Fifty-three minutes.
"The high table will demand triple-digit returns on the hectare yield, or they dump the lot into the private bidding pool," Pelagi barked, kicking a stack of empty seed crates aside. Ink stained her knuckles, charcoal dust coating the cuffs of her jacket. She slapped a sheaf of blank vellum drafting paper across the potting bench. "Talk to me, green-thumb. How do we keep the springs flowing without starving the treasury?"
"We don't build over the water," Fiaza said. Her palms were caked in dry loam, but her mind moved faster than a wild vine in monsoon season. "We feed off it. Vellor, what is the precise mineral balance of the deep terrace shelf?"
From the shadowy corner behind the potted ferns, Vellor stepped into the warm lantern beam. His coat was threadbare, his hands tremulous as he drew a series of hand-drawn distillation charts from an oilcloth sleeve. "The iron and phosphorous ratio is lethal to typical flora, but it supercharges night-blooming aster and moon-chive. If I draw forty liters daily for my girl's treatments, the aquifer's head-pressure drops by only two percent. It doesn't dry out. It aerates."
"And aerated water doubles the volatile sugars in culinary herbs," Zaren said.
He had shed his coat hours ago. The pristine linen of his cuffs was rolled to his forearms, a smudge of charcoal slicing high across his sharp cheekbone. He didn't look like an exiled scion stripped of billions; he looked like a predator who had finally found meat worth hunting. He drew a drafting quill from Pelagi's hand, stepping so close to Fiaza that the scent of his rosemary-infused skin cut through the damp smell of peat.
"A terraced pavilion," Zaren murmured, his strokes fast and clean on the thick parchment. "Not a resort for bloated syndicates. A culinary conservatory. Six tables per evening, open exclusively to those who pay fortunes to taste dishes cooked with live, volatile herbs harvested thirty seconds prior. Vellor operates the subterranean dispensary beneath the spring basin. The luxury dining on the upper tiers funds the pediatric clinic below three times over."
Fiaza caught his sleeve, her chest tight. "You're integrating a charity clinic into a five-star dining sanctum? The council will call it impossible."
"Let them try," Zaren murmured, his mouth curving with that familiar, wicked curve, but the amusement in his dark eyes had sharpened into pure steel. "You supply the soil alchemy, Little Weed. I'll supply the palate. Pelagi formats the charter under the maritime guild codes."
"On it," Pelagi muttered, her quill already flying across the margins. "Forty minutes until the gavel falls. Move your aristocratic arses."
***
The Grand Chamber smelled of polished marble, ozone, and old money.
At the raised semicircular dais, the city aldermen sat in high-backed chairs carved from petrified driftwood. Below them, pacing across the polished flags in tailored silk, stood Callista Vandel.
In her manicured grip, the guild heiress flourished an official draft stamped with the purple wax seal of the Vandel Mercantile Guild.
"Three hundred million crowns," her voice rang out, clear and cutting over the murmurs of the gallery. "Immediate transfer to the civic treasury. We level the weed-choked terrace, pave the lower basin, and erect the Azure Casino. Why allow a disgraced family castoff and his dirt-stained mascot to peddle fantasies when my guild offers cold coin today?"
Zaren didn't rush. He walked through the brass double doors with casual, liquid grace, Fiaza beside him. He carried the rolled parchment tucked beneath his arm, his chin held high, totally unbothered by the venomous glares cast toward him by his father's former cronies.
"The lady speaks of cold coin," Zaren announced, his rich baritone slicing through the hall, "because she lacks the wit to cultivate gold that grows."
Vandel spun on her heel, her sneer sharpening. "Ah. The pauper prince returns. Did you scavenge enough coppers to buy back your birthright, Zaren? Or did you come to watch your pet project get crushed under my foundations?"
She looked past him, locking her cold eyes onto Fiaza, raking her gaze down Fiaza's moss-speckled tunic and work boots. "A shame about your little nursery, girl. Once my crews take the sunken tract, we'll need somewhere to dump the slag. Perhaps your greenhouse will make a lovely landfill."
Fiaza felt Zaren shift beside her, his balance settling forward onto the balls of his boots. The lazy smirk vanished from his mouth, replaced by a still, lethal glare so sharp that the scribe at the lower bench scooted his seat back across the flags. Zaren moved ahead, tendons corded in his neck, ready to tear into Vandel before the assembly.
Fiaza laid her hand flat against his chest, stopping him.
His gaze snapped down to her, blazing with territorial fire, but she offered him a cheeky, crooked grin. "Let me handle the weeds, Morante."
Fiaza stepped into the center of the mosaic floor. She didn't bow to the dais. She drew a small brass magnifying lens from her belt, clicking it shut against her palm with a sharp crack that echoed off the high vaulting.
"Lady Vandel's proposal is void," Fiaza said clearly.
The heiress let out a sharp, brittle laugh. "By whose authority? You are an unranked surveyor with an empty bank vault!"
"By the authority of the Maritime Floral Codex, Article Ninety-Four, passed during the Third Reclamation," Fiaza replied, her voice ringing across the stone benches. She turned toward the presiding bench. "The terrace is anchored by a three-century-old colony of silver-ribbed liverwort. That root mesh is classified as an active bioluminescent foundation system. According to civic law, no commercial excavation, paving, or restructuring may occur on land bound by such roots without the explicit, notarized endorsement of a certified, licensed master of flora registered to this district."
Silence dropped across the chamber.
One of the elderly officials adjusted his spectacles, frantically flipping through a leather-bound volume perched on the desk.
Vandel's smirk faltered. "Nonsense. A technicality! My advocates can have that restriction dismissed by evening—"
"They can try," Fiaza countered, stepping squarely into Callista's space, her vibrant chin tipped up with vicious delight. "Except I am the only registered warden holding active jurisdiction over this precinct. And I officially, categorically, refuse permission. You can bring your three hundred million crowns to this floor every single day, Callista. But you won't touch a single shovelful of dirt without committing high civic treason."
Callista choked, veins standing out purple along the column of her throat. "You miserable little swamp rat!"
"Mind your tongue," Zaren's voice dropped like an iron portcullis.
He moved behind Fiaza, placing his hand firmly at the small of her back. The touch was burning, claiming her before the entire assembly with an unmasked, terrifying pride that left no room for doubt about who she belonged to. He looked down at Callista with merciless contempt.
"You heard her," Zaren said softly, the rasp in his voice dropping below the gallery's whisper. "The answer is no."
He unrolled their master vellum across the front desk. "Now. If the aldermen would care to review an enterprise that honors maritime law while yielding twice the revenue of a common gaming hall, look here."
Murmurs rippled through the elevated seats as the elders leaned forward. Vellor’s figures, Pelagi’s meticulous legal phrasing, and Zaren’s culinary-magic margins captured them instantly. Whispers became nods. The presiding magistrate raised his gavel.
"The conservatory-clinic hybrid meets all statutory codes," the presiding alderman decreed, his voice booming over Callista's furious silence. "The chamber approves the third option in principle. The gardens will be leased to Vintari and Morante."
Her knees went slack under the sudden release of tension, pulling her sideways into Zaren. He caught her waist instantly, tucking her against his ribs with an arm that wouldn't let go.
"However," the elder added, striking the timber with a brass mallet, "under emergency charter provisions, securing the title requires an immediate, non-refundable deposit of eighty million crowns by noon tomorrow, or the site defaults unconditionally to the private auction."
Fiaza looked up at Zaren. His gaze went flat and cold as the sum struck the marble—his frozen vaults held nothing, and their pockets were utterly bare.