That same day (Tuesday, April 26, 2022) Ixus Capital, Midtown, Manhattan, New York, United States

Charlie eyed Xu. He was sitting behind his desk, fingers steepled.

“What does this look like to you?”

He pointed to the large monitor on the side of the room.

“Those look like our buys, but a little bit different.

“That’s right…”

“So… Is this an alternate model you are proposing?”

“If it were, what would you think?”

Charlie was in a privileged position at Ixus, being the only one that knew about Tommy Xu’s true form and about magic, she was often closeted with him developing ways to prophet on the return of the Thousand Kingdoms.

Xu had drawn a map of the world as it was thirty thousand years ago, his hand deft and the drawing quite detailed until you realized he had been able to see it from the air.

So certain pieces of real estate suddenly was massively undervalued, potential trade routes or passes especially. Often secured with options rather than outright purchases. It was hard to know which kingdoms would emerge whole and valuable.

Commodities saw strange deals around the world, lots of hoarding of grains and coffee.

There was always war, and when there wasn’t one, the US was sure to manufacture one, so defense stocks were always strong. But they saw a spike that went unnoticed in the violence in Eastern Europe.

And those were the easy ones to spot. The deep game was an entirely different world of minuscule fluctuations that required a keen eye, sophisticated modeling, and lots and lots of luck to spot. And that was the game they were playing.

But someone else had started playing this game. Charlie looked at the numbers and flipped open her laptop to do some more analysis.

Xu was typing away on his own computer and they sat companionably in silence.

Four hours later, Charlie spoke, as if they had just taken a brief pause in the conversation.

“Tommy, I don’t think this model is performing as good.” Xu let her get away with some insouciance, but perhaps his first name was too much, he growled.

Charlie rolled her eyes, “Mr. Xu, I don’t think this investment strategy is as good as ours.”

“Oh really? Tell me where I went wrong.”

“Well look,” and she stepped around the desk to show him on her screen.

“You can see the property plays match our current ones pretty well but often are buys and are less thorough. There is this one here that we didn’t pick up?”

“Ah, that was once a very fertile area for growing exotic fruit. But frankly the fruit you have now is far superior.”

“And look at these market plays. All in on defense but lacking some of the subtlety we baked in and I didn’t see pricing changes on the various hedges we identified, so nobody was buying those.”

“Quite. And so?”

Charlie smiled, “This isn’t your strategy.”

“Exactly. Someone else is hoping to make some gains and knows enough about the Thousand Kingdoms to know the geographies that will be valuable, but not what made them valuable - which is why they outright bought that one extra region.”

“They also are buying because they either don’t believe options will be held as valid, or they aren’t as financially sophisticated.” Charlie continued.

“Very good.”

“Plus defense stocks are the most obvious play. Lack of investment sophistication as well.”

“Full marks Miss Harris.”

“Can I see you transform into a dragon now?”

“No.”

“Fine. Then give me a glass of Lay Mou instead. Oh, and play the enigmatic Chinese financial oracle on the outside, let’s get some bourbon in here.” Charlie pleaded.

Xu poured her a glass.

Jacob Jevitz Federal Building, TriBeCa, Manhattan, New York, United States

Jade walked into the FBI offices for her interview. And got escorted right out the moment she asked about the strange happenings such as the subway. She had even phrased it as a very soft inquiry but the agent had just shut down and suggested she submit her questions via email.

Well she supposed she was now on a watchlist or something.

Columbia University dorms, Morningside Heights, Manhattan, New York, United States

Peelatchachía sat on Isaac’s shoulder glaring. Isaac spent all his time mooning after that girl, studying law, and, well, not doing what Peelatchachía told him to do. Irritating.

Right now he was studying Legal History. As if that was at all interesting. And he already had his other books piled up. Boring.

Being a spirit bird shouldn’t mean he had itchy feathers. What was that about?

He pecked at Isaac’s head again.

“You stupid human, we need to be getting ready. No time for books.”

“Damn it, you overgrown pigeon. I didn’t spend two year here to just throw it out.”

“And for two years, I have told you that you are wasting your time.”

“And yet here we are!” Isaac said annoyed.

“Yes, here we are,” grumped Peelatchachía.

Isaac buried his head back in the book. The raven sat there and then hopped off and flew through the wall and outside.

It was a beautiful spring day. Isaac was wasting his time studying inside. Why couldn’t he come outside and sit on the quad at least? He could study, and Peelatchachía could eye some of those very attractive ravens that hung out on top of Kent Hall. One of them had a lovely little flip trick in the air that was very nice if a bit racy.

Isaac could be studying outside, maybe eyeing all the humans in their spring clothing like he had the previous years. Now he was with Ella, and so he studied all the time when she wasn’t here.

That brought Peelatchachía to a very uncomfortable topic: Ella terrified him. Flat out terrified. Ir would be bad enough with that crown on her head that she wore like nothing was there. Just because blind humans couldn’t see it, didn’t mean he, an ancient and wise spirit, wouldn’t be able to. It glowed and it hurt his eyes. And the well it drew from was deeper than the sky. That stupid Emperor had once invaded Peelatchachía’s realm and slain a bunch of very powerful beings while traipsing around up there. The stench of his magic was all over Ella.

But, to make matters worse, she also was just stuffed to overflowing with magic, magic that Peelatchachía recognized. That stupid bear had given out another tooth. Like the first one hadn’t caused enough trouble. Nanapush would be horrified.

And the stupid girl had apparently eaten it or merged with it or some other stupid thing. Now torrents of magic were spilling out of her everywhere she went. She was pretty far north of here and if he looked, he could see a geyser of magic where she was. Shooting up into the sky like a bright beam of crystalline light.

And she was like that all the time! Could she even do magic? It was just too much turbulence within her to channel much. Add in Emperor Ekerri’s own power messing things up further, and it is lucky she didn’t just explode.

All that magic in the sky would eventually settle back down to ground. The thermosphere was stuffed with it and strange things were happening up there. Better there than here, thought Peelatchachía. When that magic came down, these humans, well, they were in for a surprise. Although, they might ignore it entirely, they had remarkably selective vision when they wanted to.

Now to go see about a certain raven.