Aureum leaned back on the cushions to rest as she eyed Vitreum with amusement.
"Well!" Vitreum huffed. "Well, my mom's better than yours!"
"Now we're competing? Is she prettier?"
"For sure! My Mom has the prettiest jewelry. It's like she's wearing stars!"
"The point was that you don't even know what my mom looks like!"
"My mom is way cooler! She wouldn't have lost her temper just 'cause I was bullied! She'd deal with it properly!
She'd make that girl's mom bankrupt! She's a proper Lapis."
"Really? Huh."
Aureum felt responsible for the little girl's extreme imagination. She should have chosen a nicer story to tell about her mother.
Vitreum looked at Aureum defiantly, frowning.
"What, do you admit I won?"
The girl burst out a cocky smile.
"The purpose of comparing our moms isn't to win a competition, Vitreum.
Because if it was, I'd definitely win."
"No way!"
"What else can you tell me then? She sounds cool, but I'm not too sure~."
Vitreum, who was not entirely ignorant, lost her sense over wanting to win.
"She's—She's one of the richest women in the land!"
"Still not convinced."
"She takes care of all the finances of our house!" Vitreum waved her hands around excitedly.
"Uh-huh. But what makes her the best mom, Vitreum?"
It seemed Vitreum was missing the point. Aureum was trying to prompt her in the right direction.
"She. She. She's… she's my mom."
Vitreum's hands waving around came to a standstill. She looked down at the ground before sniffing loudly.
"She's my mom. She said she loves me!"
Did she not have anything else to tell me?!
Aureum winced as she pulled herself up off the bed to lower herself to the crying girl's side. She was breaking out into sobs that shook her small frame now.
"Vitreum, Vitreum," Aureum said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just messing around. No, no. Don't cry."
She watched Vitreum, a bit like a doctor eying a broken bone, before continuing.
"It's unfair to compare mothers because everyone's mom is usually their favorite. I just wanted to know more about your mom. That's all.
Besides, I'm older. I learned more about my mom as time passed. It's fine not to know everything about your mom.
Most people don't. Probably everybody."
Vitreum sniffed as her shoulders heaved.
"I-I barely get to see my Mom. She's too busy. But I was g-good!"
Aureum pulled Vitreum into a hug.
"S-she's the best mom! Really!"
"Of course, of course," Aureum said soothingly.
They read a lot of fairy tales after that. Aureum didn't stop this time until Vitreum fell asleep. Despite her aches, Aureum stayed up.
The whole interaction made her ache in her heart.
———————————————————
Mendax hadn't used his time idly. Perhaps he would have gotten more from it if he did. As it became more apparent that searching for the escapees was a vain task, he continued to follow Benedic.
The fool was easy to follow, despite their meeting a few nights ago. He had taken no precautions. Perhaps that was the fault of the state Benedic was in.
His hair was getting wilder, bags stretched under his eyes, and walking down the street he was in erratic jitters.
For Mendax it was the usual at this point. There were long hours of waiting with short bursts of walking, followed by watching.
Benedic held a loose schedule, but he always came to the auction house in the evenings. No surprise. That's where anything major was happening.
Many days passed with Mendax waiting outside it. He watched an unmoving building.
The obvious problem was that Mendax was already a known entity there. He couldn't lie himself into their good graces. If he entered, he might not leave.
As the sun shone around the shadowed outline of the building, as it had the day before and would do so again, he considered.
Maybe he could grab Sitis? But no, that idea was dead before it even fully formed. If this went the wrong way, it could cause Sitis to get kicked out of the university.
He couldn't afford that kind of debt.
Aureum was out. She was injured, and he wasn't certain of how useful she would be besides.
He wouldn't use a child. Likely useless and it was wrong.
He had no contacts in Fluentem. In fact, the only contacts he had were in Nix.
Well.
The next morning he wrote to Nivis.
No reply was the expected answer.
Mendax spent more days following Benedic and gaining nothing.
He tried patience in the face of those escapees' lives falling out of time like sand in a glass. In the face of how once those problems were resolved, they might come looking for Aureum and then him. It was impossible.
He considered infiltrating the building. Security would loosen soon enough. Maybe.
Probably not. It would take closer to a month than a week or two.
He was back again, waiting at the building with no more of a solution than yesterday, or the day before that.
His fist clenched until the nails left small cuts.
Is there really nothing I can do? Or is that just another lie too?
Countless faces rushed by. Not just of bystanders he'd let fall, but the hideous fools he'd sent falling himself. Scarred and brutish faces condemning him with the final horror they showed in their eyes.
He had his reasons in each instance. But who was he fooling?
Now wasn't the time for him to play at being hero.
Yet he'd ended the fools in blind faith. And for what?
Duty?
What duty is there following a man like that?
I was just afraid.
And what now? What had happened to that fear now?
Would he change his mind just as quickly in the face of that opened eye?
My hideous father.
Mendax released his fist. His steps were light as he approached the building. He took a few glances in either direction. There was no one.
A leap that had a heavy landing on the roof, and then he slid into a window.
The benefits of having a couple of decades worth of mana next to the heart.
That had been simple.
He had no hope that the rest of it would be so. It would be one thing if he was going for an item in a side room somewhere, but he would be heading for their boss.
The office of their boss at least.
The net of guards might be thickest there and timed to catch any intruder if they were made with any sense. But he made his way.
What he lacked in hearing he could make up for with quick hands. He softly lowered one of the guards to the ground. Not the first guard or the last.
Leaving a spotted trail made his time short. Luckily, the auction house was planned flawlessly. Looking for the main study, the building almost led him to it.
The boss of the building must have prioritized his inventory instead of himself. There weren't as many guards as Mendax expected.
Nothing but a door between them now.
"Why can't you get my money back?!"
This was Benedic.
"The artifact was stolen. We gave you back your losses."
Mendax remembered the slick tone of the boss.
"You said it would sell for three times the price!"
"If it sold… but alas, it's gone."
"You ba—
A crashing sound echoed out.
"Ah, ah, ah little Lapis. Tantrum because you already used the money?"
The voice sounded closer now.
"You worked for me! For me!"
Panic whined in Benedic's voice.
"I work for everyone who pays. You no longer can, good lordling."
"You tricked me!"
"So you can realize it. I was beginning to lose hope that I had gained a useful piece for my board. But you'll do just fine."
"I'll never work for some common scum!"
"Oh? Then just go back to your family for the money. Except they might not welcome you with open arms. After you got worked over out of a majority of your inheritance. Pity."
The voice again moved away.
"That money is a pittance compared to my family's fortune."
"Oh, good. Run along and get the money to pay me. I could make excellent use of what you owe me."
"You don't hold my debt, Caenum!"
Caenum laughed.
"You're right, I didn't. Until I bought it. Not so hard to understand, right?
Since you have too much pride still to scurry back home, I've got an alternative for you.
Find the slaves who stole your artifact, and this'll all go away. Just an adventure for you and your peers to laugh about later. Eh?"
"How do I even know it was stolen?"
"You don't, but what choice do you have?"
Mendax slid behind the door as Benedic slammed it into him. Caenum's cackle followed him the entire way.
"Shut the door."
"Yes, boss."
Mendax froze, but nobody shouted. The door shut in peace.
Mendax heard chairs sliding back into place. Then silence except for the scratching of a quill.
"Boss?"
"What is it?"
"Does he really have any chance of finding them?"
"Don't underestimate lordings. They don't spend all that money on a fancy education for nothing. Really, it doesn't matter whether he finds them or not.
If he loses them it'll just give me another chip to hold over him, fool that he is."
Now, Benedic had a decision to make. A temptation to accept or reject.
He could leave, and try to find a needle in a haystack. A task where the slavers looking had more manpower and information.
If they were even in the city.
Just because the guards at the gates said no one had left, didn't mean they hadn't used a different route. Or maybe they just bribed the guards at the gate with something stolen from the auction's stock. Stowing away on a ship was also an option.
They could be in hiding or a week out of the city already. It was too wide an area for him alone to search.
If he, by some miracle, succeeded in that impossible task, he might save the few who escaped.
Aureum and Vitreum would still be at risk.
Or.
While he was here.
He could try to cut off the snake's head. Not that Caenum was necessarily the only snake around, or even the biggest one. Once Caenum left, there would be a scramble to fill the void of power.
If Caenum wasn't already scraping to a bigger serpent. Then it would be a different stooge slid into his place.
It would still halt or hitch operations. And the escapees he couldn't find would be bought time. Either a fight or a decision would have to be made to replace him.
Aureum and Vitreum, hopefully minor concerns already, could easily be lost amongst the chaos. If he made sure that any paperwork remaining disappeared.
These realizations were reached quickly for Mendax. He didn't need to sit and organize them one by one with words.
Still, he hesitated.
If Caenum bowed to a bigger snake, then finishing him would be taken as a challenge. A challenge that couldn't go unanswered.
He couldn't separate himself from Aureum in their minds. They would hunt for them both if he failed.
If he failed.
No one plans to fail.
If he failed, Aureum and Vitreum would be caged chickens. Aureum could hardly walk, let alone run from attackers.
Mendax backed away slowly.
Besides, how would he be able to make certain which documents to destroy? If anything was encoded, he was lost.
If he was going to leave he had to do it quickly. As soon as he was at distance he picked up the pace.
A guard surprised him as he went around the corner.
The two spent a heartbeat staring at the unexpected.
"Wha—?!"
Mendax was quicker. Another one dropped.
He took the quickest window and slid it open. He poked his head out. No one directly underneath him. A jump down two stories he felt in his knees and he took a few shaky steps.
Soon enough he was out of sight of the building.
Without the brute force necessary to take down thugs in a heartbeat, Mendax would have offered himself with garnish.
Fool.
He thought to himself, as he sat and waited for his heartbeats to slow.
At least I have a name now.
Caenum.
He could ask people about Caenum. It had to be known if he was the head or just a segment of the body.
Once he knew, then a plan would be made.
He'd given up entirely on finding the escapees. Wherever they were, he wished them the best of luck.
At least they weren't caught. Yet.
———————————————————
Aquila, the one Aureum thought of as the leader, waited as Tinea's shrill voice moaned over the rest of them.
It was fine. She wasn't sick.
"We're all gonna die!" She cried.
It didn't matter. Where they sat, such crying was commonplace. It made them fit in.
Every city had a place the bereft huddled and slept in. Fluentem's was dank, dark, and filled with coughing. A hidden spot off a canal and under a large bridge.
It wasn't the only spot, but it was one of the bigger ones.
Passer quivered as she hid another cough. Aquila glanced down as his fist tightened. When he looked up again, she returned his gaze with clear eyes.
It had been a miracle of effort, trying to split the group across different hiding spots so they wouldn't be recognized by number alone.
That didn't stop them from being checked. But in the dank lighting? They covered the brands of those unfortunate enough to have already been sold with dirt.
So far none had been caught yet.
"What's next, Aquila?" Passer asked.
"We find a ship."
"Aren't they going to follow us?" Securis said.
He was the fierce one who fought.
"That's what the hiding was for," Aquila explained. "As long as we don't go together, and in different directions, we raise our chances. They'll be looking for a specific number of escapees."
"We're running away? After all this?"
Aquila looked down again.
"What about all the pain they caused us? What about the price they've stolen from our lives?! Doesn't that count for anything?!" Securis continued.
When Aquila looked back up, it was dozens of eyes he met, waiting for his answer.
There were faces missing. Some were lost in the initial escape. Others lost from a simple cough while in hiding.
"We must leave it to the gods Bonum and Malum to decide their fate. To survive free is enough stolen from them for now."
"Don't forget the god Libratum," Passer said.
"I'm not sure the god-child harmony has anything to do with how this story will end," Aquila said.
"We're dead. Dead! All that work and for what!"
The other escapees ignored Tinea.
They made plans for their retreat. What things they had filched from the auction house would be sold on the same day. Clothes would be bought, and travel plans split across Aeternitus. The desire for life smothered any need for vengeance.
With luck, they would make it. It would be more unlikely if no group made it.
Justice's gauntlet fell but no challenger dared to take it up.