Bastian Wrey's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Bastian Wrey owed money to a man who did not forget. He learned this the morning a collector followed him through the market, calling his debt out loud. Bastian walked fast and smiled wider, because today he meant to court the richest heir in the city. One heir. One fortune. One person his smile had never once cracked. He could not arrive smelling of unpaid bills. "Twelve crowns, Wrey!" the collector shouted. Heads turned. A fish seller spat. "Pay the swindler no mind," a woman warned her daughter. The word stung worse than the debt. Swindler. No heir shook hands with a swindler. Bastian ducked under an awning and thought fast. He could not outrun the man. He could not pay him. But he could change what the crowd saw. He slipped into his townhouse, the one dressed in flowing silk curtains, and climbed to his room. On the wall hung a pair of rustic iron sconces, their tallow candles frozen mid-drip. He pried one free, wiped the wax clean, and tucked it under his coat like a gentleman's walking ornament. Then he changed. Velvet coat. Silver rings. The posture of a man who had never counted a coin in his life. When he stepped out, the collector blinked, unsure. A ragged merchant he would chase. A nobleman he would not dare touch. Bastian did not go home free. The collector trailed him still, quieter now, waiting for the disguise to slip. So Bastian led him toward the water, to the busy trading post where crates and sailors churned without pause. He climbed the plank steps, nodded at a dockhand, and passed through the crowd. Inside, the collector could not follow a nobleman without cause. The press of bodies swallowed Bastian whole. He pushed through to the far end and out a side door, onto the pier. There he stopped to breathe. A small black puppy sat alone by a coil of rope, shivering, no owner near. Bastian crouched and scratched its ears. "Lost too, are you," he murmured. The pup licked his thumb. He scooped it up without thinking. Then he saw her. On the pier's edge stood the heir herself, back straight, watching the ships. The one fortune he wanted. The one heart he could not charm. She turned at the puppy's bark and looked at him, not his velvet, not his rings. Her eyes held no warmth at all. "You," she said flatly. "The man the whole market calls a cheat." Bastian's smile froze. The disguise had fooled the collector. It had not fooled her. Word had already reached the one person it mattered most to reach. He had lost the collector and walked straight into the heir, holding a stray dog, branded before he spoke a word. He held the puppy up like an offering. "Then let me earn a better name," he said.