Three Lutes wakes to coin on wood and the smell of last night's stories. The signboard sits straight on the second try. Tamsin holds the ladder. Milo holds his breath. Lyria pins a clean fee sheet to the wall and checks the corners with a thumbnail. Colin wipes the chalk line until it looks freshly said.
They claim a corner table that has seen worse and held anyway. The ledger sits between them, neat as a sermon. Tamsin pours water. Colin rolls a sore shoulder and decides it feels like victory.
"Alright," Lyria says, tapping the page. "Totals. Hammer, seven silver fifteen copper. House takes twelve percent. Eighty six copper. Petty and bits, eleven. Net to House, seventy five."
"The floor paid for itself," Tamsin says, pleased. "Bar took a silver and a bit above a good market day. One stool died, but I won't take it out of the cut."
Colin grins. "Perfect."
Milo loiters, then realises loitering is not a job. "Do I, um, get a story fee?" he asks. "For the bottle. I did a lot of pointing."
"We'll do proper wages once we're licensed," Lyria says, practical and kind in the same breath. "For now, runner's pay. Two copper and stew without argument."
Milo salutes like a man promoted to admiral. "I will run so much the floor complains."
"We've got a floor that can take it," Tamsin says. She leans back and looks at the room like she forgot she was allowed to enjoy it. "You did what you promised, Colin. Crowds, coin, no brawl that broke a wall."
"I promised noise," he says. "You provided the house. It's give and take."
Lyria turns the ledger and pauses. "Where'd you learn that?" she asks. "Paddles, faces, the order coins crossed. I've not seen someone count without paper and stay right. Especially here. Education is for the nobles."
"Faraway town," he says. He tries a shrug. It fits. "Earth."
"Past Saltmarsh or before it," Tamsin asks, straight-faced.
"Depends on the map," he says, and the smile gets away from him. Steam from the kettle lifts; for a heartbeat, specks sharpen in the light for him and then settle back to just steam.
Lyria watches that little blink. She doesn't press. "Right," she says softly. "Intake hours. If we let people wander in whenever, we'll never sweep."
"Rule of twenty," Colin says. "When the intake chest won't shut, we open the doors for a show."
"And if it fills in a day," Tamsin asks, eyebrow up.
"Then we're either very clever or very doomed," Lyria says, already writing Rule of Twenty on a stout card. "Intake at dusk, posted on the door. Auction when the chest is full. Predictable enough to plan, flexible enough to breathe."
"Permission for a greedy question," Colin says.
"Ask," Tamsin says.
"Can we do another one?" he says. "Not today. Not tomorrow. When the chest insists."
"You can," Tamsin says. "Under three conditions. You sleep, you eat, and you do not name the bell."
Colin looks at the bell that has behaved like a citizen. "Ugly bell," he says.
It dings, smug.
Milo beams. "We're going to be a proper thing."
"We are a thing that pays its bills," Lyria says, which is the kind of compliment she gives freely.
The seamstress pokes her head in with Margaret. The chicken struts like a building inspector, glares at the new signboard, pecks the bottom corner once, and leaves satisfied. People clap. It is unclear whether they clap for Margaret or for the simple fact of a morning carrying on.
"Tea," Colin says. "Leaf, water, patience. I'm going to get used to this."
He counts to three the way he does in a crowd, not aloud, only true. He pours without show. Lyria takes hers without sugar. Tamsin drinks like a person who trusts the mug.
"Three days to registration," Lyria says. "Rope, ledger, fire bucket. They'll also test the cellar shelves. We should get ready by then, no auctions until we are registered."
"Then we'll have shelves that pass," Tamsin says. "Milo, no dungeoning. You got a job to do, and you will do it until I see fit."
Milo salutes preparedness.
"Right," Colin says. "For now, we should be happy with what we got, after yesterday, word should have gone around. So long we make another announcement, we should be fine."
"Enough talk. Breakfast first," Tamsin says.
He puts a hand to his heart. "As you command."
—
Sir Bramble's study likes the afternoon. Sun makes a neat square on the rug. Everything looks chosen on purpose. Bramble sits where the light can find his moustache. Sedgewick stands a half-step back, hands behind, the correct amount of disapproval showing.
"Now that," Bramble says, "was an event. A public one. Didn't insult me once."
"A tavern," Sedgewick says, calm as weather. "With chairs. Shouting and a chalk line as a wall of guards."
"A chalk line," Bramble repeats, delighted. "And rules that sounded like advice. Imagine that."
"I do," Sedgewick says. "Often. I write them."
Bramble waves and nearly knocks a glass. Sedgewick steadies it before gravity gets ideas. "The auctioneer," Bramble continues. "Colin. Have you found any information on him?."
"Not yet, my lord. Other than, he is a thief that likes receipts. Which is exactly why he's dangerous," Sedgewick says, not unkind. "Honesty that enjoys itself can separate people from their money and have them thank you for it."
"People left with stories," Bramble says. "The boy with the boots. The cobbler looked at him like a man looks at work he knows how to do. The room clapped in the right places. It was a show better than those lousy plays in the theatre. "
Sedgewick inclines his head. "And you purchased a bottle with a slug inside it."
"For art," Bramble says, noble as brass. "It will sit where Lord Ralvey can see it and wonder if I'm braver than he is."
"You're not putting it near soup," Sedgewick says.
"Of course not." Bramble looks personally offended. "Etiquette will sit on the sideboard. We'll enjoy it at a distance."
"The object is called Etiquette now," Sedgewick sighing, filing the fact somewhere permanent. "Noted."
A footman coughs the polite cough that means there is a door and a decision behind it. Sedgewick opens it with the kind of precision that keeps doors from learning bad habits. Lady Vesna Harrow steps in with travel on her boots and impatience tucked into her gloves. She looks like rooms explain themselves when she arrives.
"Sir Bramble," she says. No curtsy. That was never her hobby. "You were at Three Lutes."
"I was and I wasn't," Bramble says, pleased to be current. "House of Honest Noise is the correct name of the establishment. The Three Lutes is the tavern."
Vesna glances at the signboard leaning against a chair. The sound she makes might be approval and might be dust in the throat. "Our runners bring worse news. Ebon Spire. Floor Six. Side collapse in the mosaic galleries. Not clean. Casualties."
Sedgewick's jaw tightens a fraction. Bramble's smile folds away. He sits up.
"Healers are working the gate," Vesna goes on, businesslike but not cold. "Northern access sealed. Western is a mess. Two small guilds set tables to pay for salvage. Brokers already prowling. I saw three bracers, an amulet, and a lens that does not like being looked at. Sold fast. Private hands first."
"Bodies and trinkets together," Sedgewick says, quiet.
Vesna nods once. "There'll be more of both by dusk."
Bramble's first thought arrives wearing the wrong hat. "We should buy something appalling," he says, then hears himself and winces. "No. We should behave."
"Behave? When have I seen you do that?," Vesna asks, plain.
"Practically every day." Bramble says. "I won't run a table at the gate. I am not built for wind. But I can sit in a room that claps and buy with a paddle. It felt like trade that didn't apologise for itself."
Vesna's eyebrows lift a touch. "You plan to make a point by having a good time."
"Yes," Bramble says, honest and pleased. "Sedgewick will prevent me from being a complete idiot. He's excellent at it."
Sedgewick allows the compliment to pass without injury. "If you insist on participating, you will set a limit, and you will not announce it from the carriage roof."
"Fine," Bramble says, as if restraint were his idea. "We'll also send a basket to the wards. Food. Coin. Blankets."
"Already started," Sedgewick says.
Vesna looks back to the signboard. "The auctioneer. Juggler or clerk who found a better hat."
"He counts like a priest and sells like a poet," Bramble says, happily unfair. "He showed a cracked goblet, and it sold anyway."
"Useful," Vesna says, which is her version of praise. "The Guild tried to shut him yesterday."
"They did," Bramble says. "He made them behave by making the room behave. Registrar drank his tea and did not look disappointed. Marvelous. More grit and steel than the greatest knights in the Keepers."
"Maris Vale," Sedgewick says, filing another card in his head. "If she's in the room, rope, and ledger matter more than voices."
"Good," Vesna says. "I prefer rope and ledger." She straightens a glove and lets the edges soften. "We've lost people. We'll lose more. If the city is to keep breathing, we should not let private parlours write all the numbers."
Bramble nods, solemn settling on him like a coat that fits. "Then we'll buy where the heckling is kind. We'll make a story people can point at without spitting."
Sedgewick clears his throat. "Lady Harrow, any word of a rival house across Merchant's Mile."
"Talk," Vesna says. "A cousin to a guild man. Money that thinks rules are decorations. They'll move fast while the Spire spills. I'm assuming they already have wares to be sold within a week's time. Undercoin will make an appearance, whilst your flamboyant clown takes the stage in Adventurer's Row. "
Bramble brightens like a man who enjoys a rival he can out-spectacle. "Perfect," he says, then reins it in. "Competition improves hats."
"It improves prices," Vesna says, deadpan. "If public rooms exist to hold them."
"Then we keep one open," Sedgewick says, and that is a door locking against weather.
Bramble claps once and decides it was dignified. "Sedgewick, send a note to Three Lutes. Congratulations. A seat near the rope for my knees. Ask when the next one will happen. No flourishes. Oh! And mention I might have something to 'offer up'."
"Of course, my lord." Sedgewick says.
"I'll send my own note," Vesna adds. "No promises. A question. If he can keep a room kind on a bad week, he's worth testing."
"Be kind. You aren't communicating with me after all." Bramble says, as if that were a rule you can put in ink.
"I shall see," Vesna says, which is not a refusal.
Sedgewick has the message ready before Bramble finishes choosing a seal. Wax takes the crest clean. A runner takes the letter with a straight back and a good turn of speed.
Bramble lifts the cloth on Etiquette, checks the glisten, drops the cloth again. "Civic theatre," he says, mostly to himself. "We'll clap where it helps. I can't wait to see those stubborn fools be mesmerised by nothing more than smoke and ashes."
Sedgewick allows the smallest smile. Vesna doesn't smile, but her eyes soften a fraction.
Outside, the city adjusts around the Spire the way it always does, with stretch and ache and coin finding pockets. Inside, a note with Bramble's crest cuts across Adventurer's Row toward a tavern.