I'm Going to Buy It
I asked Chyo how the job I'd entrusted to her was coming along.
"I did everything you told me to. It's caused quite an uproar."
"Didn't I say it would go exactly as I planned?"
"You're looking awfully pleased with yourself, by the way. Did something happen?"
Perhaps because we shared blood, Chyo read my mood faster than anyone else could have.
"I'll tell you later."
I wanted to shout it from the rooftops — Cassion had accepted my proposal — but the time to let it be known hadn't come yet. The plan was to wait until no one, absolutely no one, could undo it. Words were wondrous things: no matter how careful you were, and careful again on top of that, they always found some crack to trickle through. So when a secret truly had to stay buried, the answer was to share it with no one at all, no matter how close they were.
If, heaven forbid, Count Kolkos and Julia found out before the marriage was even settled, it would spell disaster.
Cassion, having made up his mind with such difficulty, would not turn it back easily. The variable was King Karman.
Would he grant the marriage his blessing?
"What has you brooding so hard? Whenever you focus like that, it frightens me."
"Worrying about sitting on a cushion of money?"
"There's nothing a pipsqueak won't say, is there?"
Every time I sank into deep thought, another commission dropped into Chyo's lap, so I'd assumed she was fretting over her earnings. Apparently not. Chyo smirked and ruffled my hair.
"It's because you keep handing me work a pipsqueak couldn't dream up."
She said she was worried I might land myself in danger.
"Liar. You're loving every minute of it, with all that money rolling in."
Afraid her concern might catch in my throat and knock me off balance, I deliberately tossed out a joke to clear the air.
"Right, that's exactly the worry to have. So, what job are you giving me this time to line your pockets?"
Chyo played along without missing a beat. A couple more lighthearted jokes passed between us.
"You've planted people inside Phoenix Bank, haven't you?"
Then she turned to business in earnest.
"Of course. But tell me — how on earth did you find out Julia's been cutting backdoor deals with Phoenix Bank? You had that information wrapped up nice and tight."
Chyo's pride had taken a bruise: I had uncovered the connection between Julia and Phoenix Bank before she had. After she delivered her first report on the bank and came to see me again, I'd asked her to focus her efforts on the relationship between the two. Before long, she unearthed signs that jewels and buildings had changed hands between Julia and the bank's president.
"No, seriously — how did you find out?"
"Oh, that."
I answered as though it were nothing. It hardly warranted kicking up a fuss and dressing it up as some grand feat.
I owed my knowledge of the tie between Phoenix Bank and Julia entirely to my previous life. Back then, Julia had sent me on endless errands. She saw me as little more than a handmaid — a marionette to be jerked around at her whim.
Once, she had summoned me in urgent haste. She said there was someone she needed to meet right away but couldn't spare the time, pressed something into my hands, and ordered me to go in her stead. Don't say a single word, she'd instructed. Just stand there quietly, and the person will know who you are and take it.
Without giving it a second thought, I ran the errand. The one who came for me that day was from Phoenix Bank. The face had long since faded from memory, but the Phoenix Bank badge pinned to that collar had stayed with me. Add Chyo's intelligence to that memory, and the pieces snapped together.
"You said it yourself — it made no sense for the late Queen Violetta to be in debt."
"I did."
"And when you dug into it, Aunt Diana, it turned out the late Queen had never once met with anyone from a bank."
Chyo nodded.
"So I got to thinking."
I slid a pen to the center of the desk.
"That the timing was ripe for a new player to slip in."
"You're driving me mad — out with it! Time is money. Have you never heard the saying?"
Chyo fidgeted with impatience. Her curiosity had kicked into full gear.
"Fine, fine, Aunt Diana. I have never once heard that the late Queen Violetta spent her life drowning in debt."
"You were far too young."
"And there wasn't a single record of it, either. Third-rate journalists would never pass up bait that juicy — the kind of story that pulls every eye in the kingdom — yet there was nothing. Not a trace."
"Or it was hidden well."
"Hidden? As if that were possible. There are records that when the late Queen retired to Twilight Mansion, she was shadowed by dozens of watchers disguised as her guard."
Chyo stroked her chin in slow thought, building a hypothesis of her own. Then, as though something had just come to her, she clapped her hands with a crack.
"The debt was manufactured after her death? So that was your theory!"
"Yes! After she died, someone impersonated the late Queen Violetta and conjured that debt out of thin air. And that debt..."
"Phoenix Bank. So you suspect the current queen, Julia?"
"She's tied to Phoenix Bank, and she's the one who lunged so eagerly the moment Twilight Mansion was rumored to be up for sale. And one more thing — if people ever learn how Twilight Mansion came to be on the market..."
"The late queen's reputation would plunge straight to the bottom. And for Julia, forever measured against her in all things, it would be two birds with one stone."
I nodded deeply. Chyo was sharp as ever. It seemed almost a waste, leaving her to drift as a mere information broker.
"Hey, killer eyes. Just now you looked exactly like a hunter laying a trap and waiting for the herbivores to wander in."
Chyo had it half right and half wrong. For a moment I turned over how I might keep her tied to my side, then let it go. And besides, she was no herbivore — she was a carnivore, through and through. A cute little rabbit, or a doe with big, dewy eyes — Chyo? Honestly, the comparison couldn't have fit worse.
"Now then, let's tie it all together."
Taking her words as one more joke, I gave a clap. Chyo straightened in her seat, sharpening her focus.
"The people who'd entrusted their savings to Phoenix Bank began withdrawing them all at once, didn't they?"
"Naturally. A savings guild sprang up promising triple the interest rates. Diana — this is where I have to ask. Are you truly going to pay those people three times Phoenix Bank's interest?"
"A promise is a promise."
Chyo eyed me with doubt.
To shake Phoenix Bank, I had tracked down its depositors, then sent Chyo's people out to urge them to move their money, offering triple the interest. To be precise, it wasn't a bank but a savings guild — founding a bank meant wading through a maze of procedures, while a savings guild could be set up with ease, so a guild it was.
At first, no one believed a word Chyo's people said. So we paid the interest up front to a select few. Among those who received it, whispers spread — invest now and you'll strike it rich, this place can be trusted — and just like that, people came flocking on their own two feet to hand over their money.
A classic con — one of the oldest tricks in the book.
But I had no intention of swindling anyone. Every coin of promised interest would be paid in full, so no harm done.
"And where exactly do you plan to get all that money?"
"Aunt Diana, you still don't know? I have plenty. It's not triple the principal — merely triple the interest."
To her, it was probably no more than an elephant's booger. Chyo's lips popped apart in a smirk. The truth was, my personal fortune alone couldn't cover it — I'd decided it was time to play the mother's-vault card.
"Are you really thirteen? I can't do business with you. You're far too aggressive."
"You have it backwards, Aunt. I'm exactly the partner you should be doing business with — someone who won't feel a scratch even if it all goes under."
When I lifted my chin, Chyo burst out laughing. I left her be for a moment, letting her be properly impressed with me.
"Go on. Keep talking."
She dragged a chair over and sat down in front of me.
"If the deposits drain out all at once, Phoenix Bank collapses. But Julia would never just sit back and watch that happen — not if she's tied to the bank."
I believed she was. Her reaction the moment Phoenix Bank came up was proof enough.
"And even setting that aside — it turns out Julia poured quite a tidy sum into Phoenix Bank."
On paper, at least. She had to, if she wanted her cut of the bank's profits as dividends. She'd made certain to carve herself a legal escape hatch.
"Royalty investing here and there — that's not a problem either?"
"She invested before she became queen, so they say."
"That's even stranger. Weren't you the one who told me she was poor?"
"Which is exactly my point — something reeks about the relationship between Julia and the Phoenix Bank president."
Chyo raised both hands, promising to keep her nose out from there on.
"Phoenix Bank is going to fall."
"Good — and fall it has. Now, what about Twilight Mansion? This whole scheme was for Twilight Mansion, wasn't it?"
"It was. So Phoenix Bank — the bank holding Twilight Mansion as collateral..."
I let a slow, meaningful smile curl across my lips.
"What? What is it? Tell me!"
Chyo squirmed, dying to hear my answer.
"What?"
In the end, the cigarette slipped right out of Chyo's fingers.
After my meeting with Chyo, I grew busier still. Word that House Ehrenberg had stirred could never be allowed to spread, which meant I needed someone to meet the Phoenix Bank president in my stead. I combed through the past, searching for anyone who might serve as my proxy, but no one suitable came to mind. At times like this, I couldn't help resenting my parents for never introducing me to even one dependable vassal.
"What I need is someone entirely new."
The idea of asking Chyo's subordinates — the ones who'd worked with us on the savings guild — was shelved just as quickly.
Chyo's people are far too coarse in speech and manner. No one would take them for the sort who could buy a bank.
If a person were truly rich, appearances wouldn't matter. But when the wealth was a fabrication, looking the part mattered above all else. There was no one around me, and Chyorny wouldn't do either. But giving up wasn't an option, so...
"Let's start by writing out the conditions."
What qualities must the one who handled the Phoenix Bank affair in my place absolutely possess? Where to begin?