A Market of Dreams and Destiny E-Book

Trip Galey

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 548

Beschreibung

Enter the bazaar of the bizarre where fate and fortunes are for sale in this high-stakes magical adventure across a London not quite like our own, perfect for fans of Neverwhere and The Night Circus. Below Covent Garden lies the Under Market, where anything and everything has a price: a lover's first blush, a month of honesty, five minutes of strength, a wisp of luck and fortune. As a child, Deri was sold to one of the most powerful merchants of the Under Market as a human apprentice. Now, after seventeen years of servitude and stealing his master's secrets, Deri spots a chance to buy not only his freedom but his place amongst the Under Market's elite. A runaway princess escapes to the market, looking to sell her destiny. Deri knows an opportunity when he sees it and makes the bargain of the century. If Deri can sell it on, he'll be made for life, but if he's caught with the goods, it will cost him his freedom forever. Now that Deri has met a charming and distractingly handsome young man, and persuaded him that three dates are a suitable price for his advice and guidance, Deri realises he has more to lose than ever. News of the princess spreads quickly and with the royal enforcers closing in, Deri finds himself the centre of his master's unwanted attention. He'll have to pull out all the stops to outmanoeuvre the Master Merchant, save the man he loves, make a name for himself, and possibly change the destiny of London forever.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

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Epilogue

Biography

Acknowledgements

‘A book as rich with wonder as the market in its pages. Galey’s London is a world where anything – anything – is for sale: a glance, the feeling of moonlight, true love. Careful or you might end up bartering your heart away.’

Patrick Ness, bestselling author of The Chaos Walking Trilogy

‘Magical and literary, A Market of Dreams and Destiny ensnares you in layers and webs of fantasy and alternate history. Galey weaves a fae-touched world where anything can be bought or sold, leaving you to wonder what you would trade to visit it.’

David R. Slayton, author of the Adam Binder novels

‘You’re in for the fantasy thrill of the year with A Market of Dreams and Destiny! Deri is our heroic queer navigator through a fascinating, frightening world, like the lead of some eighties dark fantasy film we never got (but always deserved). More, please, Trip Galey!’

Adam Sass, award-winning author of Surrender Your Sons and Your Lonely Nights Are Over

‘Intriguing and atmospheric, this compelling tale of drama and danger in the shadows of a goblin market under an alternate Victorian London more than delivers on its promises.’

Juliet E. McKenna, author of The Cleaving and The Thief’s Gamble

‘An astonishing feat of the imagination, every page bursting with fantastical detail. Trip Galey’s debut is striking, and deserves to be celebrated.’

Oliver K. Langmead, author of Birds of Paradise and Glitterati

‘I traded a handful of hours for Galey’s beautiful epic of an other-London full of magical deals, audacious schemes, outrageous romance and a talking cat. Trip’s birthed something really rather extraordinary.’

J.L. Worrad, author of Pennyblade and The Keep Within

‘Intoxicating. A thrilling mix of the magical, the monstrous and the mercantile. Set in an ingenious alternative London with a main character pairing you can’t help but love, Galey’s cocktail of enchantment, romance and dangerous bargains swept me away.’

Tom Pollock, author of The Skyscraper Throne trilogy

‘I was enthralled by this world, where fairy merchants strike bargains with the precision of contract lawyers. The goblin market shines like enchanted gold, whimsical with dark undercurrents. The tension ratchets up with every trade, and Deri is the loophole-finding rogue we all wish we could be.’

A.J. Lancaster, author of The Lord of Stariel

‘Galey has created a world you can step inside, full of texture and descriptions so rich you can almost experience the market for yourself... A cracking read all round!’

Courtney Smyth, author of The Undetectables

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A Market of Dreams and Destiny

Print edition ISBN: 9781803363684

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803363691

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2023

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Powder Thompson 2023

Powder Thompson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For Robert, who is worth any price.

1

Be wary, child, as you go down,To the place beneath old London town,Where fey-folk work and goblins frown,In the market ’neath old London town.

Deri hummed to himself as he dodged through the crowd, an old scrap of rhyme dredged up from a memory so many times bought and sold it was all but worn through. Three more errands left, just three, then he’d be free as the wind-swept sea. Well, as free as possible until he bought himself out of his indenture. Until then, endless errands. Fetch a new vial of ink of night from Merchant Codex. Deliver the parcel he carried to Merchant Blatterbosch. And return with Merchant Maurlocke’s lunch before the Market Bell rang the midday hour. Not that there was day, as such, here below London.

The Untermarkt was busier than usual. The lanes that threaded through the market stalls, never terribly wide, were choked with people. Mortals mixed with denizens from Faery and lands even deeper Underhill. A tattooed woman in buckskin and furs traded a small leather pouch to a merchant with the head and paws of a cat for the ability to see in the dark. A pair of young men in evening wear, drunk on a drop of faery wine, nearly crashed into a stall filled with dreams caught in crystal cobwebs. Goblin midwives, big-bellied with the precious charges that they both carried and delivered themselves, waddled past.

Noise crashed and foamed around him. Merchants haggled and hawked their wares, customers haggled back or laughed with their friends, buskers sang songs or brayed on instruments. You could feel the approaching holiday in the air, anticipation and excitement. Threaded through it all were the voices of the bells, ringing out hours and sales, jangling the appearance of customers and, to the rare few like Deri, who could truly hear, sharing gossip and swapping stories.

Did you hear? Did you hear? rang the Bell of Auld St. Cyr. The Merchant Shade did disappear!

Pish and tosh! Pish and tosh! rang the bell near Merchant Kosh. He’s simply gone to do his wash!

The first words Deri could remember hearing had been rang out by the bells. He’d been able to understand them, even then. A gift from having been carried to term by a goblin midwife.

‘Memories, sure to please! Sweet memories for modest fees! Come buy! Come buy!’

‘How do, Merchant Pryek,’ Deri called a greeting to a woman whose fingers were fine white clay and whose face was a porcelain mask. Her stall was a magpie’s nest of things that had been shaped: fine china and silver spoons, knots of plaited straw and carefully tatted lace, needles and spindles and rings and chains. Every item held not only its shape but also a memory that could be relived simply by using it.

‘Ah! Good morning, Deri,’ the merchant replied. ‘Come see my latest treasure! Come-come!’ She held up a commemorative plate, delicately painted with a distinctive pattern of blue and the profile of a regal young woman. ‘Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it pristine? Why, it hasn’t been eaten from since High Queen Victoria was elected to the throne, nearly forty years ago. And when you look at it, you can hear a memory of the Stone of Destiny singing her confirmation.’ She sighed with pleasure. ‘It will be a shame to part with it, but should you, or Merchant Maurlocke be interested…’ She angled the plate temptingly.

‘Not today, Merchant Pryek.’ Not today was so much safer than no. Maurlocke would skin him for shoe leather if he closed down a potential opportunity with a no. ‘Have a profitable day!’

Deri slipped behind a trio of young women bearing armfuls of parcels, though he needn’t have bothered. Merchant Pryek was already calling out to another.

He wove and darted through the crowd. It was busy, even for the Untermarkt, making running errands even more of a challenge. Deri was looking forward to the Autumnal Equinox as much as any of these punters, but unlike them he still had to work. Didn’t get but the bare scrape of holiday allotted by his indenture.

‘Good morning, Merchant Creydland!’ Deri called, passing a mountain of a man with eyes like coals and hair of fire. One of Merchant Maurlocke’s best trading partners; always take the time to pay respect to Merchant Creydland.

Deri received but a grunt of recognition in reply. A smith as much as a merchant, Creydland affected a smith’s apron rather than the more elaborate robes many merchants favoured. The majority of his attention was currently bent on hammering the last details of delicate brass filigree into place on a replacement hand for the man standing outside the merchant’s stall, who only had one of his own remaining. A soldier, probably, what with the appendage in question being of brass and all.

Creydland’s stall commanded an intersection of two market avenues. Left should be quicker, along the Street of Living Flame. Deri turned, but instead of the smell of hot metal and cold coin, his nose filled with a full field of floral bouquets. Fardles, the Market had shifted again.

‘Fruit of Knowledge! Fruit of Health! Learn secrets! Never sicken!’

‘Seeds! Rich seeds! One grain will sprout a full field of wheat!’

‘Flowers of Love, to grow your regard! Flowers of Lust, and passion unbarred! Come buy! Come buy!’

The last exhortation was cast upon the winds by Merchant Peaseblossom. Not good. Their stall, all of living wood that had never known the touch of axe, was so close to the edge of the Untermarkt as to be nearly in London proper.

‘Good morning, Deri,’ the merchant said, catching sight of him standing near. ‘Does Merchant Maurlocke require a fine posey or three?’

‘Not today, Merchant Peaseblossom.’ Deri flashed an apologetic smile. Peaseblossom was a terrible flirt. He was saved from further conversation by a pair of customers breezing up to the stall.

‘Good morning!’ Mortals. A pair of them, hand in hand, stepped up to the merchant.

The two young men, for such they were, both wore clothes of excellent cut, with particularly fine waistcoats. One was green and bronze with a chain-like pattern worked across it, while the other was blue and grey and bore repeating circles, like ship’s wheels.

It was a far cry from Deri’s own garb. He was dressed well enough, to be sure, but as a servant. Simple trousers and waistcoat of grey, with a coat to match. His hat, a nice flat cap which had once been a very fetching maroon, was his sole foray into the more daring side of fashion. As a servant he could only venture so far.

Not like the happy young men in front of him.

‘Ah! Messrs Copperfield and Steerforth! You’re looking well. I have the boutonnieres for your wedding all ready. Bide but a moment and I will fetch them for you.’ Merchant Peaseblossom turned, touched a flower as iridescent and translucent as spun glass, and disappeared.

‘Should we get some more rós-a-milis?’ Steerforth asked. ‘We’re here anyway.’

The flowers in question were so named for the enchantment their petals bore, not the specific colour or variety. Plucking a single petal from the bloom and crushing it between the fingers immediately cleansed one of all foul smells and rendered one’s clothing as freshly laundered. They were understandably popular amongst the bright young things that partied somewhat excessively but then had to make a presentable appearance at Great-Aunt Augusta’s dinner soiree to ensure the inheritance didn’t go amiss.

‘Depends on the price,’ the other, Copperfield, was saying.

‘You fret too much. Come now, Daisy! Can’t be less than fresh at our own wedding, can we?’

‘Don’t call me Daisy!’ Copperfield attempted to look stern but the laugh that burst from his lips spoiled the effect.

Lovers. Easy marks for the right kind of merchant. Nothing opened the purse like devotion or desperation. So much touching, too! Deri hadn’t seen many mortals quite so bold in the public display of their affections. He absently ran his fingers down his own arm. Not that he had occasion to flirt with the boundaries of what was or was not proper, himself. His indenture expressly forbade romantic entanglements. Not that he had time, anyway.

Time! He still had three errands to complete and, thanks to the stalls and alleyways shifting, his next stop was halfway across the Untermarkt. Deri briefly considered trying to take a shortcut through the streets above. No. Not fast enough. He’d have to do it the other way. At least he had a strong guide to follow to his next destination.

The trick to navigating the Goblin Market was not to ignore temptation. That was an exercise in futility. The trick was choosing which temptations to give in to, just a little, so you could follow them to what you were truly after.

Merchant Codex dealt in books, and parchment, and inks of all kinds. When was the last time he’d had the chance to hear a good story? There were no books or storytellers near, but this was the right place to send messages in the Language of Flowers, and sure enough, the Untermarkt stepped in to tempt him.

‘Prose spelt in poseys! In pansies and roseys!’

A single voice leapt out at him, clear above the clamour. Right on cue. The Market couldn’t resist an unspoken desire.

Deri followed temptation from the Street of the Flower-Sellers to a niche near an intersection where a bardic initiate sang a ballad of ages past. His feet slowed. He hadn’t heard this one before! No! He didn’t want to hear it. He wanted to learn it himself. He needed a copy of the ballad. Deri followed that impulse away from the performance, and down a bright and brassy alleyway filled to overflowing with stalls selling all manner of scraps of foolscap printed with dark and determined processions of notes. From music to lyrics and from lyrics to poetry. That brought him at last close enough to Merchant Codex’s territory that he was able to spot her stall amongst the many.

Skin pale as paper and ink-dark hair brushed from her face in an inspired scrawl, Merchant Codex was deep in conversation with a young man perhaps six or seven years Deri’s senior. A contract of indenture sat on the market stall between them. It was old, judging by the grime darkening the jagged edge marking each of the two halves as belonging to one another.

‘Come now, Anwyl, you’re being foolish! Why buy out now?’ Merchant Codex asked, voice as soft as the rustling of pages in a library. ‘You’re only a few months from the end of your service. You could work out the time and keep your savings.’

They were negotiating the buy-out of the young man’s indenture! Deri angled for a closer vantage point. Wouldn’t hurt to listen close, see if he could learn anything that might help him buy free of his own. Fortunately, the two negotiators ignored him.

‘I’ve fallen in love,’ Anwyl replied. ‘And you know as well as I that I can’t fraternise, court, woo, or otherwise pursue marriage while I’m still indentured. I need to be free, now!’

A silly reason to spend one’s savings, but if it gave Deri the chance to watch a negotiation like this, well, who was he to stand in the way of love? Deri watched Merchant Codex’s response carefully. There had to be a reason the merchant was pushing back on this.

‘You’ve the best eye for quality I’ve had in a long time. Surely, we can come to an arrangement that keeps you in my employ,’ Merchant Codex wheedled. ‘I could waive the clause on engagement if you agreed to, say, a three-year extension?’

Anwyl fell silent, considering the offer.

Deri bit back the urge to offer his opinion. Extend the contract? Anwyl would have to be barmy. Even if one clause were waived, there’s no way he could trust Codex not to still exert some sort of control over his love life, and he’d be three years further from freedom! Three years of life lived at the mercy and whim of someone else. Sure, the savings would be nice, but in the long term, it was bound to cost more than it was worth. Merchants of the Untermarkt didn’t make deals that weren’t to their advantage.

What he wouldn’t give to have that freedom himself. Well, actually, he knew. There were five years, seven months, and three days left on his indenture. He’d saved up enough that he’d be able to buy his way free in a little over a year, give or take. Of course, that didn’t account for how much he’d need to set himself up in business at the Untermarkt. There was no way that would be cheap. Goblin merchants frowned on allowing mortals like him into their ranks.

Sweet Goddess Danu, though, what he wouldn’t give for the chance. Others had done it over the years. Not many, but some. Great Gwri, Iden the Spinner, Jack Trades…though Deri had no idea what it had cost them, and finding out would likely set his freedom back three years or more.

‘No,’ Anwyl said, breaking Deri out of his reverie, ‘no deal. I’d like to end the contract.’

‘As you wish,’ Merchant Codex said. She picked up the two halves of the contract sitting on the stall in front of her and with quick, efficient motions, ripped them to pieces. The contract was ended.

‘Ah Deri, there you are. I have the ink of night Merchant Maurlocke requested all ready.’ Anwyl was ignored. All potential profit had been wrung from him, so he was no longer worthy of Merchant Codex’s time or attention. ‘Now, what have you brought me in payment?’

2

After finishing with Merchant Codex, it didn’t take Deri long to locate the next person he had to deal with. The Market’s shift had rearranged things in his favour, this time. He wasn’t far from the right alley, and the canny old goblin he sought was loud, so if Deri just listened…

‘Eyes of every size! Hair so very fair! Come buy! Come buy!’

There. That was Blatterbosch. The old goblin’s voice with its strong Black Forest accent was unmistakable. Deri turned toward the sound and shortly found himself standing in front of the stall he sought.

Blatterbosch crouched amidst his wares like a toad in a flowerbed, naked save for a loincloth that only the most discerning of eyes could pick out from the goblin’s statuesque form. Ladies’ fingers, pale and cold, nestled among jars of grass-green eyes. Twists of hair in all colours of autumn leaves hung like shimmering vines in a fringe across the front of the stall. Things rarer still, iridescent scales and gossamer wings and even a satyr’s pride, were scattered about like garden ornaments, calculatingly placed to command attention.

Deri resolutely ignored the satyr’s pride. It was never a good idea to be distracted when dealing with a goblin merchant. It was an even worse one to interrupt when said merchant was concluding a deal. So Deri waited, foot tapping, as a young woman with flaming locks of auburn hair traded its luminous beauty for the strength of ten men. She flexed her fingers and Deri prudently took a step to one side. Until she had some practice with her newly bought brawn, there were likely to be broken teacups and broken bones in her future. Deri had no wish to be the first casualty.

Still, as soon as she stepped away from the stall Deri darted in to take her place. Time was precious, not to be wasted. Almost before Blatterbosch could greet him, he had parcel in hand. It was wrapped in snow-white butcher’s paper; Deri preferred not to dwell overmuch on the way the somewhat squishy contents regularly pulsed out a beat.

‘Ah!’ Blatterbosch’s eyes – all five of them – glowed. ‘You have it! Danu’s dugs, how did Maurlocke manage to persuade her to give up her second heart?’

‘I’m sure I cannot say, Merchant Blatterbosch.’ Manners were important in the Untermarkt. Almost as important as they were to the High Society toffs up top.

‘Yes. Well. In any case. Tell your mystrer I am most pleased to have done business with ym. Most pleased.’ Blatterbosch held out a hand for the parcel.

‘Ah,’ Deri said delicately, ‘I’m afraid your negotiations with my mystrer only covered my bringing the parcel to your stall. You neglected to settle on a fee for my handing you the parcel.’

It was outright robbery to ask, but Deri had dealt with Blatterbosch often enough to know when he could press his luck. Still, it was always a risk. His shoulders tensed, but he kept a pleasant-yet-slightly-apologetic look on his face.

The old goblin favoured Deri with a long, measuring look, eyes narrowing. Deri didn’t flinch. Didn’t dare flinch. Then Blatterbosch laughed, a vast booming sound that set the merchant’s mounds of flesh to jiggling – even the display merchandise on his stall.

‘And what price do you ask for such a dangerous feat as passing me a parcel, little one?’

Of course the merchant had seen through Deri’s polite fiction. He knew Deri was angling for a bit of profit for himself, rather than on behalf of Maurlocke. Deri braced himself, running calculations in his mind. Something minor enough the merchant would part with it, but with enough value that Deri could hope to sell it on for a profit. Ideally, something that would, in the long run, cost the merchant nothing. Deri pointed to the second-finest spill of hair draped across the top of the stall.

‘The lustre of those locks for a single evening.’

It was a small thing. The lustre would return, the locks could be sold on with no lessening of value. The question was, would Blatterbosch see it that way?

‘Very well.’ The merchant laughed again. ‘I like your brass, boy. You have a deal.’

‘Thank you, Master Merchant.’ Deri handed over the parcel and collected his payment, all tied up with a single, intricately knotted hair. ‘May your day continue to be a profitable one.’

‘Yours as well, young man. Yours as well.’ Blatterbosch waved him away absently, four of his five eyes already seeking in the crowd for the next mark.

Deri allowed himself a satisfied grin as he dove back into the crowd, tucking his prize safely away in one of the many hidden pockets sewn throughout his coat. Not bad. It’d taken more time than he’d have liked, but he’d managed a bit of profit, so it all evened out. Now, to sort out Merchant Maurlocke’s lunch. He could tell by the bells that he was running out of time.

*   *   *

Deri was two-thirds of the way to collecting Merchant Maurlocke’s lunch when a voice hissing down at him caused him to pause.

‘Hisst, kit! Slow and hark, and you may find the opportunity for an extra bit of profit.’

Deri followed the sound to a ginger tabby, grooming herself whilst perched atop the pole of a nearby market bell. ‘Milady Bess,’ he said, ‘you’re looking well.’

Bess stretched the leg she had been cleaning and shook it. ‘Well enough. The first left and third right after and you’ll find a nice bit of opportunity. If you are interested, of course.’

Of course he was interested. He was always interested. Even without the bells ringing encouragement in his ears, he would be interested.

He didn’t thank Bess, of course. To do so in the Untermarkt would be more than passing dangerous. He did, however, sketch a little bow in her direction and add a bit of fish to his mental list. It paid to keep one’s allies happy, even if that meant smelling of cod for a bit.

The first left and the third right sped by quickly, ending on the Street of Sworn Words. Unexpected. What could Bess have been referring to? Deri’s eyes raked the crowds. There!

Near the stall of Bruteria Promise-Maker, where vows and oaths and geasa hung in rows, all bound in knots of parchment and chains of silver and pewter and gold, a young man stood with a small bit of paper in his hand and despair in his eyes. About his age, Deri would hazard, with a labourer’s arms and a shirt not more than a few days from being disdained by even the rag-pickers. A workhouse boy, judging by the threadbare brown trousers and shirt which might once have aspired to cream but had long since washed away to sullen grey. It was lemon as anything to guess his problem; Promise-Makers were exceptional at finding loopholes, and charging you an arm and a leg on top of your original bargain to hold them to whatever terms were struck.

‘You promised Missus Graspar a geas!’ the young man was repeating, clearly not for the first, or even seventh, time.

‘And she is welcome to have it,’ Bruteria countered smugly. ‘Why don’t you just pop back and tell her to come herself and collect it?’

‘But she sent me to fetch it!’

‘Does the signature on the receipt say Owain on it?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have a sealed and witnessed writ conferring Missus Graspar’s authority on you?’

‘No, but—’

‘Then it’s not my problem.’ Bruteria crossed her arms across her chest.

‘Which one is it?’ Deri interrupted, stepping up next to the young man apparently named Owain.

‘What?’ Owain half-turned to Deri.

Bruteria twisted her lips into a lopsided knot of displeasure.

‘Deri,’ she warned, ‘this is none of your concern.’

‘Business is business, as they say, Bruteria,’ Deri replied. ‘Which chain were you sent to collect?’ he asked Owain again.

‘I – I’m not sure,’ came the reply.

‘Then hire me to help you. I can promise my price will be much more reasonable than Bruteria’s.’

Deri couldn’t resist shooting a little smirk at Bruteria. The merchant sneered back. No self-respecting goblin would brag of being reasonable.

It was dangerous. Baiting Bruteria was asking to make enemies. Worse, Maurlocke might take exception to his obviously siding with a fellow human over his adopted market brethren. But Deri didn’t like those that penny-and-tuppence’d their customers.

‘What’s your price?’ Owain asked.

Too late to back out now. Bad enough to be seen interfering with another’s market business, far worse to back out after offering to make a deal. What was his price? Owain didn’t look like he had much to spare. Without quite thinking, Deri blurted out an offer.

‘One piece of advice for one night on the town is my going rate.’ Deri quirked a smile at Owain. ‘It doesn’t have to be fancy; it just has to be fun.’

Bruteria made no move to hide her snort of contempt.

‘Deal,’ Owain said, seizing Deri’s hand.

Owain’s hand was warm, his grip strong. The touch was like lightning.

Deri pulled his hand away and draped a smile across his face like a veil.

‘The receipt gives you enough right to claim your mistress’s order. Bruteria never actually said you couldn’t take it. She asked you a series of questions that made you think you couldn’t, sure. But she isn’t going to stop you. She can’t. She won’t help you, either, unless you pay her, but I suspect she’s already made the offer and you will not –’ Deri glanced at Owain and corrected himself. ‘– cannot meet the price for her aid.’

‘True enough.’ Owain sighed.

‘But if you take the right chain, she cannot stop you. So, which one is it?’

Owain looked at the multitude of chains of paper and gold hanging about the market stall.

‘I have no idea.’

‘Check the receipt,’ Deri suggested.

Owain looked down at the slip of paper in his hand.

‘…Silver.’

Bruteria’s stall was hung predominantly with paper and gold, the former to hold agreements fast, the latter because the truth shines golden, and that metal best holds geasa. There were a few strands of silver and jet amongst the others – modest pieces, for the most part, binding forged for more unusual purposes.

‘Finely forged.’

Owain’s eyes scanned Bruteria’s wares. There were still more choices than one. He looked to Deri, eyes beginning to panic.

‘Think about who commissioned the piece. That will always show through. Something of them will have to. It’s like a signature on a document. The working is no good without it.’

Owain glanced back at the stall and after a moment, he reached out and picked up a precise length of tightly twisted silver and pewter.

‘This one,’ he said. ‘It has to be.’

‘Then take it, and be gone!’ Bruteria glared at the two. ‘You’re keeping honest business from my stall!’

Owain let out an explosive breath of relief. Deri laughed and stuck his arm through Owain’s, pulling him away from the stall. The thrill of contact was no less for the presence of cloth between them.

‘Best clear the way for other customers,’ Deri murmured to Owain.

‘Oh, right. Of course.’ Owain allowed himself to be steered into the crowd. ‘Why does it have to be so complicated? What’s wrong with plain money for stuff, no tricks?’

‘It’s boring,’ Deri answered without thinking, ‘and what would most of us do with a bunch of dead metal anyway? It’s easy enough to get, in Faery. The last blush of innocence, though, that’s truly rare. That has lasting value.’ Deri bit his tongue before it spilled any more freebies.

‘I’d not thought of it that way,’ Owain said.

‘Most mortals don’t need to.’ Deri glanced around at the crowded market. ‘I suppose you can find your own way. Unless you’d like to hire a guide?’

‘I can find my own way.’ Owain smiled. ‘Thank you, though, for your help.’

Deri recoiled from the words. ‘Never thank a merchant,’ he said. ‘It implies they didn’t drive a hard enough bargain. And after all, you paid me for my advice.’

‘Right,’ Owain agreed. ‘A night on the town.’

‘Three nights,’ Deri corrected.

‘What?’

‘One for each piece of advice I gave you.’ Deri smiled.

‘But—’ Owain blinked. ‘That was the deal, wasn’t it?’

‘It was indeed, my new friend. It was indeed.’

3

Deri followed a silversmith to Gossips’ Row, then trailed a lady’s maid to the Street of Sighs. If you had the knack, you could often use other people’s temptations to navigate the Market as easily as your own. Some lord or other led him deeper, tempted by the finery of the webwork of market stalls and shops called Spinners’ Nook. And if you followed the finer things long enough, sooner or later you would find yourself at Maurlocke’s pavilion.

There were mansions less ostentatious, though Deri himself had never seen any. The pavilion commanded a prime position, a small island at the centre of three intersecting market avenues. Great swathes of white samite like ship’s sails, threaded with patterns of gold like falling coins, undulated gently in the market air. Censers of gold trailed silver tendrils of incense from each of the three entrances, and delicate chimes of crystal trilled out tempting rills. Anything to tempt the wealthy and unwary.

Deri ignored it all, though he appreciated the way the incense smelled of his favourite meal – fish and chips – and undercut the grasping majesty of Maurlocke’s demesne. As he approached the entrance, the fabric writhed of its own accord, warning Deri that Maurlocke was not alone inside the pavilion. Cheeky tent! Assuming Deri would just barge in, possibly upending delicate negotiations. As if he didn’t know better by this point. Still, Deri moved with extra care and quiet as he entered.

The entry flaps snapped themselves closed on the heels of his passage. They’d taken an extreme dislike to Deri ever since he’d spilled ink on them. That had been over a dozen years ago! He’d been what? Four, maybe five? Ages ago, anyway, but Maurlocke’s tent – like its owner – tended to hold a grudge.

The inside of the pavilion was, if anything, even more lavish than the exterior, and every inch gave Deri a reason to resent it. The rugs were thick and plush, woven with designs like a forest floor, and brushing them clean was about as difficult as brushing the real thing. Light gleamed from mirrors of gold hung about the perimeter, and weren’t they a joy to polish. Not to mention the pavilion walls, two-sided and two-faced, as irritable inside as out. Deri entered cautiously, for more reasons than one.

Within the boundaries of the tent, Maurlocke’s whim was all but law. Furnishings appeared and disappeared, tapestries shifted and changed, space itself warped and conformed to the merchant’s need. At present, the merchant was deep in conversation with a woman dressed all in white. A delicate veil obscured her features, but her voice was a haggard thing clawing its way through that ivory fall. She wore only one shoe, Deri noted, as she paced the confines of the pavilion.

Maurlocke, by contrast, looked all but decked for a funeral. Every thread on the merchant’s body was black. And whether or not ys gaze tracked the woman’s rovings, Deri could not say. Maurlocke’s eyes were of pure flint, and the lack of pupil did present something of a challenge in determining precisely where the merchant was looking at any given moment. Maurlocke clucked in disapproval and raised one shining hand to the elaborate coiffure of silver and gold chains growing in place of hair on ys head. Skin like molten gold glimmered in the light of the pavilion, a bright counterpoint to the costly black gown that dripped from Maurlocke’s shoulders, a rippling river of shadows.

‘I will require the ring.’ Maurlocke’s voice was cool and smooth as metal. ‘The gold that has seen oaths sworn – and broken – upon it.’

The woman stopped her pacing and began turning, turning, turning a ring of gold upon her finger, not looking at the merchant.

‘Come now, this is what you want, is it not?’ Maurlocke held out a hand.

The woman did not respond. The ring just kept turning. Silence reigned unbroken in the pavilion for a long moment, and then Maurlocke cast it down.

‘He laughed when he bought you that ring,’ the merchant said, with all appearance of carelessness. ‘The gold remembers.’

The turning stopped. Something inside the woman broke, in that instant, but it was not the kind of breaking that casts a body down, no, it was the kind of breaking that loosed a flood upon the unsuspecting land. Deri involuntarily took a step back. The space inside the tent was suddenly too small, too hot.

‘Take it.’ She practically snatched the ring from her finger and thrust it at Maurlocke.

The merchant took it deftly, murmuring all the while in the Language of Gold. Deri couldn’t understand it himself, but he’d been raised by Maurlocke, and he could recognise the speaking of it in the glints and glimmers of light that shone across Maurlocke’s skin.

‘Boy, fetch my mirror.’ The merchant’s attention never left the ring.

Deri obeyed at once, retrieving a small silver hand mirror from its padded case. He took up a position near to the desk and adjusted himself as directed. Then he fixed his eyes at a point just past the merchant’s shoulder. Experience had taught him to never get caught looking too closely when magic was performed in his presence.

Maurlocke held the ring so it was reflected in both the mirror and the merchant’s cheek, but it was into the reflection shining in Maurlocke’s own golden flesh that yse reached, two long, elegant fingers sliding beneath the surface of that golden skin as if it were naught but water. There was resistance, and no small measure of pain involved. The merchant hissed as a mirror reflection of the ring was painstakingly pulled free.

It was of dull grey metal, rather than gold, and where the original held a sparkling diamond, the reflection clutched a dull carnelian. Maurlocke passed it to the woman in white, who took it eagerly.

‘Place it on your finger where you wore the other,’ the merchant commanded, ‘and it will guide you to your revenge, but you must take care to shed no tears while you wear it, or it will melt quite away and be forever lost.’

The woman in white knew better than to thank Maurlocke, so she slowly dropped into a deep curtsey.

‘Rise, rise,’ yse said, ‘our business is not quite yet concluded.’

As the woman rose once again to her full height Maurlocke drew a single, shining hand across the desk and a bundle appeared. It gurgled happily in the dancing light of the pavilion. A baby. Deri tensed.

‘You will take this child and raise her as your own.’ The merchant’s tone left no room for negotiation. ‘You will name her after the Stars and she will grow into a great beauty. The Fog of London will be most desirous to see her destroyed so you must ward her well. Teach her to guard well her heart, and ensure she understands every particular of your story. She is to return to me the day before her twenty-first birthday, without fail, and bring with her a token from every being that has come to her to ask for her hand.’

‘I don’t understand.’ The woman in white held herself rigid.

‘It’s part of the price we discussed. You agreed to guard something precious for me, did you not? And what is more precious than a child?’

Deri had to bite his tongue particularly hard at that one. Maurlocke ranked several things as more precious than children, though they came through the Market often enough, and were quite a profitable enterprise. But the merchant was laying it on pretty thick. It appeared to be working. The woman in white had gathered the child up stiffly into her arms.

‘Do you accept these terms?’ Maurlocke’s manner was offhand, too casual.

Deri was very familiar with that tone. The woman in white was in for quite the ride, he expected. Not that he would warn her, or that she would listen if he tried.

‘I do,’ the woman in white said, not bothering to look back to the merchant.

And with that, the contract was set. Deri had heard some merchants describe the feeling, and no two ever described it in quite the same way. Some said it was like a sound only merchants could hear, either a click or a snap or some such. Others described a particular feeling of warmth, or the sweet scent of dew on moss. To Deri’s ears it sounded as the ringing of bells, though he only heard it clearly when the deal was one he brokered himself. Maurlocke smiled.

‘Deri –’ The merchant gestured towards the exit, ‘– show Mrs – I’m sorry, Miss – Havisham out.’

Miss Havisham paled, but had the sense not to say anything in response. Instead, she whirled to take her leave. Deri rushed to draw back the cloth of gold for her, but all he received for his pains was a look of disdain that would blight an apple orchard.

Before the pavilion had settled itself back into place, Maurlocke was dipping a raven’s quill into a pot of gold ink and sketching out the details of the transaction in a ledger whose pages were black as jet. Deri waited in silence. He knew better than to interrupt the scratching of that quill. He had quite some time to wait.

Maurlocke made one final notation in the ledger and closed it. The gown took that as a cue to shimmer back into its true form, a simple merchant’s robe. Woven of wise women’s insight and young men’s dreams, of societal expectations and half-moon’s beams, Maurlocke’s robe habitually changed its form to match the expectations of the merchant’s customers. It had a way of setting them at ease, and making negotiations rather easier.

The merchant, as sexless as gold, had no problem presenting as whichever gender ys customers subconsciously preferred. To ym, the sets of habits and expectations mortals placed on such things were much like clothing: useful, changeable as needed, and occasionally frivolous.

‘Deri.’ Maurlocke made the name a summons.

‘Yes, Mystrer?’

‘Fetch me the items on this list, and quickly.’ Maurlocke thrust a neat square of paper at him. ‘I need them before sunset. And clean yourself up before you return. I will require you to pour wine for an important customer.’

‘Yes, Mystrer.’ Deri committed the list to memory immediately. The Untermarkt was prone to mischief, and the one time he had lost Maurlocke’s list and returned without every appointed item… Deri firmly shoved the memory back into its mental strongbox.

‘And keep your ears perked for any who appear to have unwanted mouths to feed,’ Maurlocke added. ‘My stock of ready labour is running unusually low.’

Deri suddenly found himself under the full weight of the merchant’s attention. Still as stone, still as stone, he whispered to himself, his face a bland mask. ‘Of course, Mystrer. Perhaps from the East End? I heard today there’s a strike happening in one of the factories. There’s sure to be many as feel the pinch, if not now, soon.’ The intensity of Maurlocke’s gaze abated.

‘Indeed? Useful.’ The merchant paged through ys ledger. ‘You may tell any prospects you encounter that you heard me offer twenty-one years of prosperity for the last girl child I purchased. That’s true enough, though she was an exceptional child. Well worth the expense of the goblin midwife. I only paid your mother seven for you.’

Maurlocke’s attention returned, full force. Fortunately, Deri had not allowed himself to drop his guard. He couldn’t. He’d been in this situation far too many times. Look unruffled, and the cold-gold monster will lose interest soon enough.

And indeed, after a too-sharp moment of silence, the merchant returned attention to ys desk. Deri took the opportunity to head for the exit. The list was a long one, and if he wanted to be back in time to prepare Maurlocke’s dinner, he’d have to move fast.

‘And fetch some pears,’ the merchant called after his retreating back. ‘You know the ones I like.’

Fantastic. One more thing for the list in his head. Deri called out to confirm to the merchant he had heard and would obey, before ducking out of the pavilion.

Just one more year of this, if all went well. Just one more year.

4

Owain clutched the geas-chain so hard it bit into his hand. If he lost it Missus Graspar would take it out on him, and then recoup the cost by adding its value in time to the end of his indenture. Oh Goddess, no, no, no. Not that. The thought of the four-years-and-change he still had to go was almost unbearable as it was. More? Owain shuddered. And he still had to get out of the Goblin Market!

‘Find everything you were supposed to, kit?’

Owain looked up to find a ginger tabby looking down at him. ‘You again! I mean, yes, th— uh, I did and I am very grateful to everyone who helped me today.’ He tried to send a significant look to the cat.

‘A fair exchange.’ Bess stretched her left hind leg. ‘After all, you saved me from the rope that ruffian tangled me in. The least I could do was point you to your Promise-Maker.’ She blinked at him. ‘Unless you are again in need? To find your way out, perhaps?’

‘Th— I mean, as grateful as I would be to anyone who helped me find my way out, I remember the way.’ Missus Graspar’s words were scorched into his mind: Escaping the Market is as easy as resisting temptation three times.

‘Well then, off you pop, kit.’

‘Have a good day, Mistress Bess.’ Owain bobbed his head, finally remembering the cat’s name, before turning to make his way out of the Market.

It should be easy, really. The Market offered so many temptations that resisting them shouldn’t be hard.

He passed a market stall piled high with fruit, with apples and quinces, lemons and oranges, berries plucked from dreams of high summer and strange, misshapen things that grow wild in the deeps of Underhill and smell of never being cold and hungry again. Owain’s stomach growled. He swallowed.

Perhaps harder than he thought. Owain bit the inside of his cheek, hard. No. He needed to get out of here. No time for such delectable, sweet, surely-not-too-expensive… no!

Owain forced himself to stride past quickly. Never mind that he hadn’t had a piece of fruit since Yuletide. Never mind that it was more food than he’d ever seen at the workhouse. He mustn’t look, mustn’t touch. If he did, the temptation would be all too much.

He wouldn’t turn into his parents, giving in to the temptations of the market beneath London. He wouldn’t trade himself away, piece by piece, for food or drink or silly charms that promised prosperity but never brought more than they cost. And even if he had a child, he wouldn’t trade it away too, to be bound in indentured servitude at a workhouse.

Owain realised his eyes were stinging and his stride had carried him quite away from the fruit-seller. However, as if the Market had been listening to his thoughts, he found himself within range of a merchant calling out promises of happiness and home, of family and filial love and security. Ha! Nice try. Owain was well warded against that temptation.

He moved on, slipping through a gap in the crowd left by a beast of a man in a blue frock coat and a delicate woman in yellow whose laugh rang out like a bell. The scent of flowers, simple mortal daisies and roses, sweet violets and poseys, told him he neared the place where the Untermarkt exited into Covent Garden Market. Before he won free, however, the Goblin Market tried one last time to ensnare him.

‘Owain? Wait up!’

It sounded like Deri’s voice. Even though it made no sense the other boy would have followed him here, or be calling out his name, Owain almost turned, an unexpected smile on his face. No. It’s another trick. Another reason to turn and walk back into the Market he was almost free of. Owain pushed forward, taking first one step, and then another, away from the Untermarkt, away from that calling voice.

It was harder than he expected.

*   *   *

It had just gone sunset when Owain left Covent Garden Market behind him and headed further east and north. Night came earlier, now the year was beginning to fade. The harvest rolled in, and it was but a few weeks to Samhain. The shouts of the fruit-and-flower-sellers faded as quickly as the light as Owain strode along the cobbled streets and alleys. He passed Drury Lane and the theatre district, a temptation as great as any he’d faced at the Goblin Market. Was it worth a slight detour to walk beneath the lights for a few streets? Best not. Missus Graspar was not a patient woman, and time enough had been lost in dealing with the Promise-Maker.

Lamplighters were busily plying their trade along the Queen’s Way, with their satchels and long poles, conjuring spots of bright, alchemical-white light in the evening fog. Owain quickened his step. The fog thickened fast. It would be a dangerous night to be out. Already, vague shapes danced at the corner of his eye, and was that the faint hissing of the alchemical reagents in the lamps or voices from the mist?

He turned off the Queen’s Way and onto Gray’s Inn Lane, passing the Nag’s Head public house as he went. Warm yellow light and drunken laughter spilled out onto the street as the door opened and closed. Owain’s pace slowed the nearer he got to the workhouse. He couldn’t yet see it but it loomed before him, chilling his heart and turning his feet to granite. The road beneath his feet sloped gently upward, and that hardly helped either.

All too soon, however, the blocky, red-brick form of the workhouse loomed out of the fog. Several storeys high, the façade that faced Gray’s Inn Lane was severe. The windows necessary to allow light in were barred with ornamental grates, massive and thickly painted black. Matching gates occupied the centre of the building, framed by smooth grey stone which quickly gave way to the pedestrian brick that composed the majority of the building.

Owain slipped through the gate and crept carefully down the passage through the gatehouse. If he could sneak through without Mister Porthor noticing, the nasty old drunk would catch it but good from Missus Graspar. Fortunately, Mister Porthor was true to form: more concerned with the bottle in his hand, dirty bowler pulled over his eyes, and resting his feet up on the desk in the little gatehouse room. There must have been a delivery expected for the gate to be left open so.

A few tense moments and Owain was through into the forecourt. The bulk of the workhouse enclosed a large square, and the forecourt occupied roughly a third of that space. It was paved with stone, and crates of supplies were often stacked to the left before being carted to storage. Outgoing orders awaited pickup on the right. Missus Graspar and her son Garog ran a very productive workhouse. One might easily be forgiven for thinking the place a traditional factory that ran on paid labour rather than the indentured work of children. One would be wrong, of course, but there it was.

The rest of the quadrangle formed by the outbuildings of the workhouse hid behind the vast bulk of the main factory, which split the square and firmly locked the boys’ and girls’ exercise yards behind it. Owain would have to go through the factory building, across the floor, and up to Missus Graspar’s office to deliver the chain.

There was no guard to slip past, here. Owain pulled the door open and stepped inside the small, protected vestibule that separated the factory floor from the outside. Once there, he paused to take a breath, tensed his shoulders, and stepped through the heavy door onto the factory floor proper.

The sound hit him first. The growl of machinery, fierce as any dragon, fought with raised voices and the thump of shifting crates. Then the smell, acrid and hot, a combination of alchemical concoctions, spent and spending fuel, and sweat. Gangs of children – workers – swarmed across the floor. The youngest carried things: small metal discs, or the etched and filed gears those discs were turned into by the machines; the oldest took on more skilled or dangerous jobs, using quick hands to place and retrieve bits of metal amidst various stamps and shears, or refilling acid reservoirs. Garog Graspar, in his role as ‘foreman’, lounged over it all from his usual spot on the mezzanine.

Owain’s stomach twisted. Back again. He immediately slipped to the right, underneath the overhang from the balcony above, out of Garog’s line of sight, and began making his way around the busy floor to the stairs that would take him to Missus Graspar’s office. He picked his way past the workbenches that lined this wall, mostly dealing with sorting and checking the finished product from the factory floor for storage and shipping.

‘How was it?’ The question came from Vimukti, a pretty young woman with warm brown skin and a fiery glint in her brown eyes. A scrap of red ribbon held her night-dark hair in place on her head, safely out of reach of any machines which might grab at it and tear it out of her head. As she spoke, her hands flashed, sorting fine finished gears into batches for special orders. She wore the same style of worn trousers and work shirt as Owain, though in a smaller size, and with more patches.

‘Interesting.’ The word was out of his mouth before he could think. Vimukti was a friend and he often let slip more than he should to her.

‘That sounds like a story I need to hear.’ She smiled conspiratorially. ‘And you’re not the only one with news. Arienh overheard the Graspars talking, and there will be an artificer coming to add some kind of new machinery to the floor. Experimental. She’s to have the second storage room as her own personal workshop. Can you believe it?’

A scream tore across the workhouse floor before Owain could reply. A stricken look crossed Vimukti’s face and she sprang into action, running toward the sound. It was Nyfain, a boy near Owain’s age. He’d been refilling the mister that polished the finished brass gears to a bright sheen with a particularly nasty acid – one of the more dangerous jobs.

Nyfain thrashed on the ground, clutching his wrist. His hand was a fizzing, pitted ruin already. Vimukti dropped to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes. Owain shot a quick look at the crowd gathering around them.

‘Hale hands in,’ he shouted to them as he stepped up and placed his own hand on Vimukti’s shoulder. He felt someone else take his shoulder in turn, and another his free hand. Then he straightened his spine and braced for the pain.

The first of Vimukti’s tears fell to splash upon Nyfain’s hand and a vicious wave of pain burst within Owain. It was the same for every child on that workhouse floor in physical contact with Vimukti, and the pain did not lessen the further one got along the chain of humanity. In that moment, each child knew the feeling of having their flesh boil away at the touch of that alchemical monstrosity.

It is said that pain shared is pain halved, but with Vimukti acting as catalyst, it was pain healed. Well, mostly healed. Blood seeped from the pores of every child along the chain, and the flesh of Nyfain’s hand knitted itself closed. The hand would never be the same, not without magic beyond Vimukti’s skill, but Nyfain would live, with no danger that infection would also carry off hand or limb or life.

Vimukti let out an explosive breath and Owain released his grip on her shoulder. She’d take care of Nyfain, but he’d have to see to the rest of them.

‘Alright, you lot,’ he shouted. ‘Bandage up and get back to work!’

The workhouse children grumbled and shuffled but they knew the drill. They’d done it often enough before. Still, they dawdled and took the excuse for a momentary break from the toil and drudgery of the workhouse floor.

At least until Garog appeared, a great hulking brute of a man. His face was craggy and cracked from too much drink and too many fights. Eyes piggish, close-set, and filled with malice dominated the face beneath the green bowler hat and matching waistcoat he thought made him look clever and dashing.

The children scattered before him.

‘What’s going on here? Owain! Shouldn’t you be reporting to the office?’

‘I’m on my way, sir. There was an accident.’ Owain stated the facts, expecting full well they’d be disregarded.

He was not disappointed on that count.

‘Move, boy,’ Garog shouted, ‘before I kick your worthless arse up there myself!’

Owain ran.

5

Missus Graspar made her den in the old foreman’s office. The workhouse had once been a commercial alchemical distillery of some kind. The funk of chemical and reagents permeated every bit of old wood in the place. The workhouse floor, with the heat from the machines, smelled like Balor’s armpit. Here though, in Missus Graspar’s office, the wood gleamed new and polished.

‘Close the door,’ Missus Graspar snapped.

Owain hurried to comply, shutting out the noise of the brash and brutal machines that stamped and whirred and hammered and forged a wide variety of cogs and wires and other such things to sate the bottomless appetites of the city’s artificers. There, no doubt, the sweat (and no small amount of blood) of Owain and his fellow workers made Missus Graspar a mint. And even then she clearly didn’t consider it near enough compensation for the ‘charity’ of looking after such ‘poor unfortunates’. She had designs, had Missus Graspar, and woe betide any who dared stand in her way.

An iron-haired woman with a ramrod back, Missus Graspar was neat in every particular. She wore a sensible grey dress, with starched white collar and cuffs, pressed very sharply. Her hair was drawn back firm and tight into a businesslike bun. One would never know she lived and worked in a factory. You’d never see grease or dirt on her hands nor under her nails.

Her desk was likewise a model of precision, papers exactingly stacked, inkwells carefully stoppered and labelled. The sole exception to the cleanliness and precision of the office was Bruiser’s bed. Bruiser was the one creature Missus Graspar showed the slightest spark of human warmth and kindness for, and there was not a more malicious, rotting sack of old bones anywhere the Crown held sway. As Owain looked at him, the dog attempted to snarl, but instead only managed to leak a bit more out of every orifice.

‘You sent for me, Missus?’ Manners were no guarantee of protection, but it was the best defence Owain could mount.

‘You are rather tardy.’ Her voice was as severe as the rest of her. ‘And you have made us wait.’

Us? Owain glanced around the room, his eye catching the lanky form of another young man standing by the window. He was thin as a rake and had a face that might have been quite pleasant if time and circumstance hadn’t stretched it – and him – so thin and harsh.

He looked to be Owain’s age. Another new body for the workhouse? He was older than most that were brought or bought in, though he wore the same worn-but-sensible garb as most of the working poor of London.

‘There was an accident—’ Owain began to explain.

‘No excuses. You’ve wasted enough of my time. The goods.’ She rapped her finger imperiously on the edge of her desk. As Owain began to lay out the small parcels, she carefully set down her fountain pen and opened a locked drawer to retrieve a small bundle of paper slips. ‘And the receipts from the market.’ It was always merely ‘the market’ with her. Like she could somehow bludgeon it into something lesser than herself by refusing to call it anything else. ‘The receipts, boy!’

Owain started. He’d been distracted by the stack of papers on her desk. His contract of indenture was right there, and the temptation to grab it and run was greater than anything he’d faced down at the Untermarkt.

‘Yes, Missus.’ His palms sweating, Owain reached into his pocket for the receipts.