The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett

pace, now that the routes east across the sea had been charted, and many men had made quick fortunes upon the return of ships they had invested in.
    “And what have you to secure your loan?”
    “I would secure it with my name.”
    The clerk set down his pen and looked up. “I cannot sell a name if you default upon the note.”
    Eldyn moistened his lips. “My name, then, and the shares of the trading company.”
    The pen returned to the clerk’s hand. “And this name of such great worth is…?”
    “Garritt.”
    The clerk pulled a ledger from a drawer and thumbed through it with smudged fingers. “Mr. Vandimeer Garritt?” he asked, his finger on the page before him.
    “No, I am Eldyn Garritt. Vandimeer was my father.”
    The finger tapped against the page. “Your father has a debt with us.”
    Beneath the table, Eldyn clutched his knees. He was starting to believe his father had debts at every lending house in the city. “My father’s accounts were settled when his estate was sold.”
    The clerk peered at the ledger. “So I see. The account was settled, as you say—but only in part.”
    “That was the agreement reached between my father’s creditors and the magistrate at the debtor’s court. It was decided his estate would be sold and the proceeds divided as the settlement for all outstanding sums.”
    “And so he ends up paying no more than fifty pennies for every regal he owes. It appears your father has gotten off quite easily.”
    “Gotten off easily?” Eldyn swallowed an incredulous laugh. “I should think not. He has been deprived of everything he had and ever will have. He is dead, sir—he has lost his life.”
    “And what trouble is it for him to lose a thing of so little worth, when my accounts are down forty regals?” The clerk slammed the book shut. “Good day to you, Mr. Garritt.”
    Eldyn showed himself out to the street, then stood on the edge of the gutter, his cheeks hot. He had presented his request for a loan to a dozen moneylenders, and all had refused him. Eldyn’s father might be dead, but Vandimeer Garritt still haunted him, tormenting him from beyond the grave as relentlessly as he had when alive.
    A four-in-hand—glossy black with gilded trim—clattered by, and Eldyn had to jump back to avoid the muck its wheels splashed up from the gutter. He watched the carriage race up the street. There was so much wealth in Invarel, and he asked for only the smallest part of it for himself: a pittance, a seed from which he might grow his hopes, that he might have a chance to earn back what his father had gambled and drunk and whored away.
    However, if he was not able to secure a loan soon, those hopes would be dashed. The trading company that had approached him as a possible investor was already preparing for its voyage. And more, he was running out of money for day-to-day expenses. When he was a boy, his mother had hidden away a number of trinkets and jewels so that his father could not sell them for his gambling debts. Vandimeer had all but torn apart the house looking for them, but only Eldyn had known where they were concealed, for he had watched from the shadows as she hid them in a hollow in the wall. He had recovered them the night before they departed the house at Bramberly, which his father was forced to give over to tenants for the income, and had kept them secret ever since.
    Until recently. Over the last year he had sold the jewels one by one, making the proceeds from each sale last as long as possible. However, all he had left now was a single brooch of carnelian and a pair of pearl earrings. The lot might fetch fifteen regals, twenty at most. A few more months, and even lodgings at the Golden Loom would be beyond his means; he and Sashie would be on the street.
    Only Eldyn would not allow that to happen. It didn’t matter if a dozen lenders had refused him; all he had to do was convince one to write him the note. Not that it would be easy. While the affluent had all the