The Black Market was nestled in the heart of the Arkum District, one of the city's most decaying slums.
Above ground, it was a chaotic surge of people: beggars, laborers, and merchants shouting over piles of cheap produce and rusted iron. It was loud, filthy, and perfectly ordinary.
But the real market, the one that mattered, breathed beneath the mud.
A magic market hidden under a regular one? Lou thought, a small, amused smile tugging at his lips. Classic. The best way to hide a secret is to bury it under a mountain of noise.
It wasn't just a matter of finding a trapdoor, though.
This place had standards. As they moved through the crowd, Edith pulled a tarnished silver coin from her pocket. She tossed it into the air and began a low, rhythmic chant.
It was the same ancient tongue William had used at the library.
Everything in this world has a damn code, Lou realized.
One second, they were standing in the middle of a bustling vegetable stall; the next, the world blurred.
The shouting of the crowd turned into a muffled hum, and the air grew thick with a cold, silvery mist.
"There are no tunnels?" Lou asked, looking around. "No stairs?"
Edith didn't turn, but she seemed to catch the confusion in his voice. "This place doesn't exist in the physical sense, Lou. It's a pocket of folded space, sustained by the collective spirit energy of those within. To an ordinary person, we simply vanished. To an awakened soul, we've just stepped through the veil. It's the only way to keep the 'unwashed' from stumbling into things that would melt their minds."
Well isn't it suspicious for a person to simply vanish in thin air for to an ordinary human?
The mist began to thin, revealing a subterranean cavern that felt endless.
And it was packed.
Immediately, Lou's Seer senses went into overdrive.
It was like someone had cranked the volume to maximum in his brain.
Back at the cottage, he'd only felt a few signatures belonging to William, the witch, the spirit.
Here, it was a riot.
Spirit energy bled from every person in the room in a jagged rainbow of colors: aggressive reds, sickly greens, electric yellows, and abyssal blacks.
Do all these people deal in this stuff? Lou marveled. This market is an armory of raw power.
"Follow me," the blind Seer commanded.
She began weaving through the crowd with a grace that defied her lack of sight. Lou watched her closely.
I really need to ask her how she does that. She navigates this hellscape better than I do with two working eyes.
The stalls were manned by the creepiest collection of humanity Lou had ever seen.
These were the Spirit Merchants, neutral traders who dealt in everything from healing elixirs to cursed charms that smelled of rot.
They didn't care about the war between light and shadow; they only cared about the weight of the coin.
"A luck card, sir? A luck card for the young gentleman!" a scrawny woman hissed, thrusting a piece of yellowed parchment toward him.
Lou didn't even slow down.
Last time I dealt with a 'luck ritual,' I ended up in a body with a noose-mark on its neck, scheduled to die in three years. Fuck luck.
"Hey, Captain—"
"Don't call me that," Edith interrupted. "In the field, it's just Edith."
"Fine. Edith. You said we are looking for a merchant. Why?"
Edith stopped in the middle of a bridge made of dark stone. She fumbled in her cloak and pulled out a small object, no larger than a willow leaf.
Lou recoiled slightly. A familiar, oily red energy was leaking from it.
"Recognize this?" she asked.
"Yeah. It's a cursed artifact," Lou said, his voice dropping. "It was inside Jon's stomach back at the cottage. It's what gave the hex its teeth."
"Correct."
"But... how did you get it?" Lou asked, his brow furrowing. "I was with Jon the whole time. William was outside fighting that Death Spirit. I never saw him touch the body."
Edith's black lips curled into a tiny smile. "William has his methods, Lou. He's much faster than he looks, and he's been doing this a long time. You can ask him yourself when we get back. Right now, we have more important questions."
She held the leaf-shaped artifact up to the dim light. "We're here to find the merchant who sold this to Debra. If we find the source, we find the rest of the cult."
So we're looking for the arms dealer, Lou thought, his hand instinctively hovering near his pocket. I just hope this merchant is easier to talk to than the last person I met who dealt in red energy.
"William mentioned a cult," Lou said, keeping his pace steady beside her. "The one Debra belonged to. He said they served the Lord of Shadows."
Edith nodded, her head tilting as she navigated a patch of uneven stone. "The Noah Dann Cult. They're a relic from the Red Sun Period. They've been hiding in the cracks of Eurodia since the 1300s, though their numbers have shriveled to almost nothing. They trade in forbidden techniques, Umbrakinesis, mostly, and they worship a Fallen Deity that the rest of the world has tried to forget. It's rare to see a Dann follower in the 17th century, but they're like cockroaches. If you see one, there are ten more in the walls."
She slowed down as the mist thickened. "The woman William hunted was definitely a member. But William... well, he's a hammer. He sees a nail, he hits it. He killed her before he could extract a single name. So, we're stuck with Plan B: tracking the merchant who supplied her."
"And how are we supposed to find one specific merchant in this literal sea of energy?" Lou asked, glancing at the hundreds of glowing signatures around them.
"Watch closely, boy. This is a lesson in efficiency."
Edith reached into her heavy cloak and pulled out a small, circular device. It looked like a standard navigator's compass, but instead of a magnetic needle, it had a floating sliver of polished black suspended in a liquid that glowed with a faint, pulsing violet light. The casing was etched with silver runes that seemed to shiver when they got close to the red artifact.
"What is that?" Lou asked, leaning in.
"A Spirit Signature Compass," Edith explained. "Tracking with your raw Seer sight is fine for short bursts, but it's exhausting. It's like staring at the sun; eventually, your 'eyes' burn out. This device leeches off the residual energy of an artifact and points toward its source. It's incredibly effective against lower-grade awakened and tainted items."
Edith placed the compass on her left palm and held the red, leaf-shaped artifact in her right. The black needle snapped toward the north, vibrating so hard the glass casing rattled.
"North," she declared.
As they walked, Lou couldn't help himself. He'd been staring at her profile, watching her navigate the crowded, misty market without a single stumble. "I've been meaning to ask... you're blind. How are you doing this? You're walking like you've got 20/20 vision."
Edith's black lips curled into a faint smile.
"To a Seer, physical light is just a suggestion. Every object in this world, every stone, every person, every breath of wind, has a spirit signature. For me, the world isn't made of colors and shadows; it's made of vibrations and echoes of energy. Think of it like a bat's sonar, but instead of sound, I'm 'seeing' the heat of the soul. In this mist, I actually see better than you do, because your eyes are struggling with the fog, while my mind is seeing the energy through it."
Wow, Lou thought, watching her move. She's like a supernatural bat. An exceptional, grumpy bat.
The compass needle suddenly swung hard to the right. They took a sharp turn, weaving past a stall selling shriveled dream-root and another displaying jars of flickering blue fire. They walked another twenty paces until they reached a cramped, shadowed stall.
An old man with a beard so long it was tucked into his belt sat behind a counter made of driftwood. Beside him sat a heavy iron horseshoe, glowing with a dull, protective light.
"Would you like to purchase a love potion, perhaps? Or a luck charm for the young gentleman?" the man rasped, his eyes milky with cataracts. He looked at Edith and gave a wet, dismissive spit. "Ah, but you're blind. What use have you for beauty?"
Edith didn't flinch. She just tapped the compass and let the red energy of the artifact flare for a brief, terrifying second.
"Found him," she declared.