Chapter 5: Severing the Threads

Chapter 5: Severing the Threads

The small dinette table inside the Wanderlust Workshop had become a battlefield. Three days had passed since Gavin’s public meltdown, three days of a tense, bitter stalemate. The cramped RV, once Elara’s sanctuary, now felt like a prison cell she was forced to share with her jailer. On one side of the table sat Elara and Maya, a united front of grim resolve. Elara had a neat folder in front of her containing printouts of their sales records, a projected valuation of their shared assets, and a dissolution agreement she’d drafted after hours of online legal research.

On the other side, Gavin lounged with an infuriating smirk, sipping a beer he’d just pulled from their shared fridge. He hadn’t lifted a finger to help at the booth, but he’d had no problem helping himself to their inventory.

“Let me get this straight,” he said, tapping a dismissive finger on the document Elara had pushed toward him. “You think you can just throw a few thousand dollars at me and I’ll walk away? After all the work I’ve put into building this brand?”

“We’ve accounted for your initial investment, plus a generous percentage of the profits to date,” Elara said, her voice a low, steady monotone. She refused to give him the satisfaction of an emotional reaction. “It’s more than fair.”

“Fair?” He let out a short, barking laugh. “Fair is fifty percent. Of everything. The machine, the RV, the inventory. The name. You two are nothing without the ‘Wanderlust Workshop’ brand that I created.”

“You didn’t create anything,” Maya snapped, her patience worn to a razor's edge. “You came up with a name. That’s it. All you do is stand around and take credit. We need to see the full bank statements to finalize the split.”

That was the crux of the problem. In a moment of early, naive trust, they had allowed the primary business account to be linked to Gavin’s personal one for ‘ease of transfers.’ Now, he held their shared finances hostage.

“The statements are… unavailable,” Gavin said with a breezy wave of his hand. “My accountant is reviewing them. You’ll just have to trust my numbers.”

It was a lie, and all three of them knew it. He was stonewalling them, deliberately obstructing the process. He was bleeding them dry, knowing that with every passing day they couldn’t access the bulk of their funds, the pressure on them mounted. He thought he could break them, force them to crawl back and accept his tyrannical terms.

But he underestimated Elara’s core of steel, and he had completely forgotten her eidetic memory.

“On April 12th,” Elara said, her eyes fixed on him, “we sold the ‘Sunstone Collection’ to a guild for $3,200. On April 27th, we paid our Faire circuit fees of $1,800. I can list every major transaction from the last six months, Gavin. Your numbers won’t match, and when we take this to a lawyer, that will be called fraud.”

The smirk on Gavin’s face tightened. He hadn’t counted on her meticulous, internal ledger. For a moment, a flicker of fear crossed his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a renewed, venomous spite.

“Try it,” he hissed. “You can’t afford a lawyer. By the time this is sorted out, you’ll be broke and I’ll have told every Faire Master from here to the coast what kind of unstable, vindictive bitches you are. You’ll be lucky to get a booth selling pet rocks.”

He stood up, shoving the table slightly and sloshing his beer. “I’m done with this. Let me know when you’re ready to be reasonable.” He pushed past them and left the RV, leaving the stench of stale beer and his own toxic ego hanging in the air.

The days that followed were a cold war fought in public. They worked the booth in icy shifts, never speaking to him, barely acknowledging his existence. Gavin, for his part, escalated his campaign. He’d make loud, snide comments to customers just loud enough for Elara to hear. “Be careful with that one,” he’d say about a leather journal. “The artisan is a little… high-strung. Prone to fits.”

Elara and Maya ignored him, pouring all their energy into their work and into the secret, hopeful blueprint of ‘Feather & Flame Leathers.’ They’d stay up late, sketching new logos, planning a new website, dreaming of a future free from him. It was the only thing that kept the despair at bay.

One evening, Kael stopped by as Elara was closing up. He handed her a folded piece of paper. “It’s the name of a lawyer who works with circuit vendors,” he said quietly. “She’s tough, and she works on contingency. Just in case.” The simple act of kindness, the quiet show of support, nearly brought tears to her eyes.

The breaking point came on the final Friday of the Faire. It had been a slow, demoralizing day. The tension had driven away many of their regulars, and the weight of their frozen funds was becoming unbearable. That night, after the last of the patrons had drifted away and a weary quiet had settled over the grounds, Maya headed off to take a much-needed hot shower at the public facilities, leaving Elara alone to pack up the most valuable pieces.

As she was carefully wrapping a corset, a strange, acrid smell reached her. It was the sharp, ugly scent of burning plastic. Her head snapped up, her senses on high alert. It wasn't the familiar smell of a bonfire or a cooking fire. This was chemical. Wrong.

Her heart began to pound. She stepped out from behind the booth, following the scent. It led her to the side of their canvas tent, to the thick, industrial power cord that snaked from their booth to the main generator hub for their section of the Faire.

A tiny, sinister wisp of smoke was curling up from the cord.

Elara knelt, her stomach turning to ice. The heavy rubber insulation on the cord had been deliberately sliced open, exposing the copper wiring within. Someone had then wrapped the frayed section with a strip of what looked like a synthetic leather scrap—highly flammable and cheap, the kind Gavin sometimes used for his projects—and jammed it against the metal tent pole, creating a direct, smoldering short. It wasn't a raging fire yet, but it was a ticking time bomb, slowly melting, designed to look like a case of catastrophic, negligent overload from their own equipment.

A deliberate, calculated act of sabotage designed to not only destroy their booth, but to get them blacklisted for life. Violating the Faire’s fire code was the one unforgivable sin.

“Oh, you son of a bitch,” she whispered, the full scope of his malice finally hitting her. This went beyond money. This was an attempt to professionally execute them.

Before she could even think of what to do, two bright flashlight beams cut through the darkness, pinning her in their glare.

“Stay right where you are.” The voice was deep and official.

Elara squinted, her hand still near the smoldering cord. Two members of the Faire’s security staff were approaching, their faces grim. Behind them walked the Faire Master, a stern, grey-bearded man named Alistair whose word was absolute law within these canvas walls.

“We received an anonymous tip about a serious safety violation,” Alistair said, his eyes falling on the smoking cord at Elara’s feet. His expression hardened into one of profound disappointment and anger. “A fire hazard threatening the entire vendor row. What in God’s name do you have to say for yourself, Vance?”

Elara’s mind raced, but no words came. She was caught. It was her booth, her power cord. It looked exactly like her own catastrophic carelessness. Her entire future, her hard-won freedom, was about to go up in smoke.

And from the shadows near the tavern, just beyond the reach of the flashlights, she could see a silhouette. She couldn’t make out the features, but she could feel the triumphant, hateful energy radiating from it. It was Gavin, watching his final, destructive masterpiece unfold.