Meeting with Ethan and Abram had taken longer than Frey had expected. Perhaps vampires didn't have the same perception of time as mortal humans. Nevertheless, Abram's title as captain had turned out to be helpful despite Damien's claims, and Frey could hurry to the meeting he wasn't invited to without much concern.

He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of thinking he'd been running there though, so he stopped one corridor away to catch his breath. The sudden lack of air was not the main source of his hands trembling but it certainly did not help, and the discreet inhalations were not just to keep his heart from pounding through his chest. He had to overcome it. He couldn't let them trample over him again.

So he flung the door open before the butler could lock it, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

But he had to remain calm.

"Lord Clausson?" Carrigan raised an eyebrow where he sat at the far end of the table. "I was not aware you would be a part of this."

"I'm here to put an end to this." Frey dropped the bag he was holding onto a chair, drawing a quiet breath before eyeing the others. "I'm getting West Kerilia back on its feet, and you're all going to help me."

The amused glances shared between the lords, aside from Damien who rather looked tired in advance, were expected, so Frey paid them no mind. What bothered him most was the fact that his heart stabbed at him as soon as Carrigan opened his mouth.

"As I've told you before, we're letting West Kerilia rebuild without any worries about—"

"Yes yes, you've told me and I've had to pretend to roll over." Frey waved his hand to dismiss his words. "But let's say we would drop the transparent lies and address the real purpose of your overseas purchases, because it would save us a lot of time."

"You must realise your claim about assisting you with... Whatever you're planning..." Lord Felek gestured vaguely. "... It will with all likelihood be counterproductive to what we're already doing."

"Well, I think I can change your minds." Frey flipped the cover of his bag open. "See, I've realised it's high time I start doing my job properly again so without further ado, since you spoke last, Lord Felek..."

He sorted through the papers, intentionally letting the others wait in satisfactory silence.

"Now, as I understand it, your wife is actually the larger source of your household's income." Frey landed on the correct bundle of documents. "She's from a nice family and the dowry was generous, not to mention her regular earnings."

"And what about it?"

"It's just that I heard a peculiar thing the other day, about a maid who quit her job here after getting pregnant." Frey didn't even bother to look at Felek's reaction. "It seemed strange to me that someone of her class would leave a well paid, not to mention prestigious, job here and then not even look for a new one, so I paid her a visit."

"So you're here to gossip about servants?" Carrigan laughed softly. "Why does that not surprise me?"

"Interestingly enough, she could not tell me who the father of her unborn child is, but with some convincing she did show me the bank note that had allowed her to stop working." Frey laid out his papers. "See, the problem is whoever signed this note does not exist. This extract from our population register would have shown it, so I had to do some investigation..."

He added a smile.

"... Just to make sure she wasn't committing any fraud or anything, of course. Nothing else." He moved on. "So I did what any logical person would do and began comparing handwriting based on the fact that she used to work here."

"Lord Clausson, this is absurd." Felek sounded all but confident as Frey placed the bank note next to another letter.

"And wouldn't you know it, I found a match." Frey finally locked eyes with Felek before retracting the papers. "Now, I'm not making accusations or anything because that would be unbecoming of me, but it would be interesting to ask your wife about this coincidence, don't you think?"

Felek opened and closed his mouth in a lack of words, so Frey took the liberty to spell it out instead.

"It would truly be a shame if she found out, because what would she do? And what would her high ranking family say? Would they want their daughter married to someone who might have done something indecent, or would they cut that person out of their lives completely?" Frey blinked innocently. "And wouldn't it be troublesome then, if the bank found out? Finding out that one of their clients is about to lose such a massive part of his income? I imagine they'd want their money back in full immediately before it's lost."

"You can't expect us to go along with this," Lord Berengar came to Felek's defence. "Lord Felek is a high standing person in his own right, and if it's your word against ours—"

"And regarding you, Lord Berengar, I'm mostly worried." Frey brought another bundle of papers out, putting on an appropriate frown. "It's not that I was trying to pry, but I happened to overhear Dr. Penhale has been paying you multiple visits so naturally I was concerned about your well-being... Especially since it seemed to involve so many heavy substances."

"That's not any of your business, is it?" Berengar wouldn't budge. "My health is for me to deal with."

"Yes, it was just out of compassion," Frey insisted, but skimmed through another paper. "But we don't ship those substances as far as I can tell, and so I had to turn to... sketchier places to obtain such things, and I must say the prices of those things made my jaw drop. It made me wonder where you would find the money for such an expensive treatment—"

"Lord Clausson—"

"And since the bank wouldn't loan you more than it already has, I gently and not at all under threats of shutting the illegal business down, persuaded the providers of those substances to tell me about the source of your payments... And the other debts."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I wonder how the bank would feel about that, seeing how they barely loaned you money to begin with."

Lord Berengar sucked in a breath.

"You son of a bi—"

"Let's not bring her into this just yet." Frey moved on. "Now, in light of this, I believe there's a strain on your ability to pay back the loan you've all taken, even if there are ways for the others to pull some extra weight."

The others remained silent, so Frey's eyebrows remained arched.

"No? Well then..." He carried on with a sigh, flipping through papers again. "... Lord Hamerling, I have to say I'm disappointed in your effort to hide the meat fraud. You must know I've been keeping an eye on it after the scandal with Mr. Brooks in West Kerilia a few years back."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hamerling said through gritted teeth, and Frey shook his head in increasing disappointment.

"It's not that difficult to compare the amount of pigs and cows slaughtered with the amount of beef sold, because at least half of those pigs must have been cows to make it add up, but as I've understood from the records I've seen, they were indeed pigs."

He turned to Lord Growder.

"Which brings us to you, and unfortunately for you, this one would have come to light whether you would have played nice with me or not." His cold eyes pierced through Growder's attempted composure. "And if you— if any of you— try to manipulate young Lord Hargreaves again, I will see to it that you pay even more than you are today."

"Manipulate?" Growder scoffed. "I was just speaking to him about—"

"Vampires, yes." Frey nodded. "And The Entrails, but why would a lord such as yourself be interested in The Entrails of all places? I thought it was an implied rule of our society that we don't set foot there."

Yet another paper was dropped onto the table.

"Except it reminded me that I never did find out where your matchstick production was taking place, and in my search I found out it was shut down abruptly just a month back."

"What does that have to do with—"

"Vampires?" Frey filled in. "The Entrails? I wondered as well, so I went to Lady Richter."

Carrigan narrowed his eyes at this, but Frey kept going.

"I assume by now you've all to some extent profited off of Lady Richter's scandalous marriage to a person from said Entrails, and how he used to sell his blood. Well, seeing how he likely knew a thing or two about this particular topic, I assured them that if they helped me understand what's been going on, I would make certain they get their land back from you."

Carrigan huffed.

"That's quite an empty promise coming from you and your lacking economy."

"And he had indeed heard some troubling rumours." Frey talked over him. "About people disappearing a couple of months after the matchstick production had begun, so I concluded that you had found a cheap way to produce them by hiring desperate people who would work no matter how poor the conditions would be."

He stared Growder down.

"And they were poor, weren't they? So poor perhaps that people got sick? That they ended up disappearing and their families had no idea why?" It was difficult to hide his disdain by now. "That is... Until they were told vampires had taken them. How convenient for you, I suppose. Lost without a trace, and how easy it is to pin the blame on a group of people already shunned by most of society."

The silence that ensued was somehow even quieter than before, and it actually made Frey uncomfortable.

"And so, I think it's time to make a deal." He chose to smile the tension away, putting on the delightful, precious mask he'd worn for years. "I wouldn't want this town to suffer, but as it stands the bank will probably want their money back if all this should become public knowledge. So my suggestion is that you sell the shipments you've bought, and I hear West Kerilia is quite interested in a boost while rebuilding."

"Even if that was on the table, West Kerilia couldn't afford it." Carrigan had the audacity to still smile. "A purchase of that size is not possible for a town so close to wide-spread poverty."

"And that is why I'll buy it for them." Frey returned the mocking smile, but Carrigan was unphased.

"With what money?"

"With your money," Frey corrected him, only to correct himself again. "Well, with my money, soon enough."

Carrigan's amusement wavered for a brief moment before recovering.

"What kind of nonsense is that?"

"Well, while I was helping my mother sort through documents, I happened upon an interesting contract between you and my father—"

"And those were always written to remain untouched by others," Carrigan interrupted him. "They can't be inherited."

"No, they can't," Frey conceded, but brought out one last paper. "But titles can."

And at last, Carrigan didn't look so smug anymore.

"I'll admit it's embarrassing that it took me so long to realise." Frey grimaced through his delight. "I'll blame it on us commonly using different last names than our family members, but as it stands... I inherited the exact title of my father, and with that, everything that comes with it."

"That can't be right," Carrigan growled, but Frey hushed him.

"Why would I come here with claims I can't back up?" He turned the paper in his hand over. "And I thought we could focus on this contract here, between you and Lord Clausson regarding the marriage to Lady Magnusdóttir and how you'd happily pay the differences in whatever the dowry of another marriage would be worth."

Carrigan's eyes widened, and Frey fought not to laugh in his face.

"So, it should go without saying that I have no interest in marrying my own mother, which makes this contract very relevant, don't you think?"

And so it dawned on Carrigan - the one person in the room who knew what was about to happen, at least for a couple more seconds.

"Would you unlock the door?" Frey asked the butler, who looked confused enough to obey without question. "And so, would you mind coming in here, Marius?"

It didn't take long for Marius to enter the room.

"Luna is outside," he whispered to Frey in passing. "She's been listening in on everything."

"How surprising." Frey's voice was dry, but cleared his throat as the other lords looked more aghast than expected by the new appearance.

"Isn't that the stable boy who assaulted Lord Carrigan?" Felek protested, but Frey gestured for him to keep it down.

"He's not a stable boy anymore." He turned to Marius, nodding towards the group. "So why don't you introduce yourself properly?"

"Of course." Marius performed as proper of a bow as he could manage. "Hello, I'm Marius."

He looked up to face the others with a grin.

"I'm Frey's husband."

As if they hadn't been amusingly mortified before, everyone looked as though they were staring at a monster. Even Damien looked conflicted. Perhaps because the fact itself was a joyous thing, but the implications were still bound to cause some unwanted drama.

"And what can you tell us about yourself, Marius?" Frey wanted to know, and though Marius had to roll his eyes, he still smiled.

"And I'm very poor." He made a face soon after, unable to keep from making an addition "According to your standards."

"How interesting," Frey still noted, eyes turning to the contract again. "So what would you say your dowry would be?"

"Well, just to pretend for legal purposes that my family would give us something like that, how about one silver?" Marius suggested, and Frey nodded solemnly.

"And while my mother has indeed resigned her title as nobility— yes I was surprised as well— the dowry she was provided with upon marriage remains as an existing amount." Frey tilted his head at Carrigan with an inquisitive smile. "So out of curiosity, Lord Carrigan, am I still out of money?"

"You—"

"Or would that be describing someone else in this room?"

"You can't have married that lowlife just like that," Carrigan growled. "No priest would go along with such a gap in social class without question, and we would have heard of it."

"We'll be hosting a proper celebration later, of course, and fortunately for us, priests are not the only ones ordained to officiate a wedding." Frey couldn't help but smirk in Damien's direction. "And Captain Vandelay is a very kind soul."

Damien closed his eyes in exasperation, but seemingly had nothing to say.

"And you're not going to oppose any of this, Lord Hargreaves?" Carrigan turned to Damien as if he'd read Frey's mind. "This is your company."

"Oh, Damien doesn't get involved in things." Frey shrugged. "He didn't get involved in the previous West Kerilia incident, he didn't get involved when I was harassed by all of you, and he didn't get involved in you all trying to screw West Kerilia over again, so why would he get involved now?"

It was more a dare directed at Damien than anything, but the fact still seemed to land some crushing punches to the others as well.

"In the end, I have to say I'm worried about all of you." Frey exaggerated a deep look of concern. "It would pain me to leave this company like this with so many weak links. I suppose I was pulling most of the weight here, after all."

"A true pity to lose your talents, for certain," Marius backed him up. "Seems to me like you quite effortlessly could doom a whole group of people if you'd feel like it."

And he could. He'd always had that ability, he just hadn't used it. It was so silly in retrospect. Why entertain those bloodsuckers in exchange for dirt on others when he could just find dirt on them and have them do his bidding instead?" All it had taken was paying slightly more attention to his surroundings and not dismissing information picked up from the lower class.

"But despite your terrible miscalculation when it comes to me, with some convincing, I suppose I could agree to lend you a hand and keep an eye on all of you once again." Frey waved the papers in his hand. "A very close eye, that is."

"You can't be serious about this," Lord Berengar protested. "Are you actually coming in here and blackmailing us? As if that wouldn't backfire when others find out."

"Oh noo, I've never had to cover up traces of blackmail before." Frey shared a look of disbelief with Marius before packing up his things. "Well, I suppose you could use this meeting to discuss what you're going to do, maybe have some tea, but... I don't think there's much to discuss."

He proceeded to bring out a brown paper bag and dropped it onto the table.

"Anyway, we made tea cakes if anyone's hungry."