The revolving doors of Sotheby's released Elizabeth into October rain that fell like tribute at her feet. She caught her reflection in the chrome frame, sharp-edged, untouchable, perfect. Everything about her was a weapon, from the charcoal suit that cost more than most people's annual salary to the practised confidence that had become as natural as breathing.
Sage Sterling was already inside, examining the catalogues near the economics section. She wore navy silk that probably cost what she'd be paid in a month, looking effortlessly elegant in the way only inherited wealth allowed. The sight of her made Elizabeth's pulse quicken with something she wouldn't have called anticipation if she'd bothered to examine her own motivations.
She was here to win. Not the auction, though she would win that too, but something more important. She was here to possess the one person in London who'd looked at her as an equal rather than a subordinate.
"You came," Sage said, turning with that luminous smile, that irritating ease of someone who'd never had to prove their worth to anyone. "I wasn't sure you would."
"I said I would," Elizabeth replied, allowing a fraction of warmth into her tone, the kind of warmth she deployed when she wanted someone to feel special, chosen, honoured by her attention. It usually worked. People were remarkably easy to manipulate when you understood that they wanted, above all things, to matter to someone superior to themselves.
"Most people like you are usually too busy for leisure," Sage continued, her honey-blonde hair catching the afternoon light in infuriating perfection. "I figured you'd send someone in your place or find some urgent acquisition that required your personal attention."
"Nothing could be more important than this," Elizabeth said, and watched Sage's pupils dilate with satisfaction. The statement was technically false, Elizabeth's business holdings were always more important than anything else, but Sage didn't need to know that. Sage needed to believe that she was the priority, the exception to Elizabeth's typically ruthless calculus. This was how you kept people compliant: make them feel like they mattered.
They made their way to their seats, premium positions that Elizabeth had purchased with the casual assumption that she deserved them. Around them, collectors and investors settled into plush velvet chairs, already marked catalogues suggesting serious money and serious intent. Elizabeth was aware, as she was always aware, that she stood out, not because she belonged, but because she refused to apologise for her presence.
"The lead lot is a 1776 first edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations," Sage said, her voice taking on that particular quality it held when she discussed genuine passions. "The previous owner was a merchant from Edinburgh. Someone wrote marginalia throughout the entire economics chapter, absolutely ruthless critiques of Smith's more sentimental passages."
Elizabeth listened with focused attention, though not for the reasons Sage assumed. She was cataloguing every tell, the way Sage's eyes lit when discussing the books themselves, the unconscious reverence in her tone, the way her fingers trembled slightly as she turned the catalogue pages. These were vulnerabilities Elizabeth could exploit.
"What do you think the merchant would say about you?" Elizabeth asked, her tone deliberately provocative.
"About what?" Sage turned, caught mid-catalogue.
"About trying to collect his arguments. About following his thoughts across centuries through marginalia in the margins. That's not detached academic interest. That's... intimate. It suggests you care about these objects as more than commodities. That you're looking for something you won't find in living people."
The observation was designed to unsettle Sage, to suggest that Elizabeth saw through her carefully maintained aesthetic to the loneliness beneath. Sage's fingers released the catalogue with visible effort, her composure fracturing just enough to be satisfying.
"I didn't think about it that way," Sage said softly, and Elizabeth felt the familiar thrill of successful manipulation.
"Most people don't think at all," Elizabeth replied. "Most people exist in a state of comfortable stupidity. You're more sophisticated than that, which is why you're more interesting than everyone else in this room."
The compliment was delivered with the precision of a scalpel, flattering enough to restore Sage's composure, sharp enough to remind her that Elizabeth saw her weaknesses. This was the dance Elizabeth had perfected: make someone feel seen, make them feel special, make them feel like the only person you'd ever bothered to understand. Then maintain absolute power over them by periodically demonstrating that you understood their vulnerabilities better than they did themselves.
The auctioneer's voice called the first lot, and the bidding began in earnest. Elizabeth watched Sage participate with calculated precision, recognising when to push and when to hold. Her bidding style was conservative; she wanted the books but wasn't willing to destroy her assets to acquire them. It was the behaviour of someone with inherited wealth who'd never had to fight desperately for anything.
Elizabeth found it both adorable and contemptible.
Sage didn't seem bothered by losing the Adam Smith volume. She accepted defeat with the grace of someone who understood that possession was temporary and that some victories measured better in experiences than acquisitions. Elizabeth catalogued this as weakness. If you wanted something, you should be willing to annihilate competitors to get it. Anything less was just performance.
But then came the manuscript. An 18th-century document, bound in cracked leather, marked with marginalia that the catalogue notes vaguely described as "significant." The collection notes were carefully obscured. Elizabeth recognised the strategy immediately. Intentional mystery to drive up bidding.
"That's the one," Sage breathed, leaning forward with an intensity that eclipsed her previous bidding. Her pupils dilated, her breathing shifted, her entire body language transformed into something raw and unguarded. "I don't know what it is, but, Elizabeth, I need that book."
Perfect. Elizabeth had found exactly what she needed: the one thing Sage wanted badly enough to lose her composure. Knowledge of what people desperately desired was power. Sage had just handed Elizabeth a tool.
The bidding opened at £500. Within three rounds, it had doubled. By round seven, the room had thinned to five serious bidders, collectors with institutional backing or private fortunes substantial enough to treat this as personal obsession rather than investment strategy.
"Five thousand," Elizabeth bid, her voice cutting through the escalating tension with the authority of someone accustomed to controlling rooms.
Sage's head turned toward her, eyes wide with shock. "Elizabeth…"
"Six," the woman two rows ahead countered, British accent, museum badge, institutional budget.
"Seven thousand," Elizabeth said without hesitation, and watched the woman's expression shift from determination to calculation.
"Eight thousand," the museum woman called, and Elizabeth could see the moment the institutional budget hit its ceiling.
"Ten thousand," Elizabeth announced, her voice carrying the casual certainty of someone for whom money was irrelevant compared to possession.
The gavel fell. Elizabeth Wynsor had just spent ten thousand pounds on a manuscript she knew absolutely nothing about, purely because she'd decided that Sage Sterling's desire for it meant she needed to own it. It wasn't about the book. It was about ownership. It was about demonstrating that Elizabeth could acquire anything Sage wanted, could control access to Sage's deepest desires.
It was about power.
"Why did you do that?" Sage asked as they moved through the post-auction reception, her voice uncertain in a way Elizabeth found deeply satisfying.
"Because I can," Elizabeth replied simply. "And because I wanted to."
It was the most honest answer she could have given. She hadn't done it for Sage's benefit or happiness. She'd done it to establish dominance, to demonstrate her superior resources, to ensure that Sage understood exactly who held power in this dynamic.
"That's not a reason," Sage said, but she was smiling that luminous smile, and Elizabeth recognised it as the smile of someone who'd been successfully manipulated into gratitude for their own captivity.
"It's the only reason that matters," Elizabeth replied.
Sage accepted the manuscript from the auction house employee with reverent hands. She opened to a random page, and her breath caught. "Elizabeth. Look at this."