Chapter 9: Dream big, child.

“I need you to get me fox tail spurs,” Diedrik says as he walks into the office and shut the door behind him, in the face of poor Robin who’s trying to stop him.

“Thank you, Robin!” Julius calls. He finishes his sentence and tucks the report away before looking up with a smile. “Hello, Diedrik.”

“A black arctic fox, to be specific,” Diedrik continues, taking a seat.

“Lovely weather we’re having,” Julius muses, propping up his chin on a fist as thunder strikes overhead and rain lashes at the windows hard enough it sounds like waves smashing ashore.

The lightning flares across the room, perfectly highlighting Diedrik’s deadpan expression. “Yes, Julius. Hello. How have you been? Good? Excellent. I also need the spurs on a rush order.”

“Everything is a rush with you,” Julius tsks. “You’re a waste of noble etiquette tutors.”

“I’ve been explicitly taught to be a gentleman towards others of my station,” Diedrik corrects. “You are not, dear Julius.”

Julius gasps exaggeratedly in shock. “What?!”

“Quite frankly, I’m only humouring you this much because you work for me.”

“It’s a partnership.”

Diedrik raises an eyebrow. “Can people truly be equal in this life?”

“I don’t know, small child with no power of his own, entirely reliant on my own good humour to promote his quaint little business…” Julius raises his own eyebrow. “Can they be?”

Diedrik pauses for a moment. He looks down at himself and starts to laugh quietly. “I’ll remember this.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Julius huffs but does pull out a note. “Black arctic fox spur. Does it matter how many tails the fox has? What species of the spur?”

In order to spread the seeds further, some plants have spurs in them specifically designed to hook onto fur to travel on an animal. The plants then further differentiate into those able to withstand or even absorb magic, such as that of a fox. 

Anything over three tails will be an adventure, even for Julius’ collectors. The spur as well, depending on what species of plant the boy wants, might be difficult to get. Julius is in contact with a four tails fox but if possible, he’d like to not go near that thing.

“It just needs to be a magic-leeching spur, black, and with some amount of cold magic,” Diedrik describes as Julius scribbles it down. “I’m assuming it’ll be in the range of twenty gold per tail. If you find a seller that offers over that, I want no business with them.”

The boy has looked up market values. How cute.

“When do you need it by?” Julius asks, setting his pen down and folding the note.

“In two days.” Diedrik pauses. “Within forty-eight hours. If you can’t manage the time, tell me now and I’ll find someone else.”

Julius doesn’t insist that he is the best Diedrik will find because the boy knows that already. “Rushed orders cost more,” Julius points out.

“How much?”

Julius hums. “I’ll waive the fee. Because we’re partners, after all.”

“How generous,” Diedrik mocks.

Julius sees Diedrik out to where a servant is waiting with an umbrella to escort the boy to the gold-lined carriage waiting by the side of the road, even the wheels clean enough that Julius knows it must be magic.

The carriage trundles off and Julius sweeps back inside, his robes messy just from standing in the violent wind coming through the doorway. He pats himself down and wanders up to the empty counter. There’s a client in the second floor private room, just by the red sign hanging on a hook, but otherwise the weather is vicious enough to have people barricaded in their houses.

“Send a runner to the magical nature warehouse,” Julius tells Hein, holding out the note.

“Do you know if we have it in stock?” Hein takes the note and reads it quickly.

“I just assume, it’s not particularly difficult to get,” Julius says but obligingly gestures over her shoulder.

Hein steps away from the counter to the shelves along the backwall, hefting out a large book on magical plants currently available, and coming back to thump it on the desk. She flips it open and they both lean over it to run down the list. The problem is that the inventory has all the names and details of age, harvesting date, who sold to them, and such. It’s very few details if you’re looking for something vague.

McPherson, hair in a spiralling bun, wanders away from her position at the door and comes to help too. Since there’s nothing else going on, Omar also steps out of the back room.

“Do we have to check every plant that can be a spur?” Omar muses, turning away to scan the shelves. "I think the encyclopedia on the third floor…or no, we’d have to search through individual plants then too.”

“I think you have a spell for making words glow,” McPherson tells Julius.

“I do?” Julius asks.

McPherson heads off upstairs to go find it while Hein is focused on running through every line in the magical parasite plant subcategory to find it. Robin comes down with the client upstairs so Julius and Omar pretend to be busy while the man leaves, then they cluster around Hein again.

“Found it!” McPherson calls, loping over with a book in hand, closed around a finger to keep the page. She flips it open and drops it on the desk in front of Julius.

It’s a 3^rd level, which is already ridiculous for such a mildly convenient spell, and Julius can see why he didn’t bother keeping it. He draws a circle in the air and three circles open up above the book. They spin slowly anticlockwise, set until Julius cancels the spell, and a faint glow in select places comes from the book.

“I looked for spur,” Julius explains and starts wildly flipping through chunks of pages, playing hot and cold with the glow until he hits the right page and finds the word outlined in gold. “Ah, nope, not that one.”

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Hein gets anxious just looking at how he treats the book so gently takes over. Three more tries and they find one with all the specifications.

“I’ll send a runner,” Hien says, leaning away a bit as the spell shatters, then calmly putting the inventory book away.

---

Julius is sitting outside in a lovely wooden gazebo, painted pristine white and covered in trellises. A small pond wraps the base of the structure, currently overflowing its banks. The light rain makes the pond a dot painting and the lazy glide of colourful fish under the surface turns it hypnotising.

The gazebo sits on the tree line, with lush green trees shedding giant droplets that thud in irregular intervals over the roof. In front is a flat run of neatly trimmed grass with a spiralling pseudo magic circle of stone pathways that are raised above the sodden dirt. The manor in the distance is a magnificent structure, as demanded of a duke, and is practically a waterfall.

The place is trying so desperately to maintain the style and honour of a villa out in the south, but it simply can’t be done with central east conditions like this. Trees hold rain if they’re wet for so long, grass drowns, quaint pathways become moss-covered slip hazards, and buildings are constantly maintained for water damage in the roof or else they simply flood.

Diedrik walks straight across any gaps in the meandering stones, flashes of his icy blue magic creating a bridge for him over mud and puddles. A butler waits in the flower gardens behind, holding an umbrella and waiting statue-still.

Diedrik arrives perfectly dry, his little leather shoes clicking on the wet wood. He comes to a stop opposite Julius and a 2^nd level circle opens up to slowly dry the bench seat that curves around the structure. The trellises help keep things enclosed but of course everything is wet.

Diedrik takes a seat and slings one short leg over the other. His lips are pursed but then he smiles. “You should have just sent a letter, I feel ashamed to make you come out this whole way.” 

Oh, he must be quite upset that Julius has now taken this game to Diedrik’s territory. The audacity of Julius to waltz right in and force a servant to go scurrying to get Diedrik. To not even wait in a sitting room! The horror!

No, Julius is not getting petty revenge for the micromanaging, that would be ridiculous.

“It was urgent,” Julius denies, looking at the boy with a half-lidded gaze. “I care very much for my customers.”

“I appreciate it,” Diedrik says and his smile grows, showing too many teeth. “But I have an appointment soon, I’m afraid.”

Julius pulls a glass jar out of his sleeve and hands it over. Then he stands and lopes off across the sodden ground, curving around the tree line instead of a path.

“Would you like me to apologise?” Diedrik sighs, standing up and following. He summons a larger radius of blue for both of them to walk on. “You know what you’re doing, I shouldn’t have doubted you. I went too far.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Julius says. “I’m a professional after all.”

“Enough with your lies.” Diedrik huffs out a laugh and comes to a stop.

Julius pauses as well and turns to the boy, folding his hands into his sleeves.

“It was my first venture here,” Diedrik admits slowly, not quite looking at Julius. “I…wanted to make sure it went well because I have several plans that needed to be started yesterday and a lot of money is required for it. It’s not because I looked down on your expertise, but because I…have a problem delegating.”

“Wow, really?” Julius muses. “Do go on.”

Diedrik raises an eyebrow. “I stopped, didn’t I? And now I’ve admitted you’re right, so how about you stop being petty and ignoring me with your customer service smile so we can talk about what’s happening next.”

Julius sighs. “Listen, boy, I know you have high hopes of being…a fantastic duke someday, or wherever your ambition takes you. But I’m really not your servant. It’s not my job nor my personal desire to keep running your business for you. You said you’d hand it over by next month, I don’t think it’s time to add anything new right now.”

Diedrik pauses. “What do you know about the gods?”

“I like the fish one,” Julius says carelessly.

Diedrik chuckles. “Alright then.” He starts walking again and Julius falls into step. “There are five gods. There used to be seven.”

“Are you talking about the 9^th circle magician a few centuries ago?” Julius asks. “Because I think you need to take a good long look in the mirror.”

“Your tongue, it cuts deep,” Diedrik mocks. “One day, Julius, you’ll remember this as I have the heads of five more gods at my feet.”

“Dream big, child,” Julius encourages, patting Diedrik on the shoulder. “Even if you fail, you can look back on these times fondly.”

Diedrik ignored him. “The next step is that my mother is transferring the family back to the home territory. I’ll be gone for a few years, but it’s already been decided that I’ll attend the magical school here in the capital.”

“You’ll hate it there,” Julius warns seriously. “Someone like you? Either you’ll drop out or take over.”

“I’ll be 5^th class by then, I won’t need to waste my time there,” Diedrik dismisses. “No, I’ll be studying until I come back. My venture has…illuminated how little I know of this changing world. I’ll make money and build my connections, everything else needs to come after.”

“Very mature, as expected,” Julius admits. “Now why am I involved?”

"I do hope you'll continue to outperform my expectations as if I was here," Diedrik says.

That means a lot of things. It means Diedrik might drop out of contact but he’ll still keep Julius in mind regardless. It means Diedrik is handing Julius total control over the business, almost an apology after what Diedrik did when it started.

It also very much means that Diedrik likes the sample of work he’s seen of Julius and there’s bound to be a showering of riches to come Julius’ way soon enough.

Julius one-ups him with a demur dip of his head. "Well, you know they say distance makes the heart grow fonder."

Julius kind of has a soft spot for the kid too.

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