It was late in the evening Janloon time, midmorning in Adamont Capita, when NA3882, a repeal on the twenty-four-year-long ban on civilian possession of bioenergetic jade, passed in the National Assembly by a narrow margin. When KNB’s foreign correspondent reported the results on-screen, cheers broke out and celebratory bottles of hoji were opened. Starting tomorrow, the No Peak clan could expect to save millions of dien in legal fees alone. The use of jade in healthcare, martial practice, and entertainment was sure to grow, along with the clan’s investment interests in all of those areas. Dozens of additional visas would be filed for Green Bones to work or study in Espenia. Meanwhile, the Horn would quietly begin to move additional jade into Espenia to bolster the clan’s military strength and allies.
Anden used the phone in the conference room to call Cory Dauk, the president of the Kekonese Association of Espenia, to congratulate him on the victory they’d been working toward for over a decade. Up until the day of the vote, the KAE had been lobbying politicians and running ads produced by WBH Focus in all major media outlets. The outcome had been far from assured. Several Crews, wanting neither to lose the black market in jade and shine, nor see the Kekonese grow any stronger, had mounted their own secret campaign to defeat the legislation by bribing and threatening policymakers, ad executives, KAE members, and anyone else who spoke out in support of the bill. Lott Jin’s small but effective squads of Fists and Fingers in Espenia, in partnership with local Green Bones from Port Massy, had been kept busy for months neutralizing the effort by providing security, counterbribes, and the occasional judicious whispering of crewboy names.
“I’m expecting this means less business for my law practice,” Cory said cheerfully over the phone. “Maybe I’ll become an entertainment lawyer. Work in movies or jadesports. That’s where all the money is now anyway, right?”
Anden said, “If you find the next Danny Sinjo, let my sister-in-law know.”
“My son loves that movie!” Cory exclaimed. “We’ve seen it three times.”
The box office success of Black & Green on both sides of the Amaric last year had been an unexpected tipping point in the long public relations battle, catapulting Danny Sinjo to international stardom and creating a wave of favorable mainstream interest in Green Bone culture. Much attention was paid to Sinjo’s thrilling action sequences, which were done entirely without visual effects, stunt doubles, or wires. The movie was a crowd-pleasing buddy cop story in which a rakish Fist from the fictional One Sky clan, paired with a fish-out-of-water IBJCS-trained Espenian secret service agent, fought their way through Ygutanian ex-military underbosses on the way to capturing a notorious drug kingpin.
Cinema Shore, and thusly No Peak, was raking in money from what was now a planned franchise. As Jon Remi had once predicted, Anden could boast that he’d met Danny Sinjo long before he was famous—although it had been his sister-in-law who’d made the Bad Keck’s words come true. Wen was missing from the gathering on Ship Street tonight because she was presenting the top award at the Janloon Film Festival, which had grown considerably since its inception and was now an event that the Pillarman attended with a clan budget.
“I hope your son knows that 2 Black 2 Green comes out this summer,” Anden said to Cory. “I might be able to lay my hands on a signed poster and send it to him.”
“That would be mass toppers, crumb.” Cory stopped. It seemed he’d been about to say something else about his son, or to ask after Anden’s family, but he held back. Ever since he’d learned of Anden’s role in the murder of Jon Remi, there’d been another wall between them, one that Cory kept in place by always ending the conversation before it became too personal and turned to his own wife and children. Anden was disappointed but not surprised; Cory was Espenian after all. It was just like him to wish for a difficult thing but maintain a distance from the way it was accomplished.
Anden rescued him. “Please give my respect and congratulations to your mother.”
“Thanks, Anden. I will.” A pause. “May the gods shine favor on No Peak.”
After Anden hung up with Cory, Terun Bin thrust a plastic cup of hoji into his hands. “This all started with you, Dr. Emery,” Terun said. “You were No Peak’s man in Espenia before there was even an office there.” They drank to the clan’s victory.
Anden did not know the Master Luckbringer well, but in all their interactions, he’d been struck by how quickly and energetically the man spoke, and how much more quickly his mind worked. Terun was a career Luckbringer, starting on the business side of the clan right out of college. Now, he was one of the highest-ranked members of No Peak despite not coming from a strong Green Bone family and having never worn more than a single jade stone in his life. This would’ve been an insurmountable disadvantage in Janloon twenty years ago, but the Weather Man had wisely sent Terun on a longterm assignment to Espenia before bringing him back to Kekon and rotating him through several Ship Street positions, including making him the Sealgiver for several years, so by now he knew every part of the clan’s business.