Page 61 of Crosscurrent

Owen frowned. “It’s a very prestigious conference. I’m a lead presenter.”

“Cool.” Piper turned immediately toward him. “What’s your paper on?”

Owen visibly brightened, which Cara suspected was a reflex no academic could fully suppress when offered an audience.

“Fourteenth-century merchant syndicates operating across Northern Europe,” he said. “Specifically how distributed financing structures allowed politically disconnected states to coordinate military campaigns.”

Piper blinked once.

Owen continued anyway. “The prevailing scholarship focuses on kings and territorial conflict, but the real story is liquidity. Armies aren’t ideological entities. They’re logistical systems. You can’t sustain conflict unless someone is moving money, underwriting supply chains, and stabilizing trade routes.”

He leaned forward slightly now, fully engaged. “The Hanseatic League essentially created a transnational economic framework centuries ahead of modern statecraft. That financial coordination shaped regional power balances for generations.”

Piper stared at him for a beat. Then another.

“This is the stuff that shaped nations,” Owen added earnestly. “You can’t gather an army or amass weapons unless you can pay for them.” He shook his head with genuine sadness. “No one gets that.”

“Sure,” Piper said faintly.

Then she pulled out her phone, visibly retreating toward safer intellectual territory. “Oh, hey. These conference people have an Instagram account.” Her expression brightened. “Very cool.”

Sophie drifted over and glanced down at the screen. “The graduate student registration is still open.”

Piper looked up sharply. “The caption’s in Norwegian. I think. You can read that?”

Sophie straightened with suspicious innocence. “Sure.”

Piper narrowed her eyes. “How do you even learn Norwegian?”

“Private high school.” Sophie shrugged. “Most of the kids were diplomatic corps families. Norwegian happened to be the language du jour.” Her mouth curved slightly. “Also, those Nordic boys were seriously cute.”

“No joke,” Piper said wistfully.

Tom looked from Sophie to Piper with the faintly alarmed expression of a man watching several future complications unfold simultaneously. “Haven Cove High will have to do,” he said. “Sorry. Not sorry.”

Reagan came back downstairs balancing a sandwich, apple slices, and a glass of milk. She deposited the plate in front of Piper with the calm authority of someone who’d raised younger siblings and expected compliance. “Eat.”

Piper sighed heavily. “You people are oppressively nurturing. Which I like. A lot.” She bit into her sandwich.

Across the table, David closed his laptop. “I’m coming with.”

Sophie gave him serious side-eye. David cleared his throat. “I mean, we’re coming.”

Gabe raised one finger like he intended to object, but his brother kept right on talking. “Sophie and I have press credentials and a legitimate reason to attend. Also, hello? Our own private interpreter? It’s a complete no brainer. We’re coming.”

Gabe glowered. “Not happening.”

“Yeah, it is,” David repeated.

“Me too,” Piper announced.

Every head at the table turned.

Piper set down her sandwich with deliberate care. “I’ve read everything publicly available on Neptune. I know the cipher history, the Colloquium scholarship, and at this point I weirdly understand, like, forty percent of Owen’s terrifying medieval money lecture.” She looked around the table. “Also, statistically speaking, nobody notices teenage girls. I am basically operational camouflage. And none of you can do social media. You’ll need my skills. Trust me.”

“That’s a hard no.” Tom's eyes stayed on his screen. “School. Band. Grades?”

Piper rolled her eyes. “School is a social construct.”