1. Emilietta Falls into a Puddle
“Just three days, please,” Emilietta murmured, casting a sheepish glance at the shopkeeper, Cardellar. She had scraped together just enough money for three days.
That morning, she’d had enough for a whole month! When she got her wages, that is. But then came the bills—rent for the apartment, the baker for bread, the doctor for Yaretta’s treatment. And now, all that remained were a few measly coins. She’d work again, rack up more debts, and in a month’s time, come back to buy just a few more days. But these days were vital! For Yaretta. Emilietta had been saving them up for years, ever since the doctor delivered the grim news that her sister wouldn’t last long. Still, over that time, she’d managed to accumulate nearly a full year! That was something. Maybe, just maybe, she could find a better job, one that paid more. And then…
She adjusted the strap of her heavy bag over her shoulder, clutching the precious three-day token tightly in her hand. With a bitter sigh, she gazed at the rows of golden time tokens displayed on special stands, tokens that could be exchanged with a time mage for three years, or even five! They sat on the top shelf of the shop, nearly touching the ceiling, gathering dust. In this part of the capital, on the outskirts, only the poor lived, and no one could afford such expensive timepieces.
“Miss Emilietta,” Cardellar suddenly addressed her as he counted out her change, a handful of small coins. “I wanted to ask, are you still looking for work?”
“Yes, yes,” she replied eagerly, her spirits lifting. “I am! Word is that there’ll be big layoffs at Master Versagni’s workshop soon. I reckon he’ll show me the door too. Losing my job and being left without income isn’t something I can afford. So, I’ve started looking early.”
“A lady came by recently, perhaps you know her—everyone does. Ahem. I thought she’d passed on long ago, since I hadn’t seen her in years. Ahem. Lady Heparinye. From THAT house!” Cardellar emphasized “that,” and Emilietta instantly knew which house he meant. She shuddered. “She was asking about a girl who could work for her. Ahem. She needs an assistant and…,” here the shopkeeper hesitated and looked away, “a donor.”
“No!” Emilietta cried out in alarm. “I’m not interested in that! Thank you, but I’ll be going…”
She snatched her change from the counter, bolted out the door, and felt nausea rise from sheer terror. No, anything but that! Even she, one of the poorest souls in the capital of the Kingdom of Farbon, refused to become a donor. Better to live in poverty, but to live whole, unchanged! To live, somehow, but fully. Her own life!
Emilietta hurried along the sidewalk, dodging deep pits surrounded by low fences and magical shields—shortcuts for the swift-footed. She quickened her pace, hunching her shoulders against the drizzle and biting wind that whipped not just raindrops but tears from her cheeks.
Never! She would never become a donor! But what a mess! What pain! What despair! Surely, the shopkeeper must have seen her as utterly desperate to even mention such a dreadful thing, to dare suggest the offer from that terrifying Lady Heparinye! Had he noticed something in her eyes?
Because she had thought about it, hadn’t she? Emilietta was young, healthy, and death seemed so far off—like it lay on the other side of the endless Lisaro Sea, a body of water even the most seasoned sailors couldn’t cross, returning after years to say it had no end…
“Watch where you’re going! Open your eyes!” a man shouted as she nearly collided with him. Tears blurred her vision, making it hard to see the path ahead. “These beggars are trying to pick pockets in broad daylight now!”
Indeed, while sidestepping a large puddle, Emilietta accidentally bumped into a well-dressed gentleman, almost clinging to him as she grabbed the lapel of his fine coat to keep from falling. Her fingers instinctively latched onto something—anything! And it just so happened to be his breast pocket, where something was tucked away. The fabric, perhaps poorly sewn or just unlucky, tore. Emilietta had unintentionally ripped off the pocket! But who would believe it was an accident?
From the torn pocket of this fashionable gentleman spilled time tokens! About ten of them. And not mere day-tokens like Emilietta’s, but year-tokens! Three, five, even seven years, she saw!
Frozen in fear, she stood beside the man whose clothing she’d ruined—first offense. Second, and far worse, she’d caused an even greater disaster! Practically a crime!
All the time tokens scattered onto the rain-soaked pavement, into the mud! Right into the large puddle they’d both been trying to avoid. Emilietta had been skirting it too, just like these two wealthy passersby, when she crashed into them. She’d nearly slipped and fallen, which is why she grabbed his coat. And now, this immense, almost unimaginable wealth from his pocket lay at her feet and in the puddle!
“Oh!” Emilietta gasped in despair. “I didn’t mean to! Please, forgive me! I’ll pick them all up, I’ll find every one!”
Right there, where she stood, she dropped to her knees in the filthy puddle, frantically scooping up the muddy round time tokens, wiping them on the hem of her dress, and stacking them in her palm. The hem soaked through, water squelched under her knees, and her bag slapped into the mud too as she scrambled to retrieve the tokens in a panic.
2. The Three-Day Token Vanishes
“There should be exactly ten!” barked the dignified gentleman who had scolded Emilietta from the start. “Pick up every last one! And wipe them clean. Orellian, your coat is ruined beyond repair! I told you we should’ve taken a carriage, but no, you insisted on walking. ‘Let’s stretch our legs,’ you said! Well, here we are! This beggar probably did it on purpose! I read in the latest issue of *The Nouvelle* that this is exactly how pickpockets operate! They rush up, throw themselves at you, and while you’re distracted, they rifle through your pockets. It’s all so polished, then they pretend to have mistaken you for someone else and vanish with your belongings! We need to count every token carefully! Check if anything else is missing from your other pockets! I’ll check mine too!”
The older gentleman made a show of turning out his pockets, pulling out a handkerchief, a folded piece of paper, and a small comb for his mustache and beard.
“Fabian, that’s unnecessary,” said his companion, a polished young man of about thirty, eyeing Emilietta with a mix of surprise and disgust, as if she were some exotic creature.
The girl was still rummaging in the puddle, sifting through mud and murky water to fish out the tokens. “I doubt a pickpocket would wallow in a puddle to return stolen goods! Uh… get up, I’ll find my own tokens! Don’t touch them! Ugh! She reeks! These beggars are so repulsive!” Suddenly, the man froze, as if struck by a thought or memory. “Oh, Fabian, she’s given me an interesting idea… I need to think this over!” Then he snapped at her again. “Step back, I said!”
The young man waved his hand dismissively and irritably, and Emilietta flinched away from him. His hand was clad in an impeccably white glove! Her own hand, black with mud, couldn’t possibly touch something so pristine and pure!
She stood up on her own, bitterly noting how soaked and filthy her dress hem had become. And this was one of her last decent dresses! She’d have to spend ages washing and scrubbing out the dirt. Tomorrow was a workday! She only had two dresses in total: this dark blue one she wore now, and a brown one. But the brown one had a patch, though barely noticeable, so Emilietta didn’t like wearing it.
“I’ve gathered them all,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry, sir.”
She extended her muddy palm, holding ten round time tokens, gray with dirt and murky puddle water. Her eyes, however, greedily drank in the sight of them, unable to look away. In her hand was a fortune! Enough to give Yaretta many years of life…
The young man snorted, stretched out his hand, and held his palm over hers. Emilietta felt the tokens on her hand stir, lift into the air, and hover as they cleansed themselves of dirt. Once clean, they floated to his other hand, dropping into his palm with a satisfying clink.
“Count them, Orellian! Make sure they’re all there!” the older gentleman fretted again. Emilietta was a bit intimidated by him, with his thick beard, long mustache, and tall top hat. He reminded her of the stern property manager, Mr. Jurian, who had threatened to evict her and her sister if they didn’t pay their rent arrears. She’d settled that debt today, just before heading to the shop.
And now, what a disaster!
“Seems like they’re all here,” the young man nodded, not bothering to count them. “Though they’ll need a proper cleaning at home. They stink. Just like this… uh… beggar…”
He carelessly dumped them into his trouser pocket, leaving Emilietta stunned. Only the very wealthy could treat time tokens with such nonchalance.
Only now, recovering from the initial shock, did she notice how expensively and elegantly both men were dressed. They were likely on their way to some social event, and she’d nearly splattered them with mud.
She stepped aside to let the two men pass. The younger one cast another disdainful glance at Emilietta as he walked by, taking in her mud-splattered dress and arms, black up to the elbows from digging in the puddle. He curled his lip and turned away. For some reason, Emilietta felt a pang of bitterness and hurt.
And that scoundrel—he wielded magic! He could have easily pulled the tokens from the puddle with a flick of his hand. But no, he stood there watching her flounder in the cold, dirty water. What a wretch! He probably took pleasure in humiliating the poor, degrading them. Or maybe he despised women, looking down on them, likely mistreating his servants too…
Emilietta sighed, wrung out the soaked hem of her dress, smoothed it out as best she could, and shook off the dirt. She picked up her muddy, half-soaked bag, which she’d dropped on the pavement before searching for those wretched tokens…
And suddenly froze, stunned and nearly petrified!
The tokens! Yes! Time tokens! Her token! The three-day token! Three whole days for her sister, bought with her last coins!
To some, those three days might be a trifle, worthless rubbish, but for Yaretta, they were three days of life! Days that Emilietta had honestly purchased today with money earned through backbreaking labor!
Oh, what a mess! She’d been holding her token in her hand when she collided with those gentlemen. It must have slipped from her grasp, and in her panic, she hadn’t even noticed!
Frantically, she tossed her bag to the ground and dropped to her knees again, rummaging through the puddle once more in search of her token.
Oh, how awful! All the tokens were the same size! Even the engravings were somewhat similar! Whether for three years or three days!
After half an hour of futile splashing in the puddle, Emilietta trudged home. Covered head to toe in filth, reeking and utterly miserable…
Her token was gone. She must have handed it over with the others to that gentleman when she pulled them from the puddle. He hadn’t even counted them. They were dirty, so he didn’t notice. And neither did she!
What now? Though Emilietta was a girl of conscience and honesty, she wasn’t soft! She could stand up for herself when needed. Here, on the outskirts of the capital in the Steel Gate district, only the toughest survived—those who could fend for themselves and hold down a job. And Emilietta, most likely, would soon lose hers! How would she buy time for her sister then? Her heart clenched with grief. But she refused to let tears spill from her blue eyes.
No! She wouldn’t cry! There was always a way out, even from a hopeless situation like this! Emilietta sniffled, wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her dress—eyes that threatened to brim with tears—and started thinking rationally.
So, she’d have to find that gentleman. His companion had called him Orellian; she remembered that. And she’d get her token back! It rightfully belonged to her, to Emilietta! She didn’t want anything that wasn’t hers; she wasn’t a thief or a beggar! She would reclaim her property: the three-day token, honestly bought with honestly earned money, a token worth three whole days!
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*“The Nouvelle” - the name of a newspaper in the world of Farbon (from the French nouvelles - news).
3. Yaretta Argues
“Emi, wash up first. You look a mess,” Yaretta said with sympathy.
She sat on the couch, as always, pale and weary. She’d probably been embroidering nonstop again. Though she’d been told not to overdo it with the needle, she still did it secretly when Emilietta wasn’t around.
Her sister listened silently to the disheartening tale of the evening’s mishap, not interrupting. Only at the end did she sigh and say:
“Don’t go, Emi, please! Forget about that three-day token. Mr. Trumes from the fifth floor stopped by today; he ordered extra embroidery for his wife’s curtains. She loves my red poppies. They’ll pay, and we’ll buy another three-day token if it bothers you so much. I have a bad feeling about this. They’ll just insult and humiliate you again. Don’t go… I don’t want you to! You already work yourself to the bone! You’re thin as a rail! Oh, what would Mom say!” The girl looked at her sister pleadingly.
“No!” Emilietta lifted her chin defiantly and marched past her sister in just her undergarments. Though old, her underwear and bra were clean and neatly mended.
She filled a large basin with water and began washing her unfortunate dress, filthy and now with a hole at the knee she’d only just noticed. What a disaster. This dress would need a patch too. Of course, Yaretta would mend it so no one would notice, but still! Emilietta herself would know about the tear!
Everything, absolutely everything, was wearing out, breaking down, getting holes, and they couldn’t afford to buy anything new. She and Yaretta barely made ends meet as it was.
“I’m going! Tomorrow, after work! No question about it! We can’t afford to lose such a big chunk of time! Yari, I want you to live! And you will live!”
“I’ll live, I’ll live, where else would I go?” her sister forced a smile. “But I’m such a burden to you! Maybe it would be better to go to that Lady Heparinye? Not you, of course, but me!” she clarified calmly, seeing Emilietta’s shocked and horrified expression. “Donors are well-fed. And she’d probably heal me; they need healthy ones, after all,” the girl gazed dreamily out the window. “I could walk again! Oh, Emi, you can’t imagine how important it is to just be able to step onto the ground and walk…”
Emilietta turned away, unable to bear her sister’s sad gaze, her heart aching with pity. She forced a cheerful tone:
“Don’t worry, you’ll not only live, but you’ll walk again! I promise! Besides, the doctor is confident about it! Magical treatment just costs a fortune. But I’ll find the money somehow, you’ll see! And no more talk of donors, Yari! I’m sure everything will work out for us! Tomorrow, I’ll go and get that three-day token back! Let him hand it over! Otherwise, it turns out that Orellian is the thief now. He’s already rich; he probably has handfuls of those tokens! If he carries so many in his coat pocket, can you imagine how many he has at home? The old saying is true: the nobles live forever, while the poor get two days.”
Emilietta washed her face, scrubbing angrily at the dried mud stains on her cheeks. Tears had fallen after all, despite her efforts to hold them back. She’d wiped them with the dirty sleeve of her dress. Irritated, she also scrubbed the hem of her dress, rinsing it in the water and thinking how lucky it was that the dress was dark-colored. If it had been light, she’d have had to turn it into rags or repurpose it into something else, as Yaretta often did with old clothes.
The sisters lived in a large five-story building owned by the manufacturer Morsen. On the ground floor were a small bakery and a pharmacy, rented out by the property manager, Jurian, while the upper four floors housed tiny rooms—not even proper apartments—for the poor. Still, they were called apartments. And only those with jobs who could pay rent could afford to live there.
The sisters had moved to the capital two years ago. Before that, they’d lived in a small provincial town with a close-knit family, enjoying life. Their father was a jeweler, their mother sewed clothes and made embroideries for sale, teaching the girls the craft as well. Everything would have been fine if not for the latest Time Quake.
It changed the sisters’ lives forever. Their town was nearly destroyed. Their parents perished under the rubble of their home, and Yaretta sustained a leg injury that left her unable to walk. During the Time Quake, she was touched by a Time Sprout. Now, she was among those whose lives were drained of time far too quickly.
All those marked by Sprouts lived short lives. Their time was cut drastically. To add years, one had to buy time at special shops.
Time mages crafted time in the form of tokens and sold them to such people. Not everyone could afford it, of course. But even for a regular life, one could buy extra time! The wealthy could live forever, as long as they had the money. Rumor had it that His Majesty, King Vasterian, had already extended his life by thousands of years!
Time Quakes, when Sprouts emerged and marked people, shortening their lives, maintained the life and time balance in their kingdom. No one was safe from Time Sprouts. No one. But everyone thought they’d be spared. Emilietta’s family had thought so too. But…
After their parents’ death, the sisters received a small compensation from the state and decided to move to the capital. Emilietta was determined to find a good job, rent a place, and treat her sister. She also needed to buy time tokens to extend Yaretta’s life, which, like all marked ones, would stop five years after the Time Quake.
Yaretta’s five years would be up in a week. But Emilietta was calm: her sister would live on for at least another year! Despite their dire poverty, they’d managed to save enough for time tokens over these two years. They even called in a doctor occasionally, as Emilietta hadn’t given up hope of getting her sister back on her feet—literally. And the doctor gave them hope too.
And now, all this talk about donors! No, Emilietta would never allow it! She’d work day and night if she had to, but her sister would live! She wouldn’t give up her life!
By morning, the blue dress was still damp, so Emilietta had to wear the brown one. In it, she truly looked like a beggar in hand-me-down clothes. The dress was too big, hanging on her like a sack, as it had once belonged to her mother. There’d never been time to alter it. After the Time Quake, very little had been salvaged from the ruins of their home—most of their belongings had burned in the fire that followed.
After saying goodbye to her sister, who was already sneaking a sly glance at her embroidery basket despite being told not to overdo it, Emilietta headed to work.
Emilietta worked at Master Versagni’s workshop, where they sewed yellow-striped, baggy robes for prisoners and drab, standard-issue uniforms for soldiers. He took on small orders from unscrupulous commanders and officials who cut corners on military and prison budgets.
But an unpleasant surprise awaited her at the workshop. The table where she usually sat at her sewing machine was gone.
“You’ve been let go, Miss Emilietta. I’m sorry. I warned everyone in advance that I’d be cutting staff. The cost of equipment and rent is just too high. So, I have to… Don’t take it personally; you’re a good worker. That’s just life…”
Master Versagni avoided her gaze. He genuinely felt bad about letting people go, but… that’s just life. “He needs to buy time tokens for his wife too,” Emilietta recalled. She nodded, said her goodbyes, and left. Deep down, she’d been prepared for this. Still, her nose stung, and tears welled up in her eyes. It was bitter and hurtful. Master Versagni handed her a small envelope, inside which she found a few coins—payment for her last two days of work.
Well, since she was completely free now, she could go straight to that Orellian and ask for her token back. The thought lifted her spirits a little. First, though, she needed to find out where the man lived. She only knew his name and remembered his appearance. His mocking, haughty stare still lingered in her mind.
She stopped by the information bureau at the station square. It housed a few cramped booths where, for a fee, you could search for someone. The old machines, introduced decades ago by the Inventors’ Guild, worked slowly but almost flawlessly.
Two coins dropped into a slot beneath a round, dusty window smeared with fly specks did the trick. A creaky, metallic voice, after hearing her query, informed her that there were three thousand eight hundred and twenty-four Orellians in the capital. She narrowed the age range, inputting twenty-five to thirty-five on a dial-like panel. That’s roughly how old her offender from yesterday seemed to be. The number of Orellians dropped to five hundred and forty-three. Then, after a moment’s thought, she entered an approximate height and specified an above-average financial status, since he certainly didn’t look poor. The voice listed fifteen men who matched these criteria.
Now, she had to pay to view photographs of these men. Maybe one of them was the person she was looking for. The bureau charged one coin per photo. Emilietta got incredibly lucky: the man she sought was the third one. The arrogant, disdainful face stared at her from the photograph. Yes, it was him—the one who’d called her a beggar and a swindler.
Mr. Sanye Joffred Orellian, whose address the machine printed on a piece of yellow cardboard, lived not far from the station square and the capital’s center, in a private mansion. Emilietta set off in that direction. She was determined: she would absolutely reclaim her three-day token!
All the way there, she rehearsed what she’d say to the haughty gentleman. She even practiced speaking firmly and confidently while walking along the sidewalk, when no passersby were nearby.
But when she arrived at the address, she froze in astonishment, shock, and fear. She was struck by the enormous palace before her, stopping at its grand entrance gates. Mr. Sanye Joffred Orellian was clearly an incredibly, staggeringly wealthy man…