry chase for years, but when you used those badges in the same city as those mens’ headquarters?”  He shook his head.  “Stupid.  Reckless.  Don’t think you get to taunt me now like you’ve still got a hand to play.  I’d like us to remain civil, I’m even willing to extend you some respect. . . improve our relationship going forward. . . but you don’t get to deride me.” 
	“Fine,” Finnegan said, putting his hands up and dropping his tone to a more submissive one.  “Fine.  You’re right.  I’m at your mercy here, and like I said, I’d like to live through the night.  But. . .” he said carefully, “. . . I don’t feel I’ve got the full story, which doesn’t exactly help me decide my mind.  Maybe I do think those papers are worth dying for.”  He narrowed his eyes.  “Maybe I’m curious just what more you need from me, since you clearly wanted me alive for some reason.  If all you wanted were the manifests. . . .” 
	“Let me ask you this,” Gezan said.  “When you stuck your bloody nose into this Company’s affairs, who was it you were looking to damage?  Because it wasn’t hard to unearth your family history once I came to know of your existence, and I’d bet I can take a guess.”
	“Yes, obviously,” Finn said, sighing.  “I was hoping to damage my sire.  To be honest, I hardly knew who you were.”
	“That’s by design,” Gezan said.  “Men like your father. . . soft-boned, guileless, inbred inheritors of vast fortunes beyond their ability to manage. . . hire men like me,” he placed a webbed hand over his chest, “to manage their considerable assets.  Your father had never truly lived in the world, as you and I have.  He hadn’t an inkling of what it takes to endure, let alone prosper, in the most cut-throat industry, in some of the most competitive markets in the world.  Your father was more interested in how to spend his wealth on his vices, to adorn his manor to better impress his fellows in their antiquated bubble.”  He chuckled.  “When I discovered he had a bastard son, I can’t say I was surprised.  The man was an infamous whore-monger, and a drunk.  I doubt you’re the only terrible mistake he made throughout his pointless life that came back to haunt him.”
	“What’s your point?”  Finn asked, one of his fists curling at his side.
	Gezan again spread his hands in the air, the dark port spread behind him through the broad windows that framed his desk.  “We’ve had a common foe, you and I.  This was never about the Company itself for you, was it?  It was about hurting the man who abandoned you to the lowest rungs of society and denied you a chance at comfort and fortune.  And I understand that drive to take back what you’ve been denied.  More than you know.”
	I was beginning to notice something about the way Gezan spoke of Finnegan’s father.  And this was a second language for me.  Surely Finn had noticed it by now, too.
	“Yeah, you seem to have done pretty well for yourself as someone with tribal ancestry, in this country,” Finn agreed, glancing around the room.  “I’m not ignoring that.  I also. . .” and here he continued hesitantly, “. . . can’t keep ignoring the fact. . . that you’ve been talking about my sire in the past tense.”
	The seal slowly smiled.  “You really didn’t know.”
	Finnegan began to shake, the quiver starting in his hands.  It was small, but I was so attuned to his body by now, I was certain I caught it before Gezan did.  When he spoke, his voice was unsteady.  “My. . . father is dead?”
	“He didn’t have quite your constitution, apparently,” Gezan said, his voice hollowly mourning in tone.  “Food poisoning is frightfully common, even in modernity.  If it’s any consolation, I hear he suffered.”  His next words were a deep-throated growl, hardly speech.  “For days. . . .”
	Finnegan didn’t respond.  He just stood there, arm wrapped around his side, claws clutching at the bloodied fabric of his vest.  A tempest of emotions I could not name moved over his features, the only outward sign the occasional twitch of his muzzle, or the lost, distant glaze to his eyes.  I wanted to go to him, so badly.  Not doing so was the hardest thing I’d had to hold back so far.
	“Eamon Lancaster has been dead,” Gezan gave a thoughtful pause, “likely since before you left Amuresca.  Your vengeance is enacted, Ambrose.  Your mother’s soul may rest easily, now.”
	That snapped his attention back to the seal.  He narrowed his eyes, anger creeping into his tone.  “Fuck you,” he repeated his sentiment from earlier.  “Don’t you dare think you can claim her as emotional leverage over me.  I owe you nothing.  Eamon being dead doesn’t help her, and even if he deserved it, it doesn’t help me or the many other people he used and abused while he was alive.”
	“Oh, but it could.” Gezan said, tapping the desk.  “You could.  With this company.”
	“What?!”  Finnegan asked, baffled.
	“That’s why I’ve been trying to find you,” the man said, his black eyes boring into Finn’s.  “I’m a Partner in the Lancaster Cartel, and a majority owner, now.  But Eamon was our Pedigree Liaison with the Crown, and the technical Magnate.  With him deceased, we need a new liaison or we lose all of our contracts and favor with the Pedigrees who buy and sell our goods in Amuresca.”
	“You can’t be serious,” Finn choked out.  “I’m a bastard half-breed.  What the hell makes you think I’d be able to fall into a role like that?  Even if the Crown allowed it for some reason, all of his resources fell to his legitimate surviving family when he died.”
	“I gained control over your father’s dealings quite easily over the last decade,” Gezan assured me, “including shoring up all the loose ends with possible inheritors.  His brother is a drunk as well, with a liver illness and no surviving children.  His sister is in a madhouse with hysteria.  His wife disavowed him a year ago when she fortuitously discovered his many affairs and her brother-in-law suggested an annulment, which my Solicitors were happy to oblige for her.  She walked away with a tidy sum for herself and his three daughters, with no further legal ties to the Lancaster name.  And the man never had a son.”  He gestured to Finn.  “Except for you.  Our final loose end.”  
	“I wasn’t even ever formally recognized by Eamon,” Finnegan insisted.  “The man has spent the entirety of my life denying my existence.” 
	“Eamon and I. . .” Gezan curled his lip, “. . . had an increasingly difficult relationship over the last few years.  If the man had simply left me to run his Company, we would have continued with record profits, built our fleet and dominated International trade for years to come.  I didn’t think he was even still reading the manifests.”
	“He disapproved of your slaving,” Finn guessed.
	“The man had no backbone for adversity,” Gezan said.  “He feared recrimination, he’d already had troubles with the Church in the past over his sinful lifestyle.  I tried to assure him it was all well-in-hand, but the fool was panicking.  Threatening me, vowing to dissolve the fleet.  He no longer had control over our Captains, of course. . . and once his wife called down an Inquisition from the Church, it’s not as though he could go his Priest-“
	“Fortuitous timing, there,” Finn said.
	“Indeed,” Gezan continued.  “It seemed like we had the son of a bitch under control, but he had an ace we weren’t aware of.”  He pulled a hand out of one of his pockets to gesture at Finn.  “A bastard son.”
	“How do I matter?”  Finn demanded.  “I’ve never mattered.  To him, to the Pedigrees.  To anyone in the halls of power.”
	The seal clucked his thick tongue.  “I think he thought if he formally recognized you, it would protect him somehow.  That I’d fear the idea of this dark horse inheriting his fortune more than the thought of working with him.  Giving him what he wanted.  Which, of course, was majority control of the Company again.  Go for the safe bet, be content with what I’d already gained and keep up our tenuous alliance.”  He grinned, but the smile was false.  “Man’s never had to earn something in his life.  He didn’t figure how hard a working man can cling to what he’s fought and bled for.  But you understand that all too well, don’t you Ambrose?”
	Finn lifted his head, ears tipped back, his entire posture rigid and controlled.  I’d seen it before, when he straightened his back and went statue still for a shot.  “So you need me,” he declared.  “To inherit Eamon’s Company.”
	“Before he died, he declared you his legal heir,” Gezan said.  “Approximately one year ago.  He’d been threatening to do so since his wife left him and he learned how thoroughly his other blood relations were in my pocket.  One last act of defiance, I suppose.  Say what you will about your father, Finnegan,” he emphasized his name with an undue familiarity, “he seemed to have some measure of respect for your independence and fortitude.  He didn’t believe I’d be able to get my hands on you.”
	“In trying, you nearly killed me,” he snarled.  “The same way you ultimately killed him.  What justice would that have been?”
	“Well first off, that one you can’t put on me.  One of my Detectives got a little spooked by your reputation is all, didn’t much like his chances of taking you in your prime.  The way he tells it, the poisoning was just meant to disable you, so he could affect an arrest.  But you went and stayed upright, and hopped a ship in the next port.  Fucking impressive, really.”
	“Lifetime of drinking Risers water,” Finn grumbled.
	“Forged in fire, men like us,” Gezan said, tapping a claw to his chest.  “Made of stronger steel than those who’ve led a blessed life.  You and I are cut from the same cloth boy, whether you like the idea or not.  I think we could build a lasting relationship, understand one another far better’n I ever could have with some Pedigree louse.  As for ‘justice’. . . killing your father wasn’t about justice.  And you’re right, it wasn’t vengeance or anything so poetic as that, either.  It was business.  Just business.”
	He sighed, putting his palms flat on the desk and leaning over it.  “I’m not some villain, lad.  I’m just a Capitalist, trying to keep what he’s earned.  And I never wanted you dead, you can check the bounty papers yourself if you want confirmation of that- not until I found out about the manifests, anyway.  I would prefer now that all the unpleasantness is aside that we both let bygones be bygones.  You killed some of my boys and made trouble for me with the Jackwalds, I’d say that makes us about even.  A man in your profession’s hardly one to be casting moral aspersions anyway, right?”
	Finn was silent for a long time.  When he spoke again, he did so carefully.  “So you want me to go back to Amuresca and formally inherit my father’s Company.”
	Honestly, that was the point during this whole conversation that I had the most trouble not visibly reacting.  Because I knew Finn, I knew his voice, his mannerisms, I understood his feelings and how he showed them- and something in his voice when he said that, and the way he said it, sounded to me like he was honestly considering the man’s proposal.
	“You’ve apparently made something of an impression on some important men and women during your time on the dueling circuit,” Gezan said.  “There are a fair few who know you personally enough that they’re willing to vouch for you in court.  A few of the wives you’ve wooed, the man who gave you that there pistol, even a Crown Admiral.  This whole transition would go a hell of a lot more smoothly if you just accepted your inheritance with grace, thanked God for this opportunity, and accepted a stake in the Company we can both agree upon.”
	“With the understanding hanging over my head,” Finn said, “that you offed my old man, and could do the same to me.”
	“I can’t see why you’d give me reason,” the seal said calmly, “when your fortunes’re gonna improve so vastly because of our relationship.”
	“My sire was the one who made me inheritor,” Finn pointed out.
	“And why was that, again?”  Gezan smirked.
	“To spite you,” Finn concluded.
	“And what better way to spite his roasting soul in hell,” Gezan said, “than working with me, and building our Company to even further greatness?”
	Finn, for the first time since this all began, looked briefly to me.  I remained silent, but I looked at him imploringly.  He looked back to Gezan, asking, “What happens if I don’t show in Amuresca?”
	Gezan sighed.  “The Will falls into Probate and I have to buy back my Empire, one ship at a time.  But right now our competitors already smell blood in the water, without a Magnate we’re losing trust in Amuresca.  Every day we go on like this is damaging us.”
	“Probably shouldn’t have risked your ‘Empire’ by killing him, then,” Finn sniped.
	“It was a riskier wager allowing him to live,” he said coldly.  “He was unreliable.  He wasn’t listening to me anymore.  And it’s your Empire too, by the way, that’s being damaged by all of this.  Your coin.  Your Fleet.  So dragging your feet here isn’t helping you.”
	“You’d have to stop the slaving,” Finnegan insisted.
	Gezan gave an amused smile.  “Is that it?  Are you a religious man, or something?”
	“What does it matter why?”  Finn replied.  “I have it on good authority it’s too risky an industry to be profitable, and there are other ways to get the officials here on your side, if that’s what you’re after.  I know quite a few, myself.  We can share ideas.  My sire was right about one thing- it’s obviously too much of a risk.  I found out about it.  I’m sure others could, too.  It isn’t worth it.”
	“It’s hardly a deal-breaker for me,” Gezan said easily.  “But we can talk more specifics on the voyage over to your motherland.  Now, the manifests-“
	“Other than my life,” Finn sneered, “which you’ve already proven you’re willing to take, or too sloppy to fully value-“
	“I won’t be held accountable for what men I’ve hired in another country do,” the seal cut in.
	“I thought you were a businessman,” Finnegan countered.  “Man of the people, unlike my sire.  Forged in the fires of hardship.  Surely you’re not abdicating responsibility to your lessers.”
	“Watch your tongue,” the seal drawled.
	“-other than my life,” Finn pressed on, “the manifests are the only guarantee I have that I’m of any value to you.  You want to work together?  Let’s start this off with enough mutual respect that we show we understand one another’s situation.  I’m willing to leave most of the running of the Company to you, as my sire did, as long as I’m well-provided for, and risky gambles like the flesh-peddling stop.  I won’t be put in the same position as Eamon was.  You said yourself you believed we could work together.  I’m letting you know now, and you are well aware of my profession before all of this, so you should already- I would literally rather die facing an opponent than be double-crossed and stabbed in the back later.  I’ll go willingly.  I have some business left to see to in this city first, so you’re going to let me leave this room, and get my affairs in order.  You’re going to recall that bounty.  And then I will accompany you to Amuresca, and settle my inheritance in your favor.  But you will not force those papers from my hand.  I’ll put my own pistol in my mouth and shatter your Empire before I let myself be used by anyone.  Ever again.”
	The room was dead silent for a long while following that.  Thunder growled in the sky outside, a cold storm brewing off the coast.  The lantern was burning low, Gezan’s empty eyes like pits in a skull, as he stared at us.
	Then, slowly, he smiled.  And reached a hand across the table.  “I think we’ve an accord.”