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My attention drops briefly to the water collecting around her shoes. “You’re dripping onto a rug that predates the Roman Empire.”

“I don’t care about your rug. I care about my town.” She starts toward me again, still clutching the folder against her chest. “Call them off, or I’m going to make this a massive legal problem for you.”

Behind her, Brighid raises her tablet and reaches for the security control. I lift one hand before she can touch it, and she stops.

“Sir, protocol says I have to call security.” Brighid looks from the woman to me. “She bypassed the entire lobby detail.”

“Cancel the security detail,” I tell her. “I’ll handle this.”

Brighid hesitates, clearly unhappy with the decision. She lowers the tablet, retreats into the hallway, and closes the doors behind her.

The woman watches her leave, then turns straight back to me. Most people become noticeably more careful once security leaves them alone in my office, but she only looks more determined.

I cross the rug until a few feet separate us. She has to tip her head back to meet my eyes, but she doesn’t give up any ground.

“You walked past my security detail to threaten me with litigation,” I say. “I assume you have a name.”

Her fingers crease the damp edge of the folder. “Valerie Priest. I’m a librarian in Saltweather, and you’re stealing my town.”

A librarian explains the folder, if not the invasion. More interestingly, she hasn’t asked for my money, my influence, or anything for herself.

My mother wants me to arrive at Rakan’s wedding with a woman at my side. I look at Valerie Priest, and for the first time all afternoon, one of Solveig’s demands starts to look useful.

3

Factually Correct

Valerie

Sigurd Eiriksson is massive. I saw his photograph before coming here, but it did nothing to prepare me for the sheer scale of him in person.

I’ve spent my life around monsters on the docks, so size alone shouldn’t impress me this much. Sigurd still manages it.

His skin is a bruised gray-blue, and faint bioluminescent markings pulse along the hard line of his jaw. Thick tentacles move freely through the tailored openings at the back of his suit jacket, curling and settling with a slow restlessness of their own.

And what I wasn’t prepared for was the cold. It reaches me through my wet jeans and cardigan, raising gooseflesh along my arms.

None of that changes why I’m here. Sigurd controls global shipping lanes and possesses more money than I can comfortably imagine, but his company is still trying to take my home.

I tighten my arms around the damp folder. Inside are the property records, Eiriksson notices, and photographs I packed before leaving Saltweather. They can’t do much against a shipping empire, but they’re the only weapon I have.

Sigurd watches me from across the office while the silence stretches between us. Floor-to-ceiling windows hide behind blackout blinds, leaving most of the room in shadow.

His reinforced steel desk is easier to make out, especially the sprawling dent warped into its surface beside the control panel. He reaches across the desk and presses a button.

A mechanical hum passes through the floor as the blinds retract into the ceiling. Flat gray afternoon light floods the office, and I squint until my eyes adjust.

“My eyes prefer the shadows,” he tells me. “I assume yours require the light. Please, sit.”

He gestures toward one of the guest chairs facing the desk. It’s an oversized monstrosity of tufted leather and brass tacks, clearly built for visitors much larger than I am.

If I sit in it, my feet will dangle above the floor. I’ll also have to crane my neck every time I look at him, and I have no intention of conducting this conversation from the bottom of an armchair.

“I prefer to stand.” I shift the folder more securely against my chest. “It makes it easier to leave once you realize I’m not taking a buyout.”

Sigurd lowers his hand without any visible reaction. Somehow, his calm irritates me more than anger probably would.

He steps out from behind the dented desk and closes some of the distance between us. The scent of brine and something faintly metallic follows him, while one tentacle twitches behind his shoulder before settling again.