Chapter 12 - The Wheelhouse
A woman wearing an ultrastitched velvet robe tapped her feet - clad in gleaming leather highwalkers - on a shiny obsidian table. In an ageless hand she swirled a glass chalice, half-drained of wine. The garnet fermentation twisted round the rim in a small wave. The bright lights of the room reflected in dazzling sparkles on its surface. With a languorous air, she brought the drink to her cherry lips. As she sipped, her ivory cheeks bloomed with two patches of blush.
“Sublime,” she drawled.
The word vanished into the cavernous room. It vanished, into a wilderness of mad laughter. The word itself spun in the atmosphere of the room, just as the wine spun in the chalice.
Then a thundering voice filled the room to its corners.
“Last Call! Stand your bets ladies and gentleman. Find your fractions.”
The woman swirled the wine again, a swirl per sip. The movement complemented the continued whirling of the wheelhouse.
On every wall; on every ceiling; in marching-order rows of floor machines; on smaller, compact machines inlaid on every scrolled table’s surface; carved in effigy on every tile in the floor; everywhere, house wheels waltzed in a carousel swirl. The house ceaselessly spun. Sometimes a wheel paused, here or there, as it drained a little more precious treasure from its victim. But the wheel would roll almost instantly back to life, dancing to the tune of the macabre wheelhouse terpsichore.
On the ground, at the center of the room, sunken below the wheel-tiled surface, the signature of every wheelhouse waited restlessly. The Great Wheel. A few bidders had already taken their chosen slots on the huge, moveable deck. Others rushed out with last moment bets. The growl of an enormous dragon engine somewhere below the building foretold the next spin of the great, round beast.
Mr. Grey stepped into the flashing interior of the wheelhouse from the cold, wet, gloomy night. The flashing flamelights lining every wall and wheel instantly robbed him of all obscurity. Even his shadow vanished when he entered. In the wheelhouse, shadows stopped at the door.
Mr. Grey had never entered a wheelhouse before; quite an accomplishment for someone who’d spent their entire existence in Starharbor. The establishment’s gaudy face dazed him. He stopped just inside the threshold. Every solid surface came with a garnish of dazzling flame. Every light pulled the eyes toward the nearest wheel. Every visitor’s face flushed in the glare of those lights; flushed with wine and other liquors; flushed with wild, high laughter.
A series of flaring horns boomed with the same words Mr. Grey had heard only faintly from the outside. The house seemed to trap the announcement within itself, like an echo carried by canyon walls. It traveled along the spokes of the spinning wheels, and crashed down across the floor in a blanket of sound. “Last Call! Stand your bets ladies and gentleman. Find your fractions.”
Mr. Grey presented a poorer sight than usual as he marched across the wheelhouse floor. He walked with typical posture and gait, but his robe carried a diverse collection of street gunk, and a fresh soaking of jelly rain. Dust from the exploded factory clung to his hair and shoulder. A piece of rubbery pufferfrog skin trailed from one of his shoes.
The caterers and hostesses shifted around him with disdainful glances. They thought him poor.
Mr. Grey passed down flashing rows of smaller wheel machines, clung-to by men dizzy with the spins. From this closer perspective, he noticed another trait in the patrons’ faces. The eyes didn’t carry the flush that he’d seen clearly in the cheeks. The eyes didn’t even reflect the lights flashing right against them. The eyes of the players were inky, like the stares of non-existence. The eyes followed the wheels in hypnotic swirling. Some of them were very bright - not flushed and vivid, but harshly bright - youthful eyes, not yet matured through repeated crushing of hopes. Others were of a faded character. Those eyes, thought Mr. Grey, had been cut against the grain so often that they’d lost all texture. Those eyes simply adhered to whatever surface they found, and watched it with mute tedium.
More people pushed roughly past Mr. Grey. They teetered towards the rotating wheel floor, dizzy with chance, tipsy with wine. What unbalanced them were the loads of calcified bugs, shiny rocks, and other treasures cradled in their arms and hands. The people stumbled down a marble half-stair to reach the sunken great wheel. The bidders never took a full tumble. A hostess or shoulder jockey always stepped to the rescue. The wheelhouse made sure that visitors were always able to place their bets.
The dragon engine’s growl vibrated through the building’s foundation. Mr. Grey watched the great wheel shudder in anticipation. The announcer called for standers in his hypnotic, attention-grabbing voice. The great wheel ballooned up from its recess in the floor; like the distended belly of the wheelhouse, partitioned into betting wedges by small low walls sticking from its surface like ribs. At the axial pinnacle of the dome-like wheel, the wedges stood higher than the ground floor. That spot, the top of the great wheel where all the wedges met, spun with a perfect panorama of the rest of the house.
Mr. Grey thought the great wheel’s axis would be a good vantage point to search for Honeydew. He also thought that the wheel; with its spectrum of flamelight-embedded wedges; with its promises of grand fortune; with its menagerie of bidders, all carrying different loads of treasure, all wearing different cuts and patterns of robe; Mr. Grey thought all this looked ‘fun’. At least, ‘fun’ in the way most people told Mr. Grey he should define it.
Mr. Grey, without changing anything in the motion of his stride, doubled its frequency. He followed the other players rushing for the awakening wheel.
People avoided touching Mr. Grey, or his dirt-smeared robes and skin. The house held a few enchanters, who offered him a swift clean for a small fee. These enchanters were employed by the wheelhouse. They helped people spend any excess treasure won through some unaccountably lucky spin. Mr. Grey’s focus was on the wheel, however, so he brushed past the cleaning services.
Two shapes skulked in suddenly from either side. They moved before Mr. Grey and forced him to a stone-grinding stop. He craned his neck over the two. He would have checked his pocket ticker, but Mr. Grey’s hands were full at that moment.
“Fortune in midges?” barked one shape. He was a hairy man, wearing a suit-robe, with huge sideburns.
“Do you find yourself, my dear sir, in desperate want of spending treasure?” whined the other man; also hairy and suited, but with a full head of oiled, onyx locks.
Both individuals wore huge, round sunglasses, which cast huge, round shadows around their tiny, shiny eyes. They circled around Mr. Grey, one on either side. Around all three, the wheel machines cavorted with wild abandon.
“Sorry gentlemen, no time. That big wheel looks like it’s about to go…”
“Win more treasure,” said the one with the coarse sideburns, again in a short, barking tone.
“My friend - or, put precisely, my other friend - suggests one of existence’s indisputable platitudes,” said the only haired one in his whining speech. “‘Pebbles only get you pebbles’, my new friend! If it is pleasing to you, we humble servants-”
“-Blackjaw-” said the sideburned one, giving his name.
“-and Slake: Finders for Hire, would be immensely delighted to supply your wheel-staking ventures with the most ample funds imaginable.” The oily one, Slake, concluded the finders’ pitch.
The dragon engine buried underneath the building growled louder than ever. The center wheel - the whole wheelhouse - shook to its foundation. The shiny pebbles in the smaller wheel machines rattled like detached, golden teeth in a bleached skull. The announcer blared over the horns. “Last Call Lovelies! Stand your bets. Find your fractions.”
“Terribly sorry, gentlemen,” said Mr. Grey. “That does sound like the ‘last’ last call,” He tried slipping out between the circling finders. The fuzzy faced one with the sharp sideburns, Blackjaw, circled in front of him.
“Quick and easy terms,” said Blackjaw. From a pocket in his suit robe he pulled a readymade finder’s contract. From another he drew a quill, pre-dipped in pocket-ink.
“Sorry,” said Mr. Grey. He shrugged his arms to show his hands were full, and swerved around the persistent finder.
Slake slid from behind. He reached a hairy hand to take the bundle from Mr. Grey’s arms. Blackjaw, however, had seen the stoic measure of Mr. Grey. He’d seen beneath the layer of street grime and wear. The finder had realized Mr. Grey wasn’t going to sign any contract without reading. He checked his partner, and the two let Mr. Grey go… for the moment.
Mr. Grey passed down the row of whirling machines. A young man shoved away from one lesser machines, grumbling, “You would give me a run of buffaloes…” Mr. Grey swerved to avoid the disappointed bidder. His quick and even steps brought him to the top of the great wheel’s marble steps. At the same moment, with a dragon roar, the ballooning wheel floor rolled into a tockwise rotation. The differently-sized wedges lit up with different odds. With a last ditch sprint and a jump, Mr. Grey might just make it on the board.
His foot hadn’t touched the first polished step when he felt the smash of shoulder at his side. Mr. Grey tumbling across the floor, away from the steps. He caught his footing, and turned to see one of the wheelhouse shoulder jockeys. The man stood before the steps to the great wheel, staring at Mr. Grey with arms folded, brow furrowed in a scowl.
“I’m sorry-” said Mr. Grey, catching his breath.
“Not like that,” said the jockey.
“Pardon?”
“Not filth-like. Wheel’s got eyes on it. You’d soil the view.”
Mr. Grey looked down at himself. He noticed, for the first time, his disheveled state. The dust from the factory explosion encased his body. It had mixed with the jelly drenching he’d gathered on his journey to the wheelhouse, and dried under the wheelhouse ultralight to lacquer his body in concrete grime.
“Oh,” said Mr. Grey.
The brusque jockey, seeing Mr. Grey’s confusion, softened. “Change n’ you can get on. With a bet, of course.”
“Change?”
The Jockey motioned impatiently to the bundle in Mr. Grey’s arms. Mr. Grey looked down.
In his arms lay the wool anchor shawl he’d woven with the two old ladies, forgotten until this moment, perfectly clean.
A few moments later, the shoulder jockey let Mr. Grey pass unhindered. The wheel had finished the previous spin, but the announcer’s voice was already calling for the next round of bidders to, “Stand your bets.” Mr. Grey showed the betting clerk at the great wheel’s base the minimum bid needed to board. He now wore the anchor shawl draped over his shoulders. It covered most of the grime from the factory explosion. Additionally, he’d received a complimentary wash at the wheelhouse pipe-water station. ‘Complementary’, that is, after paying the pipe water tax of three shiny pebbles.
Mr. Grey stepped onto the bulbous wheel, treasure in hand. He chose a spot with odds only a little out of his favor. Other customers had already found their desired spots on the various wedges. Most of them wore flashier robes than Mr. Grey: gridded robes with plastic squares and neon lines, robes with calligraphic stitches making word puzzles at every seam, jingly robes with tiny tambourines sewn about the waist. Mr. Grey’s shawl was lighter and anchor-ier than his heavily starched robe, and the linen used in its weaving left loose, curly hairs sticking out like weeds across the fabric. It tidied his looks just enough to gain entrance, but contrasted against the vibrant garb of the other bidders.
Mr. Grey, to his immense discomfort, stuck out.
The floor beneath him jerked sharply sideways. The dragon engine growled into the first tockwise rotation. Mr. Grey stumbled, but kept hold of his treasure. He noticed that most people had braced against the low, crenelated walls that divided the wedges of the wheel. Most bidders foresaw the first jerk. No one had dropped anything yet. All the other bidders held bigger treasure bundles in their arms than Mr. Grey.
Mr. Grey let his eyes turn on the rest of the house. He climbed up his rounded wedge to the axis, the highest point of the wheel. There the rounded floor was the flattest, and balancing the easiest, but the embedded flamelights beneath the stander gave the worst odds.
Mr. Grey didn’t look at the odds. He didn’t care about the minimum bet in his hands. Mr. Grey saw his bet as spent treasure; an entrance fee for a spot with a view. When the great wheel began to spin, he kept his focus on the surrounding room, kept it on the paths between the spinning rows of smaller wheel machines on the first floor, kept it on the shadowy corners and smoky table atmosphere of the balconied second. As the great wheel carried Mr. Grey in its panoramic spin, he kept his eyes of flat greyness searching for a fabric collection of peepers embedded in sunflowers.
As the dragon engine roared below the floor, hidden pipes in the wheelhouse ceiling whistled a calliope tune. Mr. Grey stood between the sounds, spinning slowly, one hand keeping balance on the porcelain fang that formed the great wheel’s axis. Mr. Grey hadn’t seen Honeydew when the wheel reached its first full circle.
At that moment the dragon engine surged with zeal. Every flamelight display embedded along the wedges changed values. Every spot promising different odds than the ones that had been there when the participants entered. This was standard. The values would change with every complete rotation, prompting riders to move to different places in the wheel, spinning faster and faster and changing more often as it approached the end.
The flamelights beneath Mr. Grey now showed astronomical odds of winning. Mr. Grey didn’t notice. He’d been momentarily distracted when the odds switched, but not by the lights themselves. A sudden frenzy of his fellow riders caught his eye. Mr. Grey alone kept his statue-like stillness, grasping at the fanged axis, his anchor shawl trailing behind like a banner. Every other participant scrambled. They cast their eyes madly over the floor, searching desperately for their desired odds. They hopped over the low dividing walls and across the wedges.
Everyone had glued their hopes on specific numbers and odds and flames.
Some bidders accidentally dropped a few pebbles, or let slip from their fingers a calcified bug, in that first rush. An older bidder tripped while crossing one of the gothic crenellations dividing the wedges. His whole armful of treasures - the entire fortune he’d brought to stake on this spin of the great wheel - spilled out of his hands. The shiny pebbles, the cat bones, the holiday cards; all his wealth rattled and tinkled and fluttered down the ballooning slope.
The man shambled after his treasure, but the whole lot raced down the mathematically-steep slope. His treasure vanished into the grating at the base of the great wheel.
That was it. The man had lost his entire bet before the calling of the results. That was the risk of taking a stand on the great wheel.
A hostess approached and helped the man dismount. His spin was finished.
As she turned to lead the man away, Mr. Grey looked sharp at this hostess. But she wore a garish, carnival-tent robe, not the sunflower-eye pattern. He returned his gaze to the rushing galleries.
Another cycle of the wheel passed. And another. And another. The odds on every spot of every wedge jumped and plummeted, ostensibly at random. A keen observer might note that the aggregate stakes trended downward as spins accumulated, turning more in the house’s favor. Each fresh change sent the standers bustling across the wheel’s rounded surface like ants on a mound. All except for Mr. Grey, the stone at the summit. His odds changed without his caring.
Yet, for all this searching, no sign of Honeydew. Perhaps she worked in a back room? That didn’t seem likely. Perhaps she wasn’t working today? That was possible.
On the dozenth spin, the dragon engine groaned portentously. The wheel began to slow. Mr. Grey’s odds plummeted - they dragged his hopes down with them.
The wheel jerked and stuttered through its final spin. Many bidders spilled their bets in the scramble for final spots. Mr. Grey remained motionless. On the stationary floors he fixed his searching eyes, stone still and desperate.
This last spin, like all the ones before it, changed nothing for Mr. Grey. He caught no sight of the girl he searched for, and gave no care to the altered odds.
The dragon engine growled to a throaty stop. The lights around the wedged spangled, then strobed. The room held its collective breath. All but Mr. Grey. He let his breath out in a disappointed sigh.
Mr. Grey paid no mind when the strobing ended. He was blind to the light suddenly blooming beneath him. He missed the announcer saying, “Twirled, Stood, and Made Good. We have a victor!” He didn’t notice the forced clapping and gnawing, jealous eyes of his fellow riders. He heeded not the sudden interest of ‘Blackjaw and Slake: Finders for Hire’, or the coming-together of the floor bosses with a panicked whisper. He may be excused in the last ignorances, as the bosses met behind his back.
Mr. Grey only knew that he had not seen Honeydew.
He stepped away from the axis fang, towards the exit.
“Twice or naught, lovely standers! Rare twice or naught! Same participants only; all must stay!”
Mr. Grey only wanted to go. He cared not for the minimum bid he thought he’d lost. His shoes drummed a steady, disappointed rhythm against the wedge as he moved to the exit ramp. He ignored the announcer, who repeated with urgency, “Twice or naught if everyone stays! Rare chance!”
The floor boss standing nearby quivered with terror. To him, Mr. Grey looked every part the pitiless conqueror, victory-marching to steal the wheelhouse’s fortune. The other participants looked at Mr. Grey with incredulous scorn, and no small anger. What was this insane grey man doing?! He’d get two times the treasure if he just won again! He could buy a stilt house, or a fleet of highwheels! We’d all double our chances, if only this idiot weren’t a wretched spoilsport!
Mr. Grey noticed none of the looks. Unknowingly, he inflicted every other interested party to his own sharp resignation.
Suddenly, someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him. Mr. Grey turned to behold the hostess in the plain carnival stripes; turned to behold… Honeydew!
His eyes rounded in involuntary surprise. Honeydew said, “Thought it was you - click,” That click expressed simple, friendly acknowledgement. “Barely recognized you in…” She motioned at the yarny anchor shawl draping Mr. Grey’s head and shoulders.
“You had trouble recognizing me?” said Mr. Grey with inward surprise. Then in a more controlled emotion, and the same voice: “Only, you look different yourself. I guess pinstripes are a standard wheelhouse uniform?”
But it wasn’t just the uniform which had thrown off Mr. Grey’s sight. Honeydew wore an altered expression. Little of the usual sharpness and high spirit glimmered in her pupils. It seemed that in the wheelhouse, employees and patrons alike suffered from that same, sanded-down dullness of eye.
Honeydew said, “We wouldn’t wear our own- Hey, are you alright?” She looked over Mr. Grey’s tattered and stained robe worn beneath the shawl, and saw the small scratches on his hands and face. “Another bat colony?”
“It’s nothing,” said Mr. Grey. He knocked a patch of rubble loose with a stiff pat. “Can you spare a moment?”
“Afraid not. I’m on the job.” Then Honeydew looked aside, and saw the field of anticipating eyes. She recognized the focused attention of the announcer, the shoulder jockey, the floor bosses, and the other bidders. All glared at Mr. grey. All went unnoticed by him.
Honeydew said, “You should get off. Grab your spoils.”
“Should what?”
“Smart of you to take a win. But they’ll spin again if you don’t move.”
Mr. Grey turned his attention on the expectant faces. His mind winced at the unwanted attention, but Mr. Grey waved a cold, dry, dismissive hand. “That’s nothing. If you’ve got some tocks to listen between hosting… That’s the reason I came without cleaning up first.”
She reassessed Mr. Grey and crossed her arms. “You didn’t plan your win.” It was not a question.
“I didn’t notice.”
“Huh. Well I told you, I’m on the job.” Honeydew stepped towards the exit ramp.
Mr. Grey followed. The other standers crossed their arms and deepened their scowls, but Mr. Grey had already forgotten them. “I had a long chat with these two older ladies, outside a bean factory. They gave me an idea or two. Plus this shawl. I could catch you up while you make your rounds.”
“Mr. Grey, I’m busy. Some other-” Honeydew’s eyes caught those of a floor boss. His eyes and his arms, seeing that Mr. Grey followed her closely, urged her to stay on the wheel. Mr. Grey’s eyes, locked to Honeydew, did not see this. Honeydew’s eyes rolled; her head followed them. She looked at Mr. Grey.
“I’ll stick around if you go for the Twice or Naught.”
“Whatever works best for you.” Mr. Grey’s voice, while measured, couldn’t quite conceal his delight.
“Mr. Grey, you won a hoard. I’d get off were I in your shoes.”
“It’s no concern. Pick wherever you’d like to stand.”
Honeydew prowled back up the wheel and took a stand beside a crenelated wall. Her chosen spot held decent odds, lying about halfway up their current wedge. She rested a hand on the stones and motioned with her eyes for Mr. Grey to do the same.
The other standers saw that Mr. Grey had wizened to their perspectives. They gleefully found their own positions. The floor boss whispered something into the announcer’s ear. With the toss of a lever and a sudden, deafening roar, the dragon engine bellowed fiercely back to existence. It wrenched into motion with a furious inertial force. Many riders fell instantly, their pebbles and bookmarks slipping between their fingers.
Honeydew had anticipated the harsh spin and crouched low to brace for it, though she had no treasure to lose. She reached a hand to hold Mr. Grey steady too, but the gesture was superfluous. Mr. Grey excelled at standing still.
“So,” began Mr. Grey, slowly, “the thing I wanted to tell you, which bore coming through a pretty heavy Wind, and right after a factory explosion-”
“What?” asked Honeydew sharply.
“Another time. Well, what I wanted to say, and which you might be concerned about, is essentially this: that I’ve decided on remaining in town. I’m not going on vacation.” Mr. Grey finished firmly. He’d decided, on the way to Honeydew’s wheelhouse, that the squat, heavy, left-standing crone had been the wisest. She’d suggested he remain here and take his chances with Honeydew. Mr. Grey was going to try just that.
His reveal did not do what he expected. Honeydew looked at him without expression. “Why?”
“I thought you wanted me to stay in Starharbor?”
“What made you think that? Forget it. Go on your trip. You need a new excitement or two.”
“I worry we’d fall apart if I cross the moats. That’s the ‘why’, I suppose.”
Honeydew sighed through her nose. “Mr. Grey, hold on-”
The wheel completed its first rotation. It jerked into even faster motion. The Room rushed. The flamelights strobed. The chances changed.
Honeydew picked out a new section with odds that weren’t terrible, and motioned for Mr. Grey to follow her with his bet. They attached themselves to a new section of parapet. She resumed, “You’re kind. But… chance just didn’t place us in the same wedge. Do you understand?”
“I don’t think so?”
“You and I, we have separate schemes. We play in different spheres.”
“If you’d rather I go so I can bring back stories…”
Honeydew clicked snappishly. “I don’t want to hear about stories.”
“Isn’t it better to hear about distant places than not? It’s fuel for the mind.” Mr. Grey had resorted to blurting whatever idea managed to collate into words first.
“Not for me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Enjoy your vacation Mr. Grey. I’m jealous of you. Really.”
“You’re too busy; whether I go or stay.” Mr. Grey stood still, while the wheel spun the room around him. He reached limply for his pocket and the polished metal of his ticker, but dropped his hand halfway.
“Exactly. Too much work. No time for small outings. You understand.”
Mr. Grey thought hard for a silent moment. When the dragon engine roared again, the wheel picked up another turn of velocity. Honeydew moved to a new bid.
Mr. Grey followed. He waited many more degrees in the spin before saying, “Would you be interested in taking a little time off? Just occasionally?”
“Not worth it for little engagements. Too much lost income.”
This had not gone at all the way Mr. Grey had hoped. He remained inert at the crenelation. One cold hand lay hard-knuckled against the gothic stone. His face showed no exceptional emotion, though it seemed pale beside the anchor shawl.
The wheel fumed into its final turns. The lights in the wedges flashed to new, worse odds. Honeydew padded lightly to one at random, having not cared about the game from the start. Mr. Grey watched her walk away. He remained at the wall.
An idea pounced upon him. A sudden clarity-of-motives, he thought. He rushed down the wedge slop and caught up with Honeydew. The movement caused two shiny pebbles to slip from his grasp and disappear between the dark metal-grate teeth at the wheel’s base. Mr. Grey hardly cared. He stepped onto the same bet as her. She turned to him, and an open, annoyed glare spread over her face. Her brow furrowed, and her lips curled back in the beginnings of snarl-click.
“What else?” she asked in a growl.
“Would you be willing to take a longer time off?”
She almost laughed, then stared incredulously. “Are you oblivious, Mr. Grey?”
“No. I mean I don’t think so. But it occurred to me, if you want to see sights yourself… And if I were to request a guest on my vacation… And that got approved… Well… then… you might accompany me?”
The wheel positively flung itself into the final turn; faster and with greater violence than it had ever moved, in all its many, hope-devouring spins. Mr. Grey and Honeydew both stumbled. More pebbles dropped from Mr. Grey’s hands. The lights flashed decent odds beneath them, but neither noticed. Honeydew looked at him with a suspicious narrowness in her eyes. She asked, “There’s a chance I can come?”
“More than a chance,” said Mr. Grey. He stood straight again and gathered his decorum, though the wheel still made the loose threads of his shawl billow. “The Regional Justice Center allows one guest per visa. Usually it’s a partner or spouse.” Mr. Grey cleared his throat dryly. “Anyway, if a bigger experience is what you wanted-”
“Absolutely!” Honeydew swatted Mr. Grey on the shoulder. Though she still wore the striped robe, her eyes took on the old, wild, sunrise-on-oil shine. “I’d love to see the rest of the world. I’d have staked my stash to get through the moats. And you’ve offered it for free!”
She laughed high and loud, over the thrum of the dragon engine. That same engine stopped with a sudden jolt. Mr. Grey and Honeydew nearly toppled across the low crenellation. They braced against both the wall and each other, and held their balance.
Mr. Grey beamed. Well, perhaps not beamed. His expression was a little brighter. Honeydew, on the other hand, watched the strobing wedge lights. She watched them light up a different wedge, in a spot where no one stood.
Honeydew clicked disapprovingly. “I warned you to take your win.”
“What?”
“You’ve lost, Mr. Grey.”
Mr. Grey looked down at the darkened display between his grey shoes. “Oh. The bet. To tell you the truth, I only brought the minimum. I thought you’d be easier to see from the axis.”
“To tell you the truth, a vacation invitation was what I’ve wanted since our swan ride.”
Mr. Grey and honeydew left the wheel together, her pinstripe robe hooked by the elbow to his anchor shawl. When they reached the great wheel’s exit stairs, they parted kindly, with plans to leave Starharbor together.
Honeydew returned to her duties as a hostess.
Mr. Grey readily paid out the small handful of shiny pebbles to the wheel announcer. Both the announcer and shoulder jockey offered their sympathy to him. Their kindness met a grey mask, and they admired him for it. To them, he was a proud, stoic man, who didn’t crumble at his great loss of fortune.
Blackjaw and Slake: Finders for Hire, noted Mr. Grey’s non-expression as well, and took a different perspective. They saw him as a person unaffected by the loss of even vast wealth and - consequently - a man of future interest.
The other passengers, who’d had nothing to lose and everything to gain by the second spin, wore greater disappointment and frustration than after the first. None spared an eye of pity for Mr. Grey, but they were not to blame for it. The wheel had scraped their pity away ages ago.
Only Mr. Grey, having unknowingly lost an incalculable fortune, left the great wheel with a lightened step.