By the fourth property, Alric had come to the conclusion that there were professions built entirely upon refusing to say simple things simply.
The estate agent had not yet lied to him outright, which Alric supposed was to his credit, but he had spent most of the morning approaching honesty from several side streets and once from what felt very much like an alley. Every building possessed “excellent prospects.” Every narrow room was “intimate.” Every crack in plaster was “surface character.” One house with stairs so steep they looked punitive had been described as “space efficient,” which was the sort of phrase that made Alric want to leave a profession on principle even if it was not his own.
This agent in particular had come from the merchant's guild who was assigned over the merchant district. Seren had insisted and Alric had learnt when not to argue.
“This one,” he had said in the last house, sweeping one hand toward a sitting room that appeared to exist entirely to hold chairs no one was ever meant to enjoy, “would make a very fine residence for a man of your standing.”
Alric had looked at him. “What standing?”
The agent had smiled as though that had been wit rather than a question.
The houses they had seen so far had been made for people who received guests. Alric needed somewhere that could survive staff, records, interruptions, and at least three conversations happening badly at once. All three of those conversations could come from one dwarf all at once.
This latest one had a polished entrance hall, decorative trim, and a rear courtyard too small for anything useful.
“It is beautifully situated,” the agent was saying.
Alric stared at him for a moment. Seren did not. She was looking over the courtyard wall, measuring distance with her eyes.
“It’s too narrow,” she said at last. “No room to turn. If staff need to move anything heavier than a trunk, they’ll curse us daily.”
The agent recovered without visible pain. “Of course, if one were imagining a more… active use.”
“I am,” Seren said.
That ended that.
They left not long after, the agent retaining his smile through the process by what Alric suspected was long training and an understanding that merchants, unlike brewers, often paid good money to be misdescribed politely. Once they were back on the street, Alric exhaled through his nose and loosened his collar a touch.
“I have seen enough polished parlours for one lifetime,” he muttered.
Seren glanced at him. “You’ve seen four.”
“Exactly.”
She almost smiled. Almost. The corners of her mouth twitched before she caught it.
The agent, several steps ahead, slowed.
He did not stop at once. That would have looked too deliberate. Instead he adjusted his pace and glanced back with the air of a man deciding whether to reveal something special or merely salvage a morning. Alric had seen tavern owners make similar faces when offering him a cask that had not used for reasons they preferred not to discuss.
“There is,” the agent said carefully, “one other. It may suit.”
Alric felt suspicion arrive before the words had even finished.
Oh good. Here comes the upsell, the hidden gem, the reason he showed us four bad ones first.
“It is somewhat different from the others we have viewed.” The agent said facing away slightly, glancing down at the floor in what he probably hoped was a professionally contemplative pose.
“So, worse then?” Alric said.
Seren turned her head. “Where?”
“Just behind Merchant’s Row,” the agent replied quickly, encouraged by the fact that she had asked before Alric could refuse on instinct alone. “It’s on the river. A former inn. A very respectable one, once. Well-built. Larger than your wanted, certainly, but exceptionally well positioned for trade.”
Alric rolled his eyes before glancing across “An inn?”
“Yes. Could be repurposed into a fine home.”
“For one person?”
“With staff of course. It contains a section that was the innkeepers home, could be easily remade into a staff section.” the agent continued before Alric could shoot the idea down “as well as several features that may prove unexpectedly suitable to a man whose affairs appear to be expanding.”
Alric rolled his eyes again.
Seren, who had the irritating habit of becoming more interested whenever someone said something Alric dismissed, adjusted her gloves and said, “We should see it.”
Alric turned to her. “Why?”
“Because it’s behind Merchant’s Row.”
“That is not a reason to look at an inn.”
“It is a very good reason to look at an inn.”
The agent brightened visibly, smelling opportunity like a predator seeing a wounded animal.
“It is also, I should note, available with certain unusually favourable terms.”
That did not improve Alric’s view of the situation. Things described as unusually favourable were often either neither or both for reasons discovered later. Still, he had already spent the morning touring expensive boxes with decorative staircases. One more bad idea was unlikely to kill him.
“Fine,” he said. “Show me the disaster.”
It was not, to Alric’s annoyance, a disaster.
From the street, it was immediately obvious why the agent had saved it for last. The building stood a little apart from the row beside it, broad rather than tall, with a frontage that managed to look respectable without trying too hard to pretend it had been born a merchant residence. It had the solid confidence of something built to receive people carrying baggage, coin, expectations and probably complaints. The building had two stories, a small walkway to a large door as well as a small yard out the front. The sign had been taken down, but the mounting still remained above the entrance, along with the faint lighter patch where painted wood had once shielded the wall from weather.
“This,” the agent said, spreading his hand, “is the inn.”
Alric looked up at it and frowned because there was not anything immediately wrong with it. He had learned that the moment a thing began to look genuinely useful, it also became dangerous in a different way.
The shutters were wide enough to admit light instead of merely rationing it. The lower floor had a proper breadth to it. There was no attempt at ornamental nonsense around the door. Even the stone steps showed the kind of wear that came from years of ordinary use rather than neglect.
Seren was already taking it in with that calm, narrowing focus she reserved for figures that mattered.
The agent unlocked the front door and ushered them inside with the satisfaction of a man unveiling an argument he believed would now make itself.
The common room had once been handsome in a way meant to encourage spending without frightening merchants into thinking they had wandered into nobility by mistake. Dust had settled. The air had the stale stillness of a room left empty rather than abandoned. But the bones of it were obvious at once. A proper hearth. A broad floor. Enough space for several tables without the place feeling crowded. The bar remained along one wall, sturdy and well-kept, and behind it shelving rose in neat rows. Chairs remained. Tables remained. Whoever had closed the place had not taken it apart piece by piece. They had shut the door and walked away.
Alric took a few steps in and stopped near the middle.
This was the first property all morning that had not felt like it expected him to lower his voice.
Seren crossed the room slowly, looking not at what it had been but what it could be. That was always the unsettling thing about her. Most people saw walls. Seren saw function waiting for permission.
The agent, sensing advantage, moved toward the back doors. “And this, of course, is one of its finer selling points.”
He opened a set of doors on the other side.
A smell came in with the daylight that nearly made Alric step back on instinct.
It was the river.
Not river in the abstract, not the idea of fresh moving water glinting pleasantly in the sun while poets made themselves miserable around it. This was the actual river. Thick. Damp. Rotting at the edges. A long, wet breath dragged through reed, mud, refuse, and whatever else the city had been donating to it in confidence.
Beyond the doors, the deck stretched out over the rear, broad and well-made, with a railing that gave a clear view down toward the water.
Alric stared at it. Then he stared out at the deck. Then back at the river.
The agent was smiling as though this explained itself.
“Why,” Alric asked carefully, “would anyone sit out there?”
The agent opened his mouth.
“No,” Alric said, lifting a hand. “Do not describe the charm to me. I can smell it.”
Seren walked to the threshold, paused there, and inhaled once with the composed resignation of a woman willing to acknowledge reality while continuing to think past it.
“It is… the river,” she said gently. She looked out through the doorway. “In summer, with a breeze from the other direction, maybe?”
Alric looked at her. “We’d need a gale, maybe a storm.”
Seren scoffed, Alric however made a note. Never trust this building’s well. Never trust any cheerful description involving the river. And if anyone ever proposed dining on the deck, let them do it alone, it would only happen once.
Once back inside, the place regained its advantage.
The guest rooms on the upper floor were better than he had expected, and that in itself was suspicious. He had prepared himself for narrow beds, poor shutters, and the sort of mattresses that felt filled with moral instruction. Instead the rooms were genuinely comfortable. Proper beds. Storage. Enough space to move without apologising to the furniture. Alric noted each room had a desk, which made him irritated but he couldn’t say why.
The residence portion, by contrast, was more practical. Smaller rooms. Less display. A separate section with its own entrance and cleaner internal routes between stair, corridor, and service areas.
Seren stopped in the passage, looking toward the secondary stair.
“This would be good for your household staff.” She said nodding approvingly.
“Do I get a choice?” Alric asked
“Mm… No.” Seren said before nodding with a thoughtful expression. “It has its own entrance. The staff could come and go without passing through the front.”
Alric frowned. “Why would I want staff moving around unseen?”
Seren gave him a look that suggested he had asked why one might prefer dry ledgers.
“So they can work,” she said. “Without walking through whatever you’re doing in the front half of the building. Without being watched by every visitor. Without having to explain themselves each time they carry a crate, a document, or a meal.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it again. That did, annoyingly, make sense.
The kitchen below only made matters worse by being useful in new ways. It was not especially grand, but it was broad enough for real work, with counters that had seen years of it already, but more importantly...
“An oven?” Alric said moving into the kitchen quickly. He knelt beside it and inspected it, it was made of metal with a firebox underneath.
Seren paused watching him. “Uh.. yes.. How is that the thing.. nevermind.”
“We could toast all the grain for the…” He trailed off because of the look he was getting.
Lastly the agent showed them the rear stable and the small carriage space, it was not a large stable, it had space for four horses.
The agent, who had wisely refrained from speech for several minutes, took this as his moment.
“As you can see,” he said, smoothing his cuffs, “this space is very versatile.”
Alric turned to him. “Price.”
The man smiled. “Well.. All the furniture needs to be bought separately. It will cost five large silver,” He explained.
For a moment Alric simply looked at him. Then at Seren. Then back again.
“Five large silver?” he repeated. The agent nodded “That is either absurd or a trap.”
The agent inclined his head. “It is an opportunity.”
“It is one of those things,” Alric said.
The explanation, once dragged into daylight, was precisely what he had expected and still irritating. The Innkeepers’ Guild was trying to dispose of properties and goods quickly. Recovering investment mattered more than preserving pride. The place had been closed. It was costing them money while sitting empty. Selling the contents off separately would take time, labour, and more optimism than the circumstances Alric had put them in allowed.
Alric looked around the yard once more. Five large silvers for everything inside it. Tables alone would cost dearly to replace. Beds, storage, kitchen tools, curtains, shelving, lamps.
He still did not like it. “And the rent?” he asked.
“Two large silver a season,” the agent replied, “for the first two years. Then one gold coin per season.”
Alric’s eyes narrowed.
The agent continued bravely. “The discounted rate needs to be paid in full up front.”
Of course it was.
The guild did not want tenants. They wanted immediate recovery. Sell cheap where visible. Collect hard where it mattered.
“So…” he began, “They are that desperate?”
“It is still cheaper,” Seren said before the agent could attempt poetry, “than fitting out an empty building yourself.”
Alric looked at her. “That is not the point.”
Seren let out a deep sigh. She stepped nearer, lowering her voice only enough to make it clear she was speaking to him rather than performing for the agent. “You need more room. You need offices. You need somewhere staff can actually stay. You need proper space, this is almost too small. I’ll need an office here, Vale might need one too. You as well.”
Alric recognized the tone, it was the lecture tone, Seren used it seldom but she was usually right when she did.
“You need the common room for guests, you will need to see grain merchants, maybe even nobles eventually.” She explained with a frown.
A house had been the idea. Something modest. Somewhere to live. Somewhere, perhaps, to work a little from, if work insisted on behaving like work and following him home. This was not that. This was too large, too public in its bones, too obviously built for traffic rather than retreat.
It was also, in a way he could no longer ignore, exactly what his life now resembled.
Seren came to stand beside him, not pushing again. She did not need to. The place itself had done most of the work already.
“The front rooms downstairs,” she said after a moment, “can be offices. Records, meetings, receiving. The residence wing gives privacy where needed. The staff entrance solves half your movement problems before they become disasters. And if you ever need to host merchants directly, the building already knows how.”
He let out a slow breath.
“I wanted a house.” He said sulkily but he knew he was being petulant.
Seren considered that. “You were not asking for the life you currently have.”
“That is a still an irritating sentence.”
“It is still true.”
The agent waited by the door with the hopeful restraint of a man who had learned that speaking too soon could cost him the moment. Smart. Alric almost respected him for it.
He looked once more toward the rear, where beyond the common room and the doors lay that accursed deck and its ambitious relationship with the river’s smell. He looked toward the stairs. Toward the side passage. Toward the front, where visitors could be received without stepping over ledgers, crates or beer.
“Well?” the man asked.
Alric held his gaze for a second longer than necessary, if only to make it clear this agreement should not be mistaken for delight.
“We’ll take it,” he said.