Investment

-If it was, indeed, the bedroom Stefan is using, it still means that they all cared enough about you getting proper rest to let you stay in a bed that is there to be rented out. And depending on how quickly things got busy after you fell asleep, putting that meal together at all may have been more of an effort than you realize. To answer another question you may have, yes, there are probably people out there who believe that mere willingness to consider settling down with Stefan would entitle them to more than that in a similar situation. The bottom line is that he felt the need to ask you all these questions to make sure he wasn't getting into a bad relationship. After that, his family provided the means for you to rest it off and made sure you got food. If you appreciate what they have done, you should let them know, regardless of whether you think they could have done more or not. If you happen to think they could have done a little more, they'll be more likely to do that "a little more" on a later occasion – if it ever occurs – if you clearly tell them that you appreciate what they did tonight. If you think they did a little too much and are worried about what it cost them, their finances are good enough for this to not be a problem and even a completely normal thing to do after the harsher parts of their vetting process for future in-laws. Either way, simply thanking them is a good thing to do in the short term.
Lalli sighed at Mikkel's words. He had definitely needed to have that conversation, but hated dedicating so much thought to a long nap and a free meal that he had genuinely appreciated, going as far as asking for another person's opinion, just to make sure that he had been treated "properly". The only good thing about his tendency to forget to thank people right after the fact was that they seemed to be pleasantly surprised when he later approached them to correct this upon getting the opportunity. He remembered the other question he had for Mikkel:
-Is there anyone in the house who can teach me how to cook?
On the way home after finishing his dinner, Lalli had found himself wondering why Emil didn't make something for himself with the food that was provided to him. The internal follow-up question had been his own reasons for not doing so despite his own access to raw ingredients.

xxxx

The old man's work didn't allow for much of a lunch break. He had also figured out that it was a better idea to encourage Lalli's voluntary outings than to impose a bunch of pre-planned ones on him, resulting in Lalli having complete freedom concerning the days on which he had lunch at the Hunter's Lodge. Both children were young enough that any sort of elaborate cooking was wasted on them. The end result was that the kitchen wasn't very busy in the late morning, allowing Lalli to try cooking. When he had found out that the dishes he could make himself included sweets, he had decided to try that first. As an easy-to-make cake that used a bread pan was cooking in the oven, a servant came in, announcing Lalli had a visitor. Lalli agreed to have the visitor come to the kitchen, and soon a head with ponytailed chestnut hair was poking in, commenting that the room smelled good:
-Hi. I hope I'm not showing up at a bad time. I thought I should at least let you have the morning to yourself before being introduced to the children.
-I'm baking a cake right now. We can go see them when I'm done. You can sit while waiting if you want.
Stefan properly entered the kitchen and gladly took a chair from the table that did double duty as a servant's break spot and a place to put finished dishes that had no reason to be anywhere else.
-Since when do you bake cakes?
-Today. Sofia just taught me.
Lalli gave a quick glance to the middle-aged woman who, according to the old man, had come with the house. She was currently present to make sure he was heating the cake properly. Stefan smiled:
-You do tend to scarf snacks down when you have lunch at the Lodge. It doesn't hurt to know how to make one's own favorite foods.
Sofia signaled that the cake was ready moments after Stefan finished his sentence, and Lalli took it out. The first thing he did after the cake had cooled down a little was taste it himself. He next gave some to Stefan and Sofia. He then fetched a small metal container with a handle on top of it, put a slice inside it, closed it, made sure the three latches were secure, and put it on the windowsill. Moments later, a seagull grabbed it and flew away with it. Stefan had the face of someone who had just seen something they hadn't expected. It happened with Cecilia's first-time customers a lot. Stefan quickly regained his composure:
-Where is it going?
- The old man… I mean Väinö. You all call him the seagull man.
-How did the seagull know to pick it up?
-There are several boxes like this one in the house. If someone needs to get something small to Väinö while he's working, they put it in one and leave it on a windowsill. He knows to look out for them.
As Lalli said this, he cut a relatively thick piece of the cake, cut it in half and wrapped both halves in a napkin before going towards the kitchen's exit:
-Come. We're going to see the children.
As Stefan got up, Lalli suddenly remembered Mikkel was going to be there also, cut a slice for him and put it in the napkin.

Stefan, already an uncle several times over, happily watched a demonstration of what Juha had figured out how to do with his kitten and made sure more of Anne-Mari's cake ended up inside her mouth than on the floor. When Juha found out one of his jobs was telling stories, Stefan started one. Lalli took advantage of this to talk to Mikkel and make sure that introducing the children to Stefan was a good idea, in case had made some kind of mistake without realizing it.
-You did well. Stefan and I have some information channels in common. I'm not quite happy about those rumors. Especially the one implying something bad condoned by her parents happened to Anne-Mari. Besides, the three of them will be spending a lot of time in each other's company if that courtship works out. And if he chooses the customers to whom he mentions meeting them in person wisely, few will know he's the one spreading the information.

After Stefan finished telling the children his story, he and Lalli left the playroom, and the subject of where to go next came up:
-Your bedroom or another spot you like on the property. Your choice. I saw the mage before coming here, in case you're wondering.
Lalli didn't expect him to have made that effort before coming, which he appreciated. Despite this, he still chose to go to his favorite spot in the garden. The prime reason was that he genuinely wasn't in the mood for the other option. The secondary reason was that Roni had often given him the choice of what they did together to pass time, only to turn out to have actually wanted to do whatever Lalli hadn't chosen all along once they were done. If nobody had a problem with the exhausting interrogation from the previous afternoon, it should be okay for him to get an idea of how sincere Stefan was when he gave him such choices. As they headed outside via the main door, they saw a well-dressed man in his forties Lali didn't recognize walking up to it, clearly being scrutinized by a couple of seagulls. A third seagull flew over Lalli and dropped something that he caught before it reached the ground. It was a message: "Bring Emil here. Good cake for a first time." He turned to Stefan:
-Urgent errand.
He ran straight to the Solberg's property.

When he came back with Emil, a servant brought them to the parlor, where Stefan was talking with the well-dressed man, wearing an outfit that made him look like the sort of person who spent their life behind a desk if the length of his hair was ignored. Stefan saw them arrive:
-Ah, the two of you are just in time. The gentleman here was just telling me he could help Mister Väänänen properly invest his money. Emil, could you do me a favor and tell me if this man looks familiar to you?
Emil moved as to be able to see the man properly, then shook his head. Stefan spoke:
-You can now leave, sir. Sorry for the deception, but we are looking for someone who did this young man's family wrong, and this place's current owner has a job in which he can't take the risk of letting that person go free if they show their face on his doorstep. Otherwise, I regret to inform you that the current owner of this house actually cannot afford to take the risks that come with investing. He moved into this house to accommodate his granddaughter marrying the oldest of a family of three orphans and almost all the money he has to spend on luxuries goes into ensuring that the servants get proper compensation.
Their visitor stood up, thanked Stefan for the tea that had been served, and was escorted out by the servant who had led Emil and Lalli to the parlor. Emil promptly went to slump on the couch made available by the visitor:
-Will anybody mind if I have some of that tea before going back to work?
Stefan answered:
-Go ahead, it was served as part of the set-up. Lalli, sorry all this was sprung on you. The people who swindled Emil's family have never been caught, so a decent part of the town is keeping their eye out for them and making sure nobody else in the area falls victim to similar tricks. Passing me off as people's accountant so they don't know what the real one looks like is an extra layer of protection some are willing to pay for.
As Lalli was looking for something to reply, Emil served himself tea and spoke:
-Hey, if the two of you were in the middle of something before Lalli had to get me, go ahead. Your day was probably disrupted enough as it is. I'm grateful – and kind of impressed, to be honest – you are all still putting on the whole show each time someone who could be one of them shows up, even though I know it's only partly for my sake.
Stefan got up from his chair:
-We were, indeed, and you're welcome. Still up to it, Lalli?
That was a question Lalli could answer immediately:
-Yes.

Stefan changed out of the clerk's outfit, and they were soon both sitting on the property's largest tree, on a low branch as a concession to the fact that they were past the age at which those who didn't need to climb trees for their job started to lose the skill. By that point, Lalli had also managed to sort his thoughts about what had happened. The event had taken him by surprise and he had ended up participating in it without quite knowing what was going on, but he was used to situations in which there was no time for explanations and acting quickly was the top priority from work. Those often meant doing his part, then staying onsite in case someone needed to ask him a question while others took care of an aftermath that often wouldn't matter anymore by the time the following week would roll in. However, he was curious about something:
-Do you know how Emil's parents lost their money? I think Väinö tried explaining it to me when we got a letter with his last name on it, but I didn't follow everything he was saying.
-You know how businesses that sell ready-made items make money, right?
Lalli nodded.
-A lot of businesses work that way to an extent. This means it can be hard starting one for people who don't already have a certain amount of money or something they can sell for a profit at their disposal. One of the ways they can get other people to lend them starting money is to promise to pay them back out of the business' profits and continue doing so even after the money initially given to them is paid off. The people lending money and expecting to make more back are called investors. Between the sums involved and the risk that the business will fail before it makes the initial cost back, only banks and very rich people can afford to be investors. Do you follow me so far?
Lalli nodded, and Stefan continued:
-Sometimes, rather than a single person lending five thousand crowns, there are five people lending a thousand crowns each. All five could have come to the conclusion that the business was worth it through their own thought process, or one of them could have basically told the others "Hey, I know someone who has great idea for a business and needs five thousand crowns to get started, but I can only spare a thousand. Can you guys provide the rest? I promise it will be very profitable". However, if that person was sufficiently dishonest, they could simply never let the person starting the business see a single crown, pocket the money themselves, and disappear. If they are smart enough, they can do this by fooling others into believing that there is a business to invest in. Both the tricks I mentioned are well-known by now, so people who are trying to play such tricks need to come up with new ideas. From what I've been told, everything indicates that the people who swindled Emil's parents out of their money were a fake investor's association. Its members claimed they already had their money in many different profitable businesses between them and were willing to accept a new member in their midst.
Lalli took advantage of the end of the sentence to intervene:
-I remember that last part from Väinö's explanation. What I didn't understand is what happened with the money.
-To his credit, what happened with it is quite unusual. In most similar situations, the swindler disappears as soon as the money is in their care. Smarter ones are able to maintain the illusion that the investment is consistently profitable for a certain amount of time to trick people into putting larger sums of money in their care before they disappear with it. Those people's strategy apparently started out similarly to the second method, except that the first occurrence upon which Emil's parents got a little less money back than what they put in happened quite early on. The loss was made back on their following investment. The good and bad investments alternated with each other in a way that made it look like that staying with the association was worth it on the long term, but also did a good job of keeping them from noticing that overall, they were losing more money than they were putting in. At least, until they started needing to make choices between the investments and other things.
Lalli saw an obvious way to keep such a situation from becoming as bad as it clearly had:
-Couldn't they just leave before losing so much money?
-According to what I know, they considered quitting the association several times, but they were always told that the alternatives they were considering trying would make too little money too slowly, and that staying with the association was their best chance to make their lost money back. They eventually reached a point where their fortune ran out and stopped paying some regular expenses to have money to invest until… wait… their best chance… claiming all the alternatives are inferior… unkept promises that things will get better if they stay… Umm… Lalli, are there notebooks I can use in the house, by any chance?