Chapter 34: Ozzie’s Best Customer

Chapter 34: Chapter 34: Ozzie’s Best Customer

The hydra’s core sat in the middle of Tobin’s kitchen table like a centerpiece nobody wanted to touch.

It was the size of a grapefruit and cut like a prism, and even here, in the warm gold light of the eternal hearth, it threw little rainbows across the walls. Every time someone moved, the rainbows moved with them.

"She’s right," Marcus said. "Your Lodestar."

"She’s not my Lodestar."

"She’s right anyway." Marcus leaned on the table with both forearms. "Rule three was built for an E-rank selling scraps and the odd D-rank core. It wasn’t built for that." He nodded at the prism. "You walk into Ozzie’s with a C-rank boss core, and somebody somewhere is going to ask how a bag-carrier got one."

"Somebody already has," Aveline said quietly. "The Lodestar found him in three days."

Elias rubbed his eyes. His shoulder still ached from the three heads. "So what do I do with it? Mira’s filtration runs out in eleven days."

"We could cook it," Tobin offered.

Everyone looked at him.

"I’m only saying." Tobin shrugged. "Glass hydra. Could be lovely. Crunchy."

"It’s a rock, Tobin."

"Everything’s a rock until somebody cooks it properly."

Marcus ignored him with the ease of long practice. "One more sale," he said. "Ozzie’s been straight with you. Take it to him, but tell him to sit on it and sell it slow, somewhere far away. Then we go quiet. Smaller cores. Spread out. And we start thinking about a legitimate road, because sooner or later you’re going to need one."

"A legitimate road," Elias repeated. "For an E-rank Assassin who isn’t supposed to be able to clear C-rank gates."

"I didn’t say it’d be easy."

Elias looked at the prism for a long moment. Eleven days. Then he picked it up, wrapped it in a dish towel, and put it in his jacket.

"One more," he said.

Ozzie flipped the sign on his door to CLOSED before Elias had even finished unwrapping the dish towel.

Then he saw what was inside it, and he sat down very slowly on the stool behind his counter.

The prism lay on the scarred wood between them, throwing rainbows across the dusty shelves of salvage: old gate relics, monster teeth in jars, a broken sword hanging on two nails. Ozzie didn’t touch it for a long time. He just looked, his loupe dangling forgotten on its chain.

"Kid," he said finally, very quietly. "Where did you get a hydra heart?"

"You know the sign says no questions."

"The sign was written by a man who’d never seen one of these." Ozzie lifted the loupe, leaned close, and studied the core without breathing. "C-rank boss. Crystal-type. Not a scratch on the facets. There are maybe six collectors in the world who’d pay what this is worth, and two of them are in prison."

He set the loupe down.

"I can’t buy this," he said.

Elias’s stomach dropped. "Ozzie—"

"Let me finish. I can’t buy it outright. I don’t have that much cash in the building, and if I did, I wouldn’t keep it here." Ozzie folded his hands on the counter. "But I can hold it. Quiet. I’ve got a buyer overseas who doesn’t talk and doesn’t ask. Takes a few months to move something like this without making noise." He named a number. "Half of that now, as an advance. The rest when it sells."

Elias did the math. Half was more than he’d made in his entire life before the cathedral.

"Deal," he said.

Ozzie unlocked a safe under the counter, counted bundles of cash into a canvas bank bag, and pushed it across the wood. Then, instead of letting go, he held on to it for a second.

"There’s something else," he said. "Somebody’s asking about you."

Elias went still.

"Not by name," Ozzie said. "Not yet. But two guys came in last week asking who’s been moving D-rank boss cores through the Market District. Said they were buyers. They weren’t buyers. Buyers look at the merchandise." He tapped the counter. "One of them had a bow case on his back. And a jacket with the patch cut off. You could still see the stitching where it used to be."

Elias didn’t need to ask what the patch had been. An archer with a bow case. Vance.

Ironfang.

"I didn’t tell them anything," Ozzie said. "I’ve been doing this thirty years, and I’ve never given anybody up. But they’re not stupid, kid. Somebody saw you come in here. Somebody’s going to see you come in again." He let go of the bag. "So don’t. Not for a while. Lie low. Sell your scraps at the exchange like a good little E-rank."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Ozzie shrugged, and for a moment he looked much older than sixty.

"Because you walk in here with boss cores and then spend the money on hospital bills," he said. "I’ve watched you pay them. Most guys who bring me cores buy cars."

Mr. Halloran counted the money three times.

The first time, he counted it like a billing officer, quickly and professionally. The second time, slowly, as if he thought he’d made a mistake. The third time, he just held the stack in both hands and looked at Elias over the top of it.

"Three months," he said. "Filtration. Prepaid."

"Three months," Elias agreed.

Mr. Halloran printed the receipt, stamped it PAID THROUGH, and wrote the date by hand underneath, three months out. Then, instead of sliding it across the counter, he got up, came around to the front, and handed it to Elias like a diploma.

"Good for you, son," he said quietly. "Good for her."

Elias took the receipt upstairs.

Mira was in the middle of a filtration session, the machine humming beside her bed and the crystal filters glowing their clean, faint blue. She looked up from her tablet when he came in, saw his face, and narrowed her eyes.

"What did you do?"

He held out the receipt. She read it. Then she read it again, the way Mr. Halloran had counted the money, as if the date might change if she looked hard enough.

"Three months?" she said.

"Three months."

"Eli. How—" She stopped herself. He watched her decide not to ask. It was getting easier for her, he thought, and he didn’t know whether that was good or bad. Instead, she set the receipt down carefully on her blanket and smoothed it flat with both hands.

"Okay," she said. Her voice wobbled. "Okay. Then you have to keep your promise."

"Which one?"

"You know which one." She looked up at him. "You’ve been lying to me about sleeping. Don’t make that face. You fell asleep in that chair on Tuesday with your eyes open. Nurse Ruiz thought you’d died." She pointed at the receipt. "Three months. You don’t have to run anymore. Not tonight. So tonight you sleep. Real sleep. All of it."

He opened his mouth to argue. Then he looked at the filters glowing beside her bed, at the date written in Mr. Halloran’s neat hand, at his sister holding a piece of paper like it was the most precious thing she owned.

"Okay," he said. "Tonight, I’ll sleep."

And for once, it wasn’t a lie.

He went home at nine. He made a cup of Mrs. Albescu’s chamomile and drank all of it. He didn’t open the Sanctum. He didn’t check the gate board. He took off his boots for the first time in two weeks, lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes.

At 2:17 a.m., his phone lit up on the nightstand. Dex.

hey. two ironfang guys came by my place asking about you. said they were just checking in. they werent just checking in. call me.

The phone buzzed twice more, then went dark.

Elias didn’t hear it. For the first time in years, he slept straight through the night.

In the morning, a small window was waiting for him.

[Fatigue: cleared.]

[Well-rested: +5% to all stats for 12 hours.]

Then he picked up his phone and saw the messages, and the good feeling drained out of him all at once.