Chapter 296: Chapter 296: I Gave Him One Week
"No," Aldous said. "He didn’t."
He stepped through the portal.
It closed.
Eve stood in the courtyard alone for a moment.
She thought about Aldous’s face when he got to the fourth page.
That was it.
That was what her father had understood and what she was understanding now.
You didn’t change the Conclave through force or legal process or political maneuvering alone.
You changed it by making people understand things differently.
By putting the right numbers in front of the right people at the right time.
By doing the work.
She had done the work.
Damian appeared beside her.
"How did it go," he said.
"He’s taking the folder back to his partners," she said.
"And?"
"And I gave him a week," she said. "Not two."
Damian looked at her.
"Was that wise," he said.
"He respects directness," she said. "He came here expecting to be managed. If I’d given him two weeks he would have known he could push me." She paused. "One week tells him something different."
Damian was quiet for a moment.
"Your father did the same thing," he said. "In negotiations. Silas read about it in the archive records." He paused. "Cutting timelines to signal confidence."
Eve looked at the closed portal.
"I know," she said. "I read the same records."
Damian looked at her.
She looked back at him.
"I’ve been reading everything I can find about how he worked," she said quietly. "His negotiation style. His approach to faction politics. The way he built consensus." She paused. "Not to copy him. Just to understand what I inherited."
"And?" Damian said.
She looked at the grounds.
"I think I think like him," she said. "In the ways that matter." She paused. "And I think I do some things differently. Better maybe. Because I have things he didn’t have."
"Like what," Damian said.
She looked at him.
"You," she said. "All three of you. Vessa. Katerina. Seraphine." She paused. "He was trying to do it more alone than I am."
Damian held her gaze.
"Then finish what he started," he said.
"That’s the plan," she said.
***
Aldous came back in six days.
Not seven. Six.
Eve was in the study with Damian going through the preliminary Conclave reform draft when the ward chimed. She looked up. Damian looked at her.
"Early," he said.
"Yes," she said.
She closed the folder and went downstairs.
Aldous looked different from the first meeting.
Still polished. Still silver haired and round faced and dressed in clothes that cost more than they announced. But the warm performed smile was absent. What was on his face instead was something more businesslike. The expression of a man who had read a folder carefully and had things to say about it.
He came into the formal dining room and sat down without waiting to be invited.
Eve sat across from him.
He put the folder on the table between them.
"My partners read it," he said. "All of it. Three times in some cases." He paused. "There was considerable debate."
"I expected that," she said.
"The short term losses are significant," he said. "The trading license restructure alone will cost the faction considerable revenue in the first two years. My partners are not happy about that."
"I know," she said.
"They wanted me to come back with a counteroffer," he said. "A modified version of the reform that preserved more of the existing commercial structures. Something more comfortable for the faction."
"And?" she said.
"And I told them no," he said.
Eve looked at him.
"I told them the numbers don’t lie," he said. "The long term projections are sound. I had three of our best analysts check the modeling independently and they all came back with the same conclusion." He tapped the folder. "This works. Not for everyone in the short term. But for everyone in the long term." He paused. "And the faction that helps build it will be better positioned than the faction that obstructs it and gets dragged along later."
"That’s what I was hoping you’d see," Eve said.
"It took some convincing," he said. "My senior partners are not naturally inclined toward short term sacrifice." He looked at her steadily. "But they’re pragmatists. Show them numbers that hold up under scrutiny and they’ll follow the numbers."
"So you’re in," she said.
"We’re in," he said. "With conditions."
"Tell me," she said.
"Two Merchant faction representatives in the reform working group," he said. "Present for every session. Not observers. Actual participants with voting weight on commercial policy decisions."
"Done," she said.
"The trading license restructure is phased over three years rather than two," he said. "It gives our members time to adjust their operations."
Eve thought about it.
"Two and a half," she said.
He looked at her.
"Three is too slow," she said. "It gives the factions that want to obstruct the reform time to build opposition. Two and a half moves fast enough to maintain momentum but gives your members eighteen months of runway."
Aldous was quiet for a moment.
"Two and a half," he said. "Acceptable."
"And the third condition," she said.
"The border commerce agreements," he said. "The renegotiation timeline in your outline has them completed within the first year. That’s too fast. Those agreements are complex. They involve multiple factions and multiple territories and rushing them creates legal vulnerabilities that could be exploited by anyone trying to challenge the reform."
"What’s your timeline," she said.
"Eighteen months for the border agreements specifically," he said. "Everything else proceeds on your original schedule."
Eve looked at the folder.
Thought about it honestly.
He wasn’t wrong. The border agreements were the most legally complex element of the reform. Rushing them would create gaps that could be challenged.
"Eighteen months for the border agreements," she said. "With quarterly progress reports to the full working group so everyone can see it’s actually moving."
"Agreed," he said.
He held out his hand.
She shook it.
"Welcome to the working group," she said.
He smiled.
The real one again. The one that reached his eyes.
"Lady Evangeline," he said. "I’ve been doing this for forty years. I have sat across from faction leaders and heirs and Conclave representatives of every description." He paused. "I don’t say this often." He looked at her directly. "You’re going to be very good at this."
