"Man that is good." Callie said as she practically slurped the spoon clean after finishing her dish of butter pecan. "You weren't kidding about the homemade thing huh? I have to say though, this isn't what I imagined you being like, I figured you'd be more..."

Frostbite grinned. "You thought I'd be a megalomaniacal ice queen who sits up in her tower planning how to screw everyone else over to get the biggest advantage possible?" At Callie's blush, the woman laughed. "Hey, no judgement, if I had a dad like yours I'd have figured the same thing. Honestly, in some ways you aren't off the mark. I'm more than capable of being a bit cold blooded to get my way. I figure I owe you two though, so no harm in being approachable."

That got my attention. "Owe us?" I asked curiously. "How so? I mean, we're here to ask for a favor and..." I looked over to see Callie glaring and cleared my throat. "I'm going to stop talking now."

That had been a fuckup. Callie was supposed to do the talking. I'd gotten wrapped up in her pace and started being casual. I hoped I hadn't given away anything important. Still, it seemed weird to me that she would consider herself owing US a favor.

"My son." Said the blonde woman with a smile. "Is a fucking idiot. He's useless and arrogant and often stupid. He makes bad decisions on impulse and hardly does anything right...and I love him more than anything in this world. You could have killed him for what he pulled. I got it out of him later, and I honestly wouldn't have blamed you. But you didn't and I owe you for that. So yes. I took this meeting and I'm treating you like potential allies. Because you deserve it. And because watching Midknight try not to lose his damn mind in front of all those people was the highlight of my year."

That got a genuine smile from Callie. "I enjoyed it too. Probably too much. Which is kind of why we're here, we wanted to talk to you about-"

"Protection." Said Frostbite matter of factly. "Wasn't exactly brain surgery figuring out that much sweetie. Your pals from the WCP are limited in what they can do without potentially kicking off quite a bit of trouble. Your boy toy here is basically bulletproof when it comes to the big wigs, but mid ranking execs are still a threat based on our observations, and I assume you want some insurance in case those threats apply pressure."

To my surprise, Callie sighed in relief. I guessed that she figured since Frostbite knew why we were here and accepted the meeting anyway she might be amenable to our terms. Sadly, it wasn't going to be that easy. "My question." Said the blonde as she ate a bite of rocky road. "Is what's in it for me? I like you kids, but that's personal. This is business. I don't give out alliances for being swell folks. What benefits are you gonna bring me?"

"That's fair." Admitted my girlfriend. "There are the obvious benefits, of course. Destabilizing my dad's regime for one. You're competitors, and not only would recruiting me to your side make him look weak, it would give you an excuse to rub that weakness in his face and gloat over his helplessness as you did it."

Frostbite took another bite of ice cream, smirking at Callie as she did. "You know, I knew I was going to like you. That sounds hilarious." Her smile dropped. "But I don't make business decisions based on amusement. Get to the point or get lost. You're become less impressive by the second." The tonal shift from warm interest to icy indifference was jarring, to say the least. I could see what she'd meant earlier about being willing to make harsh calls.

Callie wasn't bothered though, her own smile curled up wickedly, and I got the impression through the bond that she'd been waiting for that exact response. "Oh by all means. We're willing to offer similar terms to the ones we set with the Beast Lord Garden. Similar, though not nearly as generous. After all, you weren't the first person on board."

She reached into her jacket and pulled out a rolled up piece of paper, specifically, the contract we'd signed with Melinda. I hadn't realized she was bringing that, but I didn't much mind. She handed the paper to an amused looking Frostbite, who unrolled it casually, then glanced over it. Her condescending smile froze, and her eyes widened, flicking back up to Callie, then to me.

"Well...that makes WAY too much sense." She slapped the papers down on the desk with a scowl. "I knew you got in good with the puppy huggers, but I didn't know the details. The WCP doesn't share with us much, especially not about things like this. They more than anyone know about the necessity of keeping this kind of thing quiet. You realize that the Unity is going to be MUCH less airtight? If you sign on with me people will find out about this." That comment was aimed at me, not Callie.

I nodded. "It was going to happen eventually. I'm confident that my guardian can handle anyone who causes a problem, at least as far as people on your level or higher. Below that I'd need to rely on you and our other allies. As long as we have you as an excuse though, Callie says that even if Melinda or The Nothing have to make a move, it'll be considered inter-faction jockeying, since they'll technically be under your aegis."

"This is true." She admitted. "But you mentioned being less generous with me than with the puppy huggers. How much less? Getting a favor from a candidate is useful, but not useful as wishes, and I'm assuming you aren't willing to sign up for any long term deals in that regard given your participation in the tournament and presumably you hope in the trip to the Moonsong Glade?"

That was true. I was working on getting up the cash for a buyout on the contract with the Beast Lord Garden. I'd prepaid plenty for wishes, but we didn't have the option of staying here forever. Luckily, since I wasn't an idiot I'd made sure to leave an out in the contract, though if I did it the right way we could maintain our current relationship for a certain number of wishes per year, which was what I was aiming for. I didn't foresee much problem with it, no one sane would give up access to wishes for no reason.

Callie took back over negotiations, we'd talked over what was plausible for us here, and come to a hard line that would let us accomplish our goals and still give them something to work with. "We're willing to offer a flat rate. The biggest benefit to wishes is increased cultivation, though of course you aren't obligated to wish for anything specific. We're willing to offer you exclusive access for twenty five wishes, provided you pay for the wishes in G-ranked elixirs."

Given the time crunch, we were going to be absurdly tight on getting Jessie and Benny to F-rank before we left for the Moonsong Glade, provided we made it. In the worst case we could approach Natalie to double their growth rate, but payment for her would be steep. Since neither of them had used any of their elixir allotment for G-rank, they had a hundred stats worth of bottled growth available, and if we could get that as payment for something we had to put up anyway it was a win win.

Clearly Frostbite knew how wishes worked too, since she didn't try to negotiate an out for the payment. The actual contract would be wishes for protection, but that wouldn't do anything to mitigate prices, since we were leveraging scarcity rather than the actual wishes to be granted.

I'd coached Callie on some of the finer points of the contract, and she requisitioned a piece of paper and a pen and got to work outlining terms, letting Frostbite weigh in on what to nix and what was appropriate. Despite going through the motions, I was pretty sure Frostbite was hooked already though. Callie was just giving her a good deal to make sure she thought of us as actual allies.

The E-ranker knew it too, and she seemed warmer as the two of them worked, even pointing out a few loopholes I'd missed in the wording. Despite my experience and training, my Focus was presumably MUCH lower than hers, so I wasn't shocked she picked up a few threads I missed.

Finally, the two of them finished writing up the contract, Frostbite gave it a final once over, had us do the same, and once we agreed the terms were fair we all signed it. "So." I said once that was done. "I have to ask. Are you planning to use your wishes on Cold Snap? Having him boosted to F-rank so early would be a coup for your force, since you would be on track to have another E-ranker in your....what is your force called? I don't know how the Unity works in terms of subfactions."

She smirked at that. "Fimbulwinter. And yes we can have our own subforces. But no, my son will not be receiving a boost. I wouldn't trust him with that much power so quickly. He has more than enough time to grow into his rank the natural way. Rime would be a more likely target for my usage of wishes. You can grant wishes to higher level Ascendants right?"

I blinked at that. "I...think so?" I paused. "No I know I can, but they might not be as effective." I wasn't sure I'd ever granted a wish to a higher ranked cultivator before. I was positive it would work of course, but considering how much easier I'd found it to grant them to lower ranked people there was a good chance the efficiency would be reduced. I could do four points of stats to someone my rank, but chances were good it would be much less at F-rank. It had just never really come up.

She nodded, clearly unsurprised. "That's fine. Worst case I'll focus on grinding up some more of my G-rankers, having more F-ranked hall members would be a big boost to my capabilities too, and I know some of mine are pretty close. Anyway we can look into it later. For now, I suspect you have more to say. You don't seem to have relaxed after signing the contract."

Callie nodded. "That's true. Now that we've entered an alliance officially, we had something we wanted to bring to your attention." It was a risk mentioning the leak to Frostbite before we had any insurance. If it had been her she might have tried to silence us. Now that we were in the same boat though, even if it was her we could just promise to keep our moths shut about it.

My girlfriend explained the problem, mentioning the Solemn Vow Guild and noting how easily they'd gotten our information. Frostbite looked more annoyed than worried. "Sadly problems like that aren't uncommon for Ascendant organizations, even big ones like the factions. Most of the people working the tournament signed confidentiality contracts, but those always have loopholes, and there are people with Oathbreaking abilities you can hire to get around even the ones that don't. I'll look into it, but I wouldn't expect miracles. Your best bet would be approaching it from the other side."

At our confused looks, she gave us a wolfish smile. "The Unity isn't a brokerage organization. Even if someone has the info, they wouldn't have the channels to actually sell it, and unless they were idiots they wouldn't just wander up to random factions and offer them insider information for cash. I'd look into middlemen in the WCP if I were you." I grinned under my mask. I'd been hoping she could just GIVE us the name of the leak but that...that I could definitely work with.