Someone barged in.
I jumped up in a panic, reaching for my dagger down at my waist. Lisa blinked as she stepped into the room, looking down at the now broken bolt rolling on the floor.
"Huh," she said, picking it up. "We’ll need to get that replaced."
"What are you doing?" I asked, lowering my guard for just a little bit.
"Sorry, are you busy? I had no idea," Lisa apologized as she backed out of the room. "I can come back later— and maybe get someone to take a look at the lock. I didn’t know it would break so easily. Probably because of old age."
"Come back," I sighed, sitting back down. "I’m not busy. And you probably wanted to talk about your payment, right?"
Lisa’s face immediately brightened at that, and she hurriedly entered back into the room. "Yes. Actually, I was hoping to discuss exactly that."
"We promised half when we left, and the other half when we arrived, didn’t we?"
She nodded her head in agreement. "We did."
"But we haven’t left yet, have we?" I raised an eyebrow, and she paused.
"W-well, we’ll be going at dawn. There isn’t really a difference if you pay me now and pay me later, right?"
"No," I said, "there is a difference." I gestured vaguely out the window and began to explain. "Say I pay you now, what’s going to stop you from making up some sort of excuse tomorrow morning that we can’t leave and that you misplaced the money? You’d force us to go back empty handed, and we can’t do anything about it."
Lisa’s smile wavered, and she put out a hand. "We aren’t planning to do anything like that!" she protested, trying to keep her cool. "I promise. I was just a bit overeager to get paid, that’s all! I wasn’t going to betray you— our reputation is on the line here!"
"And how exactly are two strangers with no connections in Luke going to harm your reputation?"
"I…" she trailed off. The young woman shuffled uncomfortably on her feet, playing with her hair using her fingers. "I wasn’t going to do that."
I just stared blankly at her; I was not sure whether I believed her, and I didn’t even mean to accuse her in the first place. I was simply explaining the logic behind why I thought it wasn’t a good idea to pay her at the current moment.
"Look," I said, standing up. "If I didn’t trust you at least a little bit, I wouldn’t have even gotten on this ship. But the way you’re acting now just screams all kinds of suspicious to me. Explain yourself."
Lisa froze, and she slowly lowered her hand down to her sides. She took a deep breath, whispering. "We need the gold."
"Excuse me?"
She spoke louder. "I said, we need the gold."
I stood there, completely bewildered. "Aren’t you guys the best smugglers in all of Luke?"
"We are," Lisa said, exhaling a frustrated breath. "Or we should be. But Jack’s stubbornness is costing us so many jobs. We used to get a new job every single month, but in the last year, we haven’t gotten anywhere near as many."
"Why’s that?" I asked, looking at the dejected girl.
"Because there’s this new group that took control over the underground recently. They’re called the Elise, and in a single year, they managed to form connections with all the various criminal groups, gangs, and pirates around Luke. They’re trying to expand further into the rest of Laxis now, and they wanted to hire us to do a job for them two months ago, and they offered to pay us more money than we’ve ever been paid. But Jack refused. So now we’re blacklisted by every major group in the surrounding area. We’re still the best smugglers in Luke, but no one will be hiring our services until we acquiesce."
I frowned. "And why doesn’t Jack want to work with them?"
"You’ve seen how he is around you Dwarf friend, haven’t you?" She waited for me to respond, and when I nodded she continued. "Well, there are rumors that the leader of the Elise is a Half Elf by the name of Bahr."
I felt my ears perk up at that. "A Half Elf?"
"Yes," she said, rubbing at her temples. "And I think that might be why Jack is so adamant against working with them. It’s just so…"
"Foolish?" I helpfully piped up.
"That’s a nice way of putting it."
"And so now you’re doing this job with us— complete strangers, since we aren’t aware of any of this politics going on in the underground world of Luke?"
"It’s not exactly a well kept secret." She walked past me, and sat down on my bed without my permission. "But it’s not something you’d hear about just by poking around the city for a few days or even weeks. We still have an offer on the table open for us by the Elise, so we aren’t completely hated just yet."
I nodded my head, slowly processing all the information she had given me. "And you want to get out of the city before things get worse?"
"Yes." Lisa smiled at me. "You’re so clever, Aria. I didn’t expect a girl as young as you to be so keen and sharp."
I ignored the flattery as she continued.
"That’s why when you two came and offered us the opportunity to not only leave Luke but pay us to do so, I made sure Jack took it. That’s why I pushed for you to speak, since I knew he would never accept whatever terms your Dwarf friend laid out."
I recalled specifically how
