My patience snapped.
Twisting my torso his way, I grabbed his chest armor with my hand, myrighthand. My claws pierced through the chain links, scraping his skin underneath.
He choked on a sound of protest. His eyes widened as he stared at my forearm. My white bones glimmered in the semi-darkness of this place, and his face distorted with horror. I’d never seen Zayr like this. He wasn’t just scared. He was shocked, as if the world he thought he knew had just flipped upside down.
And maybe it had? If Zayr had seen me as a sickly wretched man, my grip on his armor most definitely proved him wrong already.
“No, Zayr. LikeI said,” I threw his words back at him. “I’m not taking no for an answer again. You have twenty-four hours to find me a cave. Otherwise, I’ll find one myself, and then you cantryto evict me.”
He drew in a long, shaky breath, regaining some composure with it.
“Is that…all?” he asked tentatively, finding his footing on the path.
I unclenched the bones of my fingers, releasing him. He promptly took a step back, eyeing me from a distance. Regret pinched a nerve in my chest. Zayr had shown me more consideration than most, even when he didn’t have to, even when he had thought me powerless and weak.
“Just one more thing,” I said, softening my voice. “I promised you a business deal.”
“I thought the cave was that?”
“The cave isn’t a deal between you and me, is it? When I get the cave, Ray gets the rent. You get nothing but the headache of managing yet another tenant.”
He weighed my money bag in his hand that I fully intended for him to keep if he helped me, but he said nothing in response.
“No, I have a proposition just for you,” I continued, inspired by Elaine’s endeavors to flavor her food at the beginning of our joint venture, when we didn’t have enough clients fighting each other to pay for her meals three or four times a night, and I had to buy her packs of plain rice.
He shifted his weight to the other foot, glaring at me suspiciously. “What kind of a proposition?”
“Do you know how to get salt from the ocean?”
His jaw dropped. “What?”
“You filter the ocean water, then evaporate it until only the salt remains.”
“Why?” He looked like he was questioning my mental ability now.
“Because Joy Vessels enjoy food far more when it has salt in it,” I explained. “There are about two dozen Joy Vessels in the queen’ssarai. Twenty-five, according to the latest reports I’veheard. They eat at least three meals a day, and they add salt to every one of them, even to the desserts.”
“They do?” He grimaced.
“Trust me, they do. They need a lot of salt to keep them happy.”
“Isn’t the queen providing them with everything to make them happy, including salt?”
“She is. Or her palace servants are. They’ve been buying salt for months now, every bag and canister they can get their hands on. But there isn’t usually that much salt in Alveari, is there? Shadow fae have no use for it. Only hags need it for some of their spells. The kingdom can’t keep up with the increased demand for long. They’re running low on salt already, the price on it has gone up, and it will get worse very soon.”
“Really?” He scratched the back of his head, looking intrigued.
“Really. And here we are, living right next to the treasury of salt which is the ocean.”
A calculating expression flickered in Zayr’s eyes. I knew he’d grasp the opportunity in this situation sooner or later.
“Evaporate it then?” he asked. “By boiling?”
“Boil it or set it out in the sun in trays, whatever works. Collect it into sacks afterwards and take it to Kalmena. Sell it. We’ll split the proceeds half and half.”
“You want fifty percent? While I do all the work?” He caught on quickly.
I didn’t care much about money in this case, though it would give me and Elaine a nice side income that would help us get to our goal faster. But I promised Zayr a deal, and the most satisfying deals were born through negotiations.
