Chapter 1.20 - In which Percy wields paper over rock

Percy

Month 11, Day 28, Saturday 12:00 a.m.

It was the highest-stakes game of rock-paper-scissors that Percy had ever played.

The Kaiseki Ryori was holding an exclusive birthday party for some young man from one of the Thirteen Crown Families. He had booked the entire restaurant and invited enough friends to fill it. When the manager heard that Percy had a camera obscura, Percy had been roped into working the extra-late shift and taking photographs of the party for some extra coin. He had agreed reluctantly. Negative cartridges for the camera obscura were expensive, after all, and Percy was trying to save up to do something special for Aethelwulf’s birthday.

The night had started off well enough, and Percy had taken several posed photographs of the attendees. He even took a few novelty photographs where they pretended to be mid-action, taking advantage of the Vista 500’s cutting edge abilities to avoid the blur of movement that was so common with lesser models.

But the noble and his friends were getting drunk, and in their self-indulgent arrogance, had demanded that their waiters—especially the youngest and prettiest of them—should join in their drinking and games as part of the “service.”

Back in the kitchen, faces had grown grim. “First it’s drinking and party games, but then it will be moonbeams and fairy wings, and elixir of euphoria,” Percy’s coworker Mai had said, her lips pinched into a thin, hard line.

“What? Those are addictive,” Percy had said. “And illegal, right?”

Mai had raised an eyebrow and patted him on top of the head as if he was a little kid, then continued speaking without answering him. “And then it will be groping the employees, and eventually trying to take us into one of the private rooms or haul us home with them.”

The manager was gone for the evening, and the assistant manager had ventured out to the dining floor to try and reason with the customers, but they were nobles. The assistant manager’s nervous laugh was audible from the kitchen, and Mai had shaken her head cynically. “He won’t risk angering them. Coward. Some of us will have to go. Keep your wits about you. And keep the liquor in their glasses topped up. If any of them seem a little too intent on you, the best outcome is that they get so drunk they end up passing out. If the manager was here, this wouldn’t happen.”

“Can we just refuse?” another girl asked. “I signed up to be a waitress. Not a ‘companion.’”

“Maybe if you want to be fired,” Mai said.

A muscle in Viv’s jaw had pulsed, her eyes narrowing. “The assistant manager might try, but the owners won’t fire us even if we do end up angering a few nobles. They have connections of their own. As long as we don’t give those idiots”—she gestured out to the customers—“any excuse to harm the Kaiseki Ryori. Nothing that could get the place raided or shut down. I say we serve them, bill them extra for the inconvenience, but no compromises beyond that. Don’t go home with them. I know a girl who agreed—some noble promised her fifty gold—and she never came to work the next morning. Disappeared.”

Percy had shivered, even though the kitchen was kept quite warm. Earlier, a couple of the noble young women out on the floor had smiled at him, sleepy-eyed. He did not want to be “disappeared.” And he also couldn’t drink.

Never again. No matter how well things were going lately, Percy wasn’t a reckless nincompoop.

That’s why, when the assistant manager returned looking sheepish and uncomfortable, and Mai suggested they play rock-paper-scissors to decide who would have to go and who could stay, Percy got serious.

Only some of them would need to go, it was decided. Anyone who lost two games would be sent, while the rest could continue to do their normal jobs, only at a more frantic pace.

Percy’s heart pounded, and the world seemed to slow down around him as he faced off against Chen. The man was evidently less worried than several of the others and didn’t even seem to be trying that hard.

Percy won with rock to Chen’s scissors.

But then he turned to find Viv facing him expectantly. Percy swallowed. “I can’t lose. I won’t lose,” he warned her.

She rolled her eyes. “We’ll see.”

The trick to this game was to watch your opponent’s hands closely. Many people shifted their hand toward their chosen form slightly early, and if your reflexes were fast enough, you could tell what they were going to choose and respond accordingly.

Percy kept his hand in a neutral position, wrist tilted slightly to the side and his fingers curled halfway in, the quicker to snap into any of the three positions.

As their hands fell for the third time, Viv’s fingers began to curl in.

Percy flattened his hand at the last moment, his palm making a slapping sound as it impacted the other. “Paper covers rock,” he said, letting out a breathy laugh. “I win.”

Viv scowled. “Well, I guess I’m going out there to keep those assholes ‘company.’”

Percy’s elation drained away.

As the night wore on, the nobles grew more drunk, and Percy did indeed see the occasional surreptitious sip from a potion vial. A few groups went upstairs to the private dining rooms, but none of the Kaiseki Ryori’s employees went with them. He did his best not to photograph anything that might make someone angry. It would be a waste of a negative disk.

At one point, there was a commotion when one of the men tried to touch Mai. She tripped him, then glared out across the dining floor as she stood over him. “Please don’t be confused about what kind of establishment this is. We work in a restaurant. Not a brothel.”

Several of the nobles seemed outraged by her audacity, and things might have escalated if not for one of the noble young women. She stood, mockingly saluted the man who was trying dizzily to rise to his feet, and said, “You’re a pig, Cyr. If my father has to suppress any articles about abuse toward the commoners, he’s going to ask questions. And I’m going to talk. And then he’s going to talk…to your Family heads. Don’t let the drink marinate your brain into mush. You’d think the Quicksilver would make you smarter, but I suppose it doesn’t have much to work with.”

Her standing, and her threat, were apparently enough to keep the others on good behavior.

Viv made a concerted effort to knock half of the room unconscious by continually toasting them with the Kaiseki Ryori’s most expensive liquor. But even though she drank one glass for two or three of theirs, she was only about Percy’s size, and her body couldn’t stand up to the assault.

By the end of the party, she was slumped over in one of the chairs, the top button of her uniform open, her ponytail askew and flyaway hairs haloing around her face, and her eyes glassy.

Most of the nobles had already left in their fancy carriages, but a few young men were still loitering at the entrance.

Percy didn’t like how they were glancing surreptitiously at Viv. He walked over to her, threw her arm over his shoulder, and helped her to stand. “Let’s get you home.”

She groaned in a way that communicated her nausea very clearly.

“Oh, we can take her. We’ve got a carriage ready,” one of the men said, looking to the other two.

Percy blinked at him, his stomach sinking even as he tried to keep his face friendly and neutral. “That’s nice of you, but don’t worry about it. I give it a fifty percent chance that she throws up in the next twenty minutes. Wouldn’t want to ruin your carriage!”

“It’s no problem,” the man insisted.

Percy squeezed Viv’s ribcage, and whether she was playing along or really that drunk, she gurgled sickly, this time letting her tongue flop slightly out. “Really, we couldn’t bother you.”

“What are you, her guardian? We talked about it earlier and she agreed that we should take her home.”

That was a lie. Viv would never have agreed to that. Percy’s heart was pounding, and he swallowed to wet his dry throat. He did his best to smile, hoping his knees weren’t shaking and giving away his true feelings as he tilted his head to the side, eyes wide. “We live in the same building. Right next to each other. We always go home together. Does your carriage have room for all five of us?” he asked guilelessly. He couldn’t let Viv go with them, but making them angry could have consequences of its own.

The assistant manager came up beside Percy. “Your carriage is out front,” he said. “And here’s the fare. Thanks for working tonight!” He pressed a couple silver into Percy’s hand and turned to the nobles with a disturbingly cheery smile. “Thank you so much for patronizing our establishment for your special day! Would you mind giving some feedback about your favorite part of the night, or your favorite dish? And what address can we send the photographs to?”

Percy took the opportunity the assistant manager had created to hurry away, half-dragging Viv, which was somewhat difficult as she was a couple of inches taller than him.

Ducking away from the moths circling the street lamp in front of the Kaiseki Ryori, Percy heaved Viv into the only cheap hackney out front, told the jaded-looking driver, “Get us out of here,” and hauled himself up beside her.

“Percy, help,” Viv slurred, falling to the side. She flailed uselessly with her arms, unable to sit up or grasp any leverage.

Percy yanked her upright, adjusted her feet so that they were both placed firmly on the floor, and then gasped, “What’s your address, Viv?”

She stared at him, her lower lip hanging open enough to reveal her bottom row of teeth in an expression that was both woebegone and slightly cute. Before he could ask her again, she shook her head slightly and closed her eyes. “Down. I’m down the hill.”

“You live south of here?” he tried to clarify. It made sense, as housing got cheaper the further toward the Mires you went. “What is your address?” When that got no response, he tried, “What street do you live on?” and even, “Can you remember any big buildings or shops near your house?”

Viv whimpered.

Percy sat back, in a quandary. He didn’t know where she lived, but he couldn’t take her home to his house. Even the thought of her meeting his family in this state made him shudder. If she couldn’t tell him where she lived, he could try to rent a hotel room, but the thought of trying to carry her inside past the suspicious eyes of the employees, and the possibility that she might vomit or need help during the night, made him set that idea aside.

Really, the whole problem was that Viv was too drunk. If he could fix that, everything else would fall into place.

Percy bit the tip of his thumbnail, knowing that the longer they sat in the hackney, the higher the fare would be. He rapped on the hackney’s side wall and told the driver, “Take us to Healer Clements, on Madders Row.”

Author Note:
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