Rhys hurried back from the Guild, not wanting to linger around after refusing Captain Forsythe. He still didn’t understand what the Alliance military would want with him. Surely there were better ships to use as pirate bait.

There were dozens of ships docked at Arn Allinor right now, and as far as Rhys was aware, the only remarkable thing about the Endeavour was Zaxx. He was fairly confident that Forsythe didn’t know about Zaxx, though. After all, if Rhys had been found out, the inquisition wouldn’t stand by idly and let him carry on about his day.

There wasn't a shadow of a doubt in Rhys's mind that if they knew about him, he’d already be dead.

With that oddly comforting thought in mind, Rhys worked through the dwindling mass of people moving to and from the docks, eventually coming to the Endeavour.

Letting himself inside, Rhys sighed in relief at the comforting sensation of being back on the ship. He might just stay here for the rest of their time on the spire at this rate.

Checking in on things, Rhys found Oliver in the galley with Tom, while Lucy had headed off into the spire with Lucien. Oliver was all but brimming with excitement but visibly forced himself to wait until Rhys was sat down before leaning forward with a grin and a glimmer in his eye.

‘I take it that the day went well for you then?’ Rhys asked with a crooked smile, not quite feeling up to a full grin after the alarming incident with the soldiers.

‘Oh no, it went well for all of us!’ Oliver said with a satisfied smirk as he pulled out a heavy pouch of coins and threw them onto the table.

The thud of the bag was impressively deep, and Rhys’s brows shot up as he realised just how much must be in there. He’d paid around fifteen sovereigns for the iron ingots and quartz, with an expected profit of two or three sovereigns. The salt they were bringing was around ten sovereigns worth from Oliver’s original guess, so that was a total of around thirty sovereigns if they got a good deal.

Picking up the pouch and pouring out the mass of coins within, Rhys looked at Oliver with a raised brow. The pile in front of him was surely more than thirty sovereigns; there were too many actual sovereigns in the pile for anything less.

‘So, it turns out that the inquisition bought up a whole load of food when they arrived, and so did a few military ships that arrived due to the piracy in the area. All the ships leaving to get away from the inquisition bought up their share as well, leaving us with a temporary hike in food pricing. Fortunately, for us anyway, this included sundries like salt. A few high-end restaurants paid through the nose for a full bag of the stuff, double what they would normally. On top of that, I got half again as much as I would normally on the raw materials. We were just in time for a new wave of construction. Honestly, we couldn’t have timed all this better,’ Oliver rattled off, kicking back in his chair with a satisfied sigh and a smug smile.

‘Forty-two sovereigns,’ Rhys said in little more than a whisper. He almost couldn’t believe his eyes; this was far more than he’d expected. To the artificer assistant that Rhys had once been, this was years of savings sitting on the table.

‘Yep, what a day,’ Oliver said, laughing as Rhys gave in to temptation and started counting it all.

‘Damn,’ Rhys said, shaking his head as he realised that he had almost as much as when he first stepped into the salvage yard on Arn Creth. Inspired by thoughts of how far he'd come, Rhys picked out three sovereigns, passing one each to Oliver and Tom. Rhys’s capital investment might have made all this possible, but they’d all worked damn hard as far as he was concerned. This was a huge profit for them. It was only right that the rest of the crew earned some from it as well.

‘Thank you, Captain,’ Oliver said, taking the coin with a wide smile and tucking it away.

‘No, thank you, Oliver. You did well with this, really well,’ Rhys said, shaking his head as Oliver all but preened under the praise.

Gathering up the coins and pouring them back into the pouch, Rhys headed back to his cabin to lock it away securely. He’d keep that third coin on him for now and give it to Lucy later when he let her know about the windfall they’d just received.

Locking the door behind him, Rhys headed back to the galley to see how long it would be until their dinner was ready. All the shocks and surprises today had really worked up his appetite.

-**-

After a really quite delicious meal of roasted vegetables and seared steak, Rhys retired to his cabin to work on his newest purchases.

‘Zaxx, I think I may have found something you’d be interested in,’ Rhys said once his door was closed. Grabbing the artificed items and bringing them over to his table, he laid them out as he organised his tools.

‘I examined both items when you brought them onto the Endeavour. They are both quite interesting and have some further implications. Would you like me to remove the security around their runes?’ Zaxx said, stressing the word “implications” just a little bit more than normal.

‘Yes, please,’ Rhys said, wondering what Zaxx was trying to tell him, but without actually outright telling him.

‘The materials have been broken down and absorbed. You are now free to open the items,’ Zaxx said a few heartbeats later.

Rhys had been in the process of standing back up to give Zaxx the clearance he needed to work, but apparently, that wasn’t needed anymore. That fact in itself was something worth thinking more about, as it had some long-term implications for their pact.

Wait. Their pact. Zaxx was always talking about the possibilities of what could be done to the Endeavour and how it was a reflection of his own knowledge and desires. That must have been what he was referring to.

Rhys started to think about what changes could be made to the Endeavour using the runes from his purchases and felt a slight tingling sensation at the back of his mind.

‘Excellent, I just felt our pact update itself via our bond. When you next review the upgrades for the Endeavour, there will be further options available,’ Zaxx said, a hint of smugness making it through the whispered tone of the eldritch entity.

‘You knew that would happen, didn’t you,’ Rhys said, accusing the ceiling with narrowed eyes as he settled back down into his chair.

‘I did consider that perhaps you hadn’t considered the items in terms of their implications to our pact,’ Zaxx said, the smugness coming through loud and clear now.

‘Well, thanks, I suppose,’ Rhys said, not quite sure why Zaxx hadn’t just come out and told him what he wanted him to do. Still, Rhys appreciated the effort on Zaxx’s part.

Focusing back on the items in front of him, Rhys began the careful process of extricating them from their housing. The security aspects of the modular setup had been dealt with already, but Rhys still had to be careful not to damage anything. This was doubly true with the farseer, where the modular section was built into the design as a long and thin embellishment. A novice looking to take this apart might accidentally destroy the most valuable part, but Rhys was no novice.

Cloud quartz tipped tools gently prised and lifted, working the module up bit by bit until it was free and Rhys could take it apart more easily. There was a treasure trove of runic information here. He just needed to take his time and make sure he didn’t damage any of it.

Part of him knew he could simply ask Zaxx to remove the offending pieces of material, giving Rhys access to the runes directly, but that felt like cheating. It was somehow just so much more satisfying to prise it open himself and steal its secrets that way.

Time passed as Rhys first revealed the runes and then did his best to replicate them on some ironwood he had to hand. He was using a lot of pieces for practice at the moment, and Lucy was using almost as many. He’d have to go into the city tomorrow to restock before they left. Rhys could foresee at least a few longer trips in their future, so he wanted to have enough practical materials on hand to cope with that.

A gentle knocking on his door made Rhys start and ruin the latest attempt at a Vision rune. Odd, normally Zaxx would tell him when he was needed somewhere on the ship or if there was someone coming to his cabin.

Dropping the ruined practice piece onto the table, Rhys stood up and stretched before heading over to the door. He must have been hunched over that table for longer than he thought from how stiff his back was.

Rhys was surprised to see a smiling Lucy on the other side of the door as he pulled it open. Momentarily lost for words, Rhys simply blinked at her before realising that she was waiting for him to say something.

‘Hi, Lucy, you, err, look lovely this evening?’ Rhys said, cringing inside as he somehow made the compliment a question.

‘Why, thank you, I thought I best make an effort for Uncle Luce, after all!’ Lucy said with a laugh as she smoothed her shirt absently. As far as Rhys could tell, she was wearing the same outfit as when they went to dinner with Captain Aeolus on the Daedalus. It looked just as good on her now as it had done then.

‘So, what can I do for you?’ Rhys asked, dragging his mind out of the gutter and to the matter at hand.

‘Well, I just got back, and Tom sent me your way. He said you had something to give me?’ Lucy said, cocking her head to one side with interest.

‘Oh, yes!’ Rhys said, fumbling through his pockets hurriedly before finding where he’d put her sovereign for safekeeping. ‘Here, this is for you. Oliver did particularly well selling the salt and cargo we had, so I thought a bonus was in order.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Lucy said, taking the sovereign hesitantly and frowning a little before shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, let me try that again. This is brilliant, thank you.’

‘Not a problem, I’m happy that we had such a profitable journey,’ Rhys said, a little confused by her reaction. She’d seemed almost disappointed for a moment there.

‘Yes, and thankfully not quite as interesting as the trip down to Arn Dukatt,’ Lucy said with a slight smile as she tucked the coin away.

‘I know what you mean. I’ll never forget the Kurador,’ Rhys said with a shiver as he envisioned the creature.

‘There’s a lot of terrible things out there, Rhys,’ Lucy said, a distant look coming over her for a moment before she glanced back at him. ‘That’s why you should go for the things you want. Who knows what might happen tomorrow.’ Lucy moved a little closer, and Rhys tensed as he realised that if she moved a little to her right, she might catch sight of the disassembled devices on the table.

Lucy was no idiot. The moment she saw what he was working on, she'd know that he had been able to remove the modular components somehow. Rhys had no idea how he'd even start to deal with that happening.

‘Maybe out in the Expanse, but the Alliance is safe. We don’t have creatures like those kurador here. You said yourself that it probably chased those huge striss rays in from somewhere else,’ Rhys said, doing his best to reassure her as he moved back a little to block her line of sight to the work table.

‘Right, okay,’ Lucy said, blinking a little before shaking her head and sighing. ‘You know what, I think I’ve been awake too long. I’m going to head back to my cabin to get some sleep. Good night, Rhys.’

‘Good night, Lucy,’ Rhys said with a smile as Lucy turned and headed back down the corridor to her room. That had been an odd conversation. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like she’d seen his work table. He'd have to be far more careful next time.

Sometimes he felt like he was walking a fine line with Lucy, especially when he found himself getting used to some of the perks of having Zaxx. He’d been getting far too lax about the tea situation, for instance.

Thankfully, Tom seemed to just accept that Rhys always had a hot tea ready first thing in the morning. Rhys had no idea how the others might react, however. He needed to be careful.