“Is this really wise?” Mite asked, glancing from Claire to the auctioneer on the platform below them.
“Nobody questions Alex when he goes flinging himself into fights tying an arm behind his back to increase the challenge and get a marginally better reward,” Claire said. “But bidding on our own item is where you draw the line?”
“Hey!” Alex protested. “I haven’t done that in a while!”
“Only because you haven’t had a good opportunity to,” Claire said, rolling her eyes. “That’s not the point. I highly doubt anyone is going to let this thing go too easily. Not when we showed so much interest in it. It’s very likely soone outbids us. And if they don’t — we get most of the money back anyway.”
“There aren’t rules against it or sothing?” Mite asked with a frown.
“No. That’s the only reason I was willing to do it. There are very expressly not rules against this. The auction house said what the rules were quite clearly when they brought us here. I double checked. And they said nothing against this. That ans cheating is just the na of the ga. So long as you pull it off and nobody else finds out, then they aren’t going to care.” Claire shrugged one shoulder. “I’m willing to bet Bleak Night would imdiately ban us if anyone actually pointed out that we were bidding on our own item. But so long as nobody knows, they’re not going to do anything. It’s only cheating if you get—”
“10,200!” ca the call from Room 7. It was the guy that Claire had been screwing with the entire tournant.
“No shot,” Mite said. “It actually—”
“11,000,” Claire called, grabbing the paddle for just long enough to speak before setting it back down with a smug grin pulling at the corners of her lips.
“What are you doing?” Mite exclaid as he leapt out of his chair. “Another bid? Shouldn’t we let soone else go for this one? How close to the sun are we going to fly here? You do realize how much money we’re playing with, right?”
“11,100!” This ti, it was Room 2 that spoke up. Myrmidan had entered the bidding.
“13,000!” The woman in Room 6 called sharply.
“13—”
“14,000 Credits!” Claire called, snagging the paddle once more while Mite watched on in horror. Even Alex was starting to sweat a bit. They weren’t playing with a small amount of credits anymore. If they ended up winning the bid on their own item, Bleak Night would end up taking thousands of credits in commission that would just be wasted and they’d end up back with their own item.
But Claire looked confident. There was no concern in her features. And that was enough for Alex. She knew what she was doing. And he trusted her. If Claire thought this was the play, then it was the play.
“I don’t think so,” the man from Room 3 said with a cold laugh. “You think you can screw with us and get away with it? I’ve been waiting until you saw sothing you wanted. Rember this the next ti you try to blackmail us. 15,000 Credits.”
“Holy shit. No way.” Mite let out a bark of laughter, caught between hysteria and tearing his hair out in stress. He rocked back and forth in his chair. “Please stop. We’ve won already. We’ve won, right?”
Claire locked eyes with him.
Then she reached for the paddle.
“No,” Mite whispered. “Don’t you dare. Do you know how much money 15,000 Credits is? We’re rich! We’re so rich!”
Claire picked up the paddle.
Then she smirked and put it back down.
“Just kidding. I’m not stupid.”
Aaron burst into laughter as Mite lted into his chair. Wess just gave Claire an approving nod.
“That’s what we call a robbery. Good shit. Pretty sure that was probably illegal. Well, used to be. They didn’t say shit about bidding on our own stuff. I’m going to keep that trick in mind.”
“Thanks,” Claire said wryly. “We’ve already co all this way. There was no point not trying to go as big as possible. As useful as a few thousand Credits is… we’re not here for Credits. We’re here to get our hands on so powerful items. And we need a lot of money to pull that off. The risk was worth it. Squeezing an extra 5,000 Credits over base price isn’t half—”
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“16,000!” The woman from Room 6 called out. “We’ll be taking this, Room 3. If you want to discuss terms, we will be willing to talk in private. The item will do you little good without the other keys. We request you step down.”
There was a mont of silence.
Then the man from Room 3 let out what was clearly ant to be a cruel-sounding laugh. And, in his defense, it was a good one. The laugh simply lost all of its effectiveness when its owner’s dastardly sche had done nothing but make Alex an absolute shitload of money.
“Feel free,” he said. “So long as it doesn’t go to Room 3.”
Alex glanced at Claire.
She shook her head. “No. I’m done. Pushing this any farther really would be asking to get screwed over. And we don’t need to make Room 6 any madder. I think we know who they are already. There’s only one group that would be willing to spend so much money on an item that has no real use on its own.”
“You think that’s Crimson?” Wess asked.
“Almost certainly,” Claire said. “Unless there are multiple sets of keys. But Hazel wouldn’t have been so desperate to get it if there had. And nobody else in the hall put up that much of a fight for it. Them being crimson makes the most sense to .”
“Damn,” Alex said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “16,000 Credits for an item that they kind of already had. That’s rough.”
“Rough? No.” Wess gave him a huge grin. “That, my friend, is what we call a triple robbery. Don’t forget we got the pass to get here in the first place because of as well. There’s nothing funnier than stealing sothing from soone and then selling it back to them.”
“I think you might have so problems,” Aaron said.
“Undoubtedly,” Wess agreed. “You think anyone else is going to bid? It’s been a bit.”
They all looked back to the auction. But the room had fallen silent. Sofia had clearly dragged the ti out just about as long as she could. Nobody else was going to enter the ring. 16,000 Credits for an item that most of them couldn’t even use was completely ludicrous.
“Sold!” Sofia called just a few monts later. “Congratulations to Room 6!”
Even though their bid was no longer in the ring, Alex still let out a relieved breath.
“Goddamn,” he said. “That was almost as good as a real fight.”
“Really?” Aaron asked.
“No,” Alex said. “But it was still stressful. I was making an analogy.”
“Oh. Carry on,” Aaron said. “Sorry.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Bit late for that. Thank you for the sentint, though. I — shit, Claire. I knew you had a handle on things. But still… 16,000 Credits. That’s literally more than double what it was expected to sell for. What does that put our total at now?”
“Still going off the assumption that our money is based off the price the bids start at… we’re up 11,000 Credits from where we should have been. So we should have 24,000 Credits at this point,” Claire said. “But it might be easier if we just ask Edward. I’d imagine he has a better answer for us.”
“Oh,” Alex said. “That’s a good point. No point guessing. I don’t think we want to accidentally bid over what we’ve got. That wouldn’t go well. Edward!”
“You sound just like a nobleman,” Wess said with a snicker. He raised his pitch and pinched his nose. “Oh, Edward, my faithful servant! Go shoo the poors away, would you?”
“Shut up,” Alex said with a laugh. “It’s not my fault he’s got a butler na. It probably isn’t even his real na. I bet Bleak Night chose it just to make him seem more butler-like.”
A shimr appeared in the wall. The door traced itself into being and opened, admitting Edward into their room.
“What may I do for you, sir?”
Wess snickered.
Alex ignored him.
“I was wondering if you could let us know how many Credits we’ve gotten since so of our items have sold,” Alex said.
“Of course. A simple matter,” Edward said with a small nod. “Your current earnings, after our cut and not counting any expenses you have incurred, have amassed to 34,000 Credits. This is including the reserve price of the final item you have given us. The final amount of credits you earn will vary depending on how your last item performs.”
Alex nearly choked on his own saliva. After counting the money Absolution had given them, of which 2,000 Credits remained, they were still at 20,000 Credits. It was as if they hadn’t bought a single thing in the auction yet… and their Class Shard had yet to sell.
“I see,” Alex managed, sohow keeping his voice from cracking. “Thank you. That will be all.”
Edward bowed his head. Then he slipped back into the hall and closed the door behind him. They al managed to control themselves until the outline had vanished behind him.
“Holy shit!” Mite exclaid. “We still have so much! We really are rich!”
“I’d say that might be an understatent at this point,” Wess muttered. Even he looked slightly taken aback. “Does this an…”
“Yeah,” Claire said. “If they’re estimating our total holdings are 34,000 Credits, then that ans they valued the Class Shard at sothing around 15,000 Credits. And he said that’s including the margins the auction house takes themselves.”
“Goddamn.” Alex ran a hand through his hair. “And they weren’t sure how much it would sell for. It kind of sounded like they lowballed the cost for the Class Shard since they couldn’t predict if anyone would go for it. But if they do…”
“Yeah,” Claire said. She swallowed. “I don’t want to get overly optimistic too early. But given how much the other items we’ve sold went for in comparison to where Bleak Night priced them, there’s a good chance we’re going to be looking at 5,000 to 10,000 more Credits once the sale is complete.”
“God,” Aaron breathed. “We’re rich. We’re seriously fucking rich.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. A grin crawled across his lips. The auction was still going on below, and the prices on the items had continued to rise. “I think we might be.”
I don’t know what might be coming at the end of this auction. But with the amount of Credits we’re about to have at our disposal…
There’s no way we’re leaving here without it.
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