The sapphire above Alucard’s eye winked. “And yet, like coin, it never hurts.”
“Ah,” she countered, “but like coin, I have no interest in it, either.” She put down the ledger and held one hand out, across the table, but to the side, her fingers drifting toward a large sphere in a stand beside the desk. At first, Kell had taken the object for a globe, its surface raised and dented with impressions that could have been land and sea. But now he saw that it was something else entirely.
“Five years,” she said.
Alucard let out a small, audible gasp, as if he’d taken a blow to the ribs. “Two.”
Maris steepled her fingers. “Do I look like the kind of person who haggles?”
The captain swallowed. “No, Maris.”
“You’re young enough to bear the cost.”
“Four.”
“Alucard,” she warned.
“A lot can be done with a year,” he countered. “And I have already lost three.”
She sighed. “Very well. Four.”
Kell still didn’t understand, not until Alucard set the mirror on the desk’s edge and went to the sphere. Not until he placed his hands in the grooves on either side as the dial turned, ticking up from zero to four.
“Do we have a deal?” she asked.
“Yes,” answered Alucard, bowing his head.
Maris reach out and pulled a lever on the sphere’s stand, and Kell watched in horror as a shudder wracked the captain’s body, shoulders hunched against the strain. And then it was done. The device let go, or he did, and the captain took up his bounty and retreated, cradling the mirror against his chest.
His face had altered slightly, the hollows in his cheeks deepening, the faintest creases showing at the corners of his eyes. He’d aged a fraction.
Four years.
Kell’s attention snapped back to the sphere. It was, like the Inheritor around Maris’s neck, like so many things here, a forbidden kind of magic. Transferring power, transferring life, these things contradicted nature, they—
“And you, princeling?” said Maris, her pale eyes dancing in her dark face.
Kell tore his gaze from the sphere and dug the rings from his coat pocket, and came up with one instead of two. He froze, afraid he’d somehow dropped the second, or worse, that the coat had eaten it the way it sometimes did with coins, but Maris didn’t seem concerned.
“Ah,” she said as he placed the object on the desk, “Antari binding rings. Alucard, your little talent is quite a nuisance sometimes.”
“How do they work?” asked Kell.
“Do I look like a set of instructions?” She sat back. “Those have been sitting in my market for a very long time. Fickle things, they take a certain touch, and you could say that touch has all but died off, though between my boat and yours, you’ve managed quite a collection.” Shock rattled through him. Kell started to speak, but she waved a hand. “The third Antari means nothing to me. My interests are bounded by this ship. But as for your purchase.” She steepled her fingers. “Three.”
Three years.
It could have been more.
But it could have been less.
“My life is not my own,” he said slowly.
Maris raised a brow, the small gesture causing the wrinkles to multiply like cracks across her face. “That is your problem, not mine.”
Alucard had gone silent behind him, his eyes open but vacant, as if his mind were somewhere else.
“What good is this to you,” pressed Kell, “if no one else can use it?”
“Ah, but you can use it,” she countered, “and therein lies its worth.”
“If I refuse, we both end up empty-handed. As you said, Maris, I am a dying breed.”
The woman considered him over her fingertips. “Hm. Two for making a valid point,” she said, “and one for annoying me. The cost stays at three, Kell Maresh.” He started to back away when she added, “It would be wise of you to take this deal.”
And there was something in her gaze, something old and steady, and he wondered if she saw something he couldn’t. He hesitated, then moved to the sphere and placed his fingers in the grooves.
The dial ticked down from four to three.
Maris pulled the lever.
It did not hurt, not exactly. The orb seemed to suddenly bind to his hands, holding them in place. His pulse surged in his head, and there was a short, dull ache in his chest, as if someone were drawing the air from his lungs, and then it was done. Three years, gone in three seconds. The sphere released him, and he closed his eyes against a shallow wave of dizziness before taking up the ring, now rightfully his. Bought and paid for. He wanted to be free of this room, this ship. But before he could escape, Maris spoke again, voice heavy as stone.
“Captain Emery,” she said. “Give us the room.”
Kell turned to see Alucard vanish through the door, leaving him alone with the ancient woman who’d just robbed him of three years of life.
She rose from the table, knuckles whitening on her cane as she used it to lever her old body up, then crossed behind the sphere.
“Captain?” he prompted, but she didn’t speak, not yet. He watched as the old woman splayed one hand across its top. She murmured a few words, and the surface of the metal glowed, a tracery of light that withdrew line by line beneath her fingers. When it was gone, Maris exhaled, shoulders loosening as if a weight had been lifted.
“Anesh,” she said, wiping her hands. There was a new ease to her motions, a straightness to her spine. “Kell Maresh,” she said, turning the name over on her tongue. “The prize of the Arnesian crown. The Antari raised as royalty. We’ve met before, you and I.”