Hello, Everyone!
Last time we met our heroes, they had just found out who’d stolen Mary’s book. It turned out to be Jared Flay, an old ‘adventuring buddy’ of theirs (not much of a ‘buddy’, though). They captured his sister, Nymphadora, and after scaring the shit out of her, they learned that Jared had left the country early the same morning. Probably with the money from the books’ sales.
Now, they must decide what to do with that information.
"He has only one day ahead of us,"Aurum said. "We can catch up if we left first thing in the morning."
They were still in the small yard, a little bit away from Nymphadora but still keeping an eye on her. The woman had calmed down but she was still looking at Aurum with fear in her eyes.
"If we go so soon, we won't be able to talk to Mr. Steel about the books," Mary objected. She turned to Bruno for support. "Or about the money."
"Then we'll sort things out with the bank first," the dwarf said. "We can deal with Jared afterwards.”
He went silent and Mary recognized the motions of a Sending spell. A few seconds later, he frowned.
“What happened?”
“He’s obviously never had a message like this,” Bruno said. “Went crazy and spoke to someone around him, not realizing he’s replying to my message as well.”
“What did he say?”
“Shit! Everyone, get up! We have to keep going!”
“So, he’s got company. Weird.”
“Yes,” Bruno said pensively. “Weird. Anyway, let’s focus on what’s in front of us,” he continued. “We'll need the sister to help us with the bank account and the printing house."
Nymphadora tensed up at her mention. Mary approached her as non-intimidatingly as she could.
"Look," she said, "Jared stole something that is really precious to me and then used it to make money."
"You are talking about the book, aren't you?" Nymphadora said. "He said that if I helped him with it, we'll never be in need of money again. He made me sign up for the bank account. Said it would be better if it wasn’t on his name. He even gave them the ‘Bitch’s address so that it wouldn’t be traced back to us."
"You must understand that what he did wasn't right," Mary said. "After all, it's my book…"
"And our money," Bruno added.
"Yes, that, too."
Nymphadora hung her head. "I knew it was too good to be true," she said. "What do you want me to do?"
“Help us speak with the bank and the printing house tomorrow,” Mary said. “Clear up the situation, tell them the facts…”
The woman nodded solemnly.
"And, of course, we'll need to keep an eye on you this night," Mary added. "Just to make sure you won't try to get away. I hope you understand."
Nymphadora shuddered, as her eyes flashed towards Aurum.
"Only if you are the only one who comes," she said, pointing at Mary.
The trio huddled up.
"Are you going to be all right with this?" Bruno said.
"Of course," Mary said. "Look at her, she's hardly a threat."
Nymphadora's home was just a few blocks away from 'The Salty Bitch'. Aurum and Bruno sent Mary off and went back to the tavern.
Nymphadora unlocked the door and invited Mary in a small living space, only one room and a bathroom. The main area contained two beds with small nightstands, a wardrobe and a dressing table. In contrast to the shady neighbourhood, all the furniture here was brand new
(Mary could guess where the money for it had come from and decided not to tell Bruno about it).
Nymphadora pointed towards one of the beds and, without saying a word, started making her own. Mary bit her lips. The woman looked so unhappy!
"You know," she tried to fill the uncomfortable silence. "I have a brother, too. His name is Leefie and I'd do anything for him."
"Yeah…” Nymphadora said.
"Does Jared treat you well?"
“He does.”
“I'll make sure he doesn’t get harmed,” Mary said. “I promise!”
Nymphadora looked up and gave her a small nod.
"You know, he and Aurum had a pretty funny rivalry when we worked together,” Mary said. “Oh, yeah, we worked together. Did you know that?”
“I didn't know anything specific. He mentioned you three but that was all.”
Again, the room went quiet. Mary thought back to the way they’d captured Nymphadora and felt a lump in her throat.
“He's not a bad person,” she said. “Aurum, I mean. I promise you he is caring and nice, he was just in the heat of the moment and… we didn't know whether you were going to run or trick us in some way.”
Nymphadora didn’t say anything. The lump got bigger.
“What are you going to do after we deal with the bank? Are you going to be alright?”
The woman sighed. “I'll have to get a job again, I guess.”
“I'm sorry. We didn't mean to make your life difficult. We just…”
But Nymphadora didn’t seem to want to listen to her. She lay down, facing the wall, and kept quiet. Silence--heavy, and oppressing, and awful--filled the room. Mary sighed, climbed in the other bed--Jared's bed--and took out her journal and her pen. She was going to try and spend the night writing. She needed to sort her thoughts out.
It all went pretty smoothly the next morning.
Mary met with Bruno and Aurum and they took Nymphadora to the printing house to confirm that Flamingo was her brother and he'd stolen Mary's manuscript to make money from it.
Mr. Steel nodded and rubbed his chin, and at the end of her testimony turned to Mary and repeated his previous question.
"What do you want from us, Miss Windfiddle?"
Mary had had time to think about what she really wanted. It was true that she wasn’t happy with ‘Mary Windfiddle’s Grand Adventure’ not being her book.
(Somewhere deep inside of her mind, a little voice insisted that that’s precisely why people liked it so much.)
But somehow it felt like a betrayal to make Mr. Steel--who’d been so kind to her--throw away so many books.
“Is there a way,” she asked, “to have the books that are already printed go out into the world but then… um, not print more?”
Rickard Steel closed his eyes with a sigh but then opened them and smiled politely.
“Of course, Miss Windfiddle. That’s a good compromise. Thank you.”
“It’s all right. I’m sorry that I’ll cost you money…”
“Speaking of money,” Bruno interrupted. “What are we going to do about the revenue from said books? Jared’s not going to get anymore of what’s ours, right?”
“It’s best that you went and checked with the bank,” Mr. Steel said. “They might be able to fix things up. For me, switching accounts comes with canceling or changing the contract. I’d prefer not to have to deal with that if it can be avoided.”
Their next stop was the bank. There, they found out that the money from the printing house were transferred in an account with a vault-type arrangement. That meant that they could only withdraw if they had the key to the actual vault.
“Let me guess,” Bruno said, “Jared had the key?”
Nymphadora nodded.
“And now it’s travelling to Ekoba with him?”
Nymphadora nodded again. The dwarf rolled his eyes.
However, it wasn’t all lost. Having grown up in a family who had a lot of dealings with money, Bruno was able to arrange some changes to the bank account. Since Jared had made Nymphadora the actual account-holder and she was willing to cooperate, it was fairly easy to do.
When--about an hour later--they were all done, the account was transferred to Mary’s name and all withdrawals were frozen until second notice. Mary didn’t understand the details but for what she could gather, the money from the books would still go in the vault, but even if Jared came with the key, he’d be denied access if she wasn’t with him to confirm the transaction.
It was good to have money-savvy friends.
So, this is the end of the ‘Mary’s Book’ saga. At least the ‘let’s find out who’s behind it’ part. Did you like the mystery? Did you guess before we did that the fraud was Jared?
Hope to see you next time, when our journey will take a sharp turn.
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide and the Glossary for the series. You're welcome!)