A few days of refining, arguing, measuring, and taste-testing later, we were finally getting somewhere.
The orphanage had turned into a mildly controlled chaos. The kitchen smelled like a fruit market collided with a bakery. Every flat surface in the house was coated in flour, sticky syrup, or Mira's schematics.
Vale had taken over the courtyard with his mock-stall blueprints, while Garret was happily jumping, because we scrapped the book mascot idea and decided to have him stand by the arena stand.
Progress.
"Okay, okay—batch three is out of the oven!" Mira announced, triumphantly lifting a tray of miniature tarts. "Crust looks stable. No burnt bottoms this time. Eamond, taste-test!"
"I'm the financier," I reminded her. "Not the sacrifice."
She narrowed her eyes. "Eat the tart."
I sighed and took a bite. Still warm. Crumbly, sweet, a touch of tang. The custard was smoother now, thanks to Pip's relentless egg-whisking. And the berry reduction—
"This could bankrupt a noble."
"I'll take that as a yes," she said, smirking.
Meanwhile, Pip sat in the corner, scribbling in her notebook.
"What's that?" I asked between bites.
"A short story for the Brambleberry Tart! It's about a sad knight who finds hope again through jam."
"…That's incredibly specific."
"I write what I know."
Vale strode in, dusting straw off his cloak. "Arena layout's confirmed. The prime location is between the roasted meat vendor and the armory tent. Lots of foot traffic, zero shade. If we want cold drinks to sell, we'd better finalize that ice delivery."
"I'm on it," I said. "I'll make the ice with magic on the day of the festival. We have to stock a lot of fruits for the festival."
Garret shuffled past us in the book costume. "Do I have to wear the hat?"
"You're a first edition," I said. "The hat stays."
He groaned.
So, yes—price hikes. But not just opportunistic greed. No, this was targeted.
One stall even tried to charge us double for unripe pears. When I pointed this out, the vendor shrugged and said, "Must've been a mistake," while the merchant behind him conveniently snorted into his apron.
It wasn't a mistake. It was sabotage.
The whispers were spreading. "The Orphans' Guild," they called us, half-joking, half-panicked. And the name was sticking. Small-time vendors feared we'd undercut them. Big-time vendors feared we'd outperform them. And the nobles?
They were curious—which was worse. Curious nobles meant attention. And attention meant scrutiny.
"We might have overplayed our hand," Vale muttered later that evening, hunched beside me over the accounts.
"No such thing," I said. "We're not backing down because a few peach sellers are afraid of competition."
He arched a brow. "You realize we're dangerously close to being labeled as a disruptive economic faction?"
"That's only illegal if we win," I said, cracking a grin. "So we win harder."
Mira countered the fruit pricing problem by reaching out to a friend-of-a-friend—an old orchard keeper in the outer district who was more interested in honest coin than festival inflation.
Then, just as we were deep in thought, the front door swung open with a bang.
Lysandra stood there, uncharacteristically disheveled, holding the door with one hand and her head with the other like she'd just been hit by a wagon full of noise.
Behind her, two blurs of movement tore into the common room like a pair of hyperactive comets.
"EAMOND!" yelled one.
"WE FOUND A DRAGON!" screamed the other.
Alsa and Alfon. The Marquess' twins.
Also known as 'the Disaster Duo' by those of us who've had to clean up after them.
I blinked. "You found a what?"
"A dragon!" Alfon repeated, eyes wild with excitement. "It was HUGE and it had teeth and scales and it might be a goose but we're not sure yet!"
"It bit Alfon's shoe," Alsa added solemnly, holding up a shoe with a suspicious amount of jam on it. "Now he has to marry it."
"That's not how that works," I said automatically, catching the shoe mid-air as she tossed it at me.
"They've been in the orchard," Lysandra groaned, walking in behind them and collapsing dramatically onto the armchair. "Unsupervised. For twenty-five minutes. I'm filing for hazard pay."
I blinked. "Wait—did you say the orchard?"
"They ran straight past the guards," Lysandra muttered. "Apparently, Marquess Alexander thinks it's 'adorable' when they sneak off."
I turned to the twins. "Did you go to the orchard we've been sourcing from?"
Alsa and Alfon exchanged a look.
"…We were doing recon," Alsa said.
"Diplomatic mission," Alfon added.
I rubbed my temples. "What did you say to the orchard keeper?"
"He gave us peaches!" they said in unison.
Vale and I exchanged a glance.
"…For free?" he asked slowly.
"Well, he tried to say something about price and supply," Alsa said, "but then we told him you were our best friend, and then Alfon sneezed on his ledger."
"It was a powerful sneeze," Alfon said proudly.
I stared at them.
Then I stared at Vale.
Vale blinked. "They just accidentally bribed and terrified your primary supplier."
"I didn't sneeze on purpose," Alfon offered, as if that helped.
I took a deep breath. "So. Let me get this straight. We now have access to high-quality orchard fruit from a terrified old man who thinks I might be royal, dangerous, or both."
"Pretty much," Alsa said brightly.
I nodded, very slowly, and a sinister smile was plastered on my face
"...Fantastic."
From that moment onward, things began accelerating.
The orchard keeper—one Mister Talloway—sent not just crates of peaches, but an apologetic letter addressed to "Lord Eamond, Defender of Trade." I didn't have the heart to correct him. Mira framed it and hung it above the pantry.
By the next day, the market had changed.
Fruit vendors who previously tried to triple their prices now lowered them back to sane levels—and then lower still. One even sent us a discount coupon with a cheerful note that read: "Buy three baskets, get a free apology."
Another offered us a "Festival Loyalty Package," complete with gilded apples and a fancy jam sample shaped like a duck.
We accepted most of the new offers—on our terms. No backdoor deals. No sabotage. Just honest fruit at a price that didn't require selling one's soul or one's shoe.
The market stabilized. Our supplies surged. And the vendors, once scornful, now greeted us with cautious smiles and a healthy dose of respect.
With fruits supplies secured, we turned our focus to the final touches. Pip was finishing the menu cards, each featuring a short story inspired by the pastries. My favorite so far was The Tart of Two Cities, a tragic romance between a lemon curd and a cherry compote caught on opposite shelves.
Vale, ever the strategist, adjusted our stall layout three times. "Foot traffic is a living organism," he muttered, "and I will tame it." The courtyard now looked like a miniature battlefield, lined with flags, chalk outlines, and barricades made of overturned crates.
Garret, bless his soul, had come to terms with his role as the arena announcer. He'd ditched the book costume and embraced a long velvet coat, a plumed hat, and a booming voice that echoed across the rooftops every time he practiced.
"The BRAMBLEBERRY BRAWL—WHERE HONOR IS TESTED, AND JAM IS SERVED!"
He was... honestly terrifying. I feared the children might start idolizing him.
Two days before the festival
We gathered around the dinner table—half of it covered in tarts, the other half in ink-stained paper. There was a rare hush in the air, the kind that comes when anticipation is so thick you could bake it.
"We've checked everything twice," Mira said. "Three times for the custard ratios."
"I've enchanted the ice storage barrels," I added. "They'll hold through the whole day, even if the sun gets greedy." I hope the ice is enough. Who knew casting ice magic cost me 2 gold coins. I can hear my pocket crying.
"We've got our place on the map, signage approved by the committee," Vale said. "Even the arena roster is full. Fighters from three districts."
"And the twins?" I asked.
"They've been banned from the fruit crates," Lysandra said.
"Good," I nodded. "That's progress."
Alsa and Alfon, sitting at the end of the table, were busy trying to enchant a jam jar to talk. It had so far learned only one phrase—"Put me down"—which it repeated every thirty seconds.
"Tomorrow," Mira said, voice low but steady, "we deliver the pre-orders. After that—festival day."
We all fell silent for a moment, staring at the chaos we had shaped into a plan.
Then Pip raised her hand slowly. "Should we have a name?"
"A name?" I asked.
"For our group. Our stall. Our... guild," she said.
I looked around the table—at the schematics, the jam-splattered aprons, the swords leaning by the door, and the noble children sleeping beside a talking jar.
I smiled.
"How about the Orphans' Guild?" I said.
Mira grinned. Vale nodded. Garret raised his fork like a toast.
"Orphans' Guild it is," Pip whispered, and scribbled it into her notebook with a flourish.