Chapter 56: THE AUCTION

The neighboring merchant did not shout when he found the body. His breath snagged in his throat, and he backed beneath the half-lowered shutter until his shoulder struck the brass emergency plate beside the door.

Two Exchange workers arrived first. One pulled the shutter down while the other crouched beside the shopkeeper and eased his collar away from the blood beneath his jaw.

"Tavian." Selyn slipped through the closing gap and pointed beneath the merchant’s chin. "Same split. Same bruising around it. Gant."

The older man in the dark coat stepped in behind her. His eyes stayed on the corpse as he asked, "You’re certain, Selyn?"

"I’ve seen three bodies he left like this." She glanced at the coin trapped in the merchant’s fist, then at the empty hooks where the gloves had hung. "One of the parasite’s high-level officers walks into our market, digs through the Exchange records, comes back here and kills one of our merchants."

Tavian’s attention moved to the empty display. "And the gloves?"

"The only thing I bought from this man today." Selyn rolled the silver crescent at her ear beneath one finger. "Gant checked the records, returned here, killed him and headed back toward the auction. I want to see what he does when the gloves appear."

A narrow brass strip slid from Tavian’s coat. Warm marks appeared beneath his thumb, divided, then vanished as Selyn watched the light move.

"Maelor should know what the parasite and Gant did to one of our merchants here," she said. "Send him the body, Gant’s route and everything we have on the gloves."

"He has it." Tavian watched three small acknowledgements appear before returning the strip to his coat. "The others are moving."

At the records level, the woman behind a ledger closed it and handed her station to another clerk. Near the eastern galleries, the broad-shouldered man folded the catalogue he had barely touched, while a figure on one of the high bridges changed direction.

Selyn watched the market through the gap beneath the shutter. "Nobody takes Gant alone."

"They know." Tavian looked down at the corpse. "How long do you want him loose?"

"Until he reaches for what he came here to take." Selyn stepped beneath the shutter and waited for Tavian beside her. "Then we remind him whose market he chose to bleed in."

Several levels above, Sio followed Sterling toward registration while Arch remained close enough behind them to make the arrangement feel temporary. Sterling tucked his catalogue beneath one arm and looked between the three of them. "If I’m putting three guests under my patron seal, names would be useful."

"You’ve heard mine approximately twelve times today," Sio said. Sterling’s mouth moved slightly, but he did not give him the satisfaction of calling it a smile.

"I heard people shouting it while somebody sold your location. That isn’t quite the same thing."

"Sio." He gestured beside himself. "Angle. His father is Arch, and this is Gumm."

Gumm blinked several eyes at Sterling before settling across Sio’s shoulder. Sterling studied him for a second and answered, "Sterling."

Angle waited several steps. "Sterling what?"

"Sterling works." He kept walking. "My family name isn’t needed for you to sit in a box."

Arch studied him from behind. "You don’t use it much?"

"Less whenever I get the choice." Sterling raised his patron seal toward the desk without looking back.

The clerk inspected the seal, then Sterling. Her fingers stopped tapping, and three guest slips came across without the deposit advertised behind her.

"Mr.—" she began, but Sterling set one finger against the seal. "Sterling is fine. Three guests."

Sio took the pen after Angle and glanced at the clerk. "Just Sterling seems to be doing a suspicious amount of work."

"The seal can answer the questions I don’t." Sterling signed only his first name, took the guest bands and put the seal away before its family mark remained visible any longer than necessary.

They passed through a broad brass-and-glass passage into the Main Exchange, and Sio noticed the silk before the auction floor. Thick translucent ropes disappeared into the canyon walls, carrying shops, narrow homes, bridges and cargo cages above the chamber like pieces caught in a gigantic web.

Angle pressed two fingers against a strand beside the walkway. It gave slightly beneath his touch instead of ringing like cable. "This grew."

"The oldest strands did." Sterling glanced upward at the pale bundles buried behind stone and brass. "Eclipse started building around them generations ago."

Angle followed one strand into the canyon wall. "Grew from what?"

Sterling reopened his catalogue. "I’ve heard four answers, and two ended with people being escorted out. Pick whichever sounds entertaining."

Their box overlooked the circular auction platform through hanging storefronts and silk bridges. Sterling ignored the cushioned seats and took the chair nearest the aisle, where the corridor behind him and both nearby exits stayed visible.

Arch remained at the rail, watching the opposite galleries. Tavian stood above them with the black-and-silver clasp at his throat, while Selyn had taken a place several levels below.

Sio leaned closer. "You know them?"

"The man is Tavian, First Quarter. The woman is Selyn, Waxing Crescent." Arch followed one thick silk line until it disappeared behind stone. "I know Tavian’s reputation better than I know the man."

Angle closed his catalogue. "Good reputation?"

"If he puts his hand on this building, stay near me." Arch finally looked at him. "You can decide whether that sounds good afterward."

When the next admitted wave entered, Karkas crossed with them without incident. The information broker’s projection appeared beside him halfway down the gallery.

"You waited for permission." The broker looked almost disappointed. "I’m beginning to worry about you."

Karkas kept walking until Gant entered the lower viewing level, then slowed by barely a fraction. "Gant."

The broker followed his gaze. "Another friend?"

"I know the name." Karkas watched Selyn leave one aisle as the broad-shouldered man took another. "I know what usually gets left behind him too."

"You people have dreadful social circles." The broker’s eyes followed the quiet movements spreading through the galleries. "This evening may finally earn the money I spent getting here."

Karkas gave the projection a flat look. "You’re not here." The broker’s smile widened as his shoulder flickered through the railing. "That’s why it was affordable."

The first bell quieted the room. For several lots, nothing happened beyond aggressive bidding, whispered complaints and Sterling explaining why two patrons were forcing each other’s prices upward while pretending not to care.

Sio caught enough to decide rich people had developed a way to fight without wrinkling their clothes. Beside him, Angle opened the same catalogue page again until Arch folded it shut beneath two fingers.

"You know they’re coming," Arch said. Angle left the page closed after that, though his thumb kept rubbing the center of his palm.

The next glass case rose through the auction floor with the dark gloves resting beneath warm appraisal lights. Their layered black material and reinforced knuckles looked almost disappointing beside the price printed beneath them, but Angle’s thumb stopped moving as Gant rose from his seat and entered the aisle.

Selyn watched him take three steps. Her gaze moved to the gloves, then travelled upward until Tavian met it.

"Tavian," she said into the small crescent at her ear. Across the Exchange, his fingers settled against the railing as he answered, "I see him, Selyn."

Selyn touched the crescent twice, and Tavian put his palm flat against the railing as the third bell struck through the soles of Sio’s boots. Silk snapped taut around the chamber, shop signs clattered against walls, and something beneath them tore stone apart hard enough to shake dust from the galleries.

Their box swung hard enough to send Sio into the rail. Cold air rushed up carrying wet sap and broken rock while green ribs pushed through the canyon walls and dragged whole streets upward on torrents of white silk.

Shops lifted from stone, houses swung free, and cargo lifts changed direction as a thick living stalk drove through the canyon with the Exchange hanging from it. A pale thorn passed their box close enough for Sio to see old scratches along its ivory surface.

Above them, a bud split with a wet crack and enormous amber petals opened beyond the canyon rim, carrying pieces of the market into open desert air. Fresh silk caught storefronts, homes and bridges until the Exchange became a suspended maze of petals and swaying streets.

Sterling was already out of his chair when their floor tilted. He caught the rail, planted his feet and tracked the moving bridges while some of the colour left his face.

Across the widening gap, Angle grabbed another railing. Arch caught the back of his coat just as a rising petal pushed between their sections.

"Angle!" Sio shoved forward, but the silk beneath his boots snapped sideways and threw his hip into the rail. Red scarf flashed between two hanging shops before another petal swallowed it from view.

Far below, the glass case holding the gloves skidded across the central petal. Gant turned with it while Selyn moved from the opposite side and another Eclipse member came down a suspended bridge toward him.

Higher up, Karkas caught a silk line as his gallery swung free. The broker vanished with one flickering projector and reappeared beside him from another, made of light while the wind tore through everything else.

Sio tore open a portal toward the last place he had seen Angle. Purple space widened, but when he stepped through he nearly collided with Sterling because the exit had opened three paces behind them.

He shut it and tried again, aiming for a hanging shop beside Angle’s section. The second exit appeared beside another storefront attached to their own petal, and Sio closed it before wasting another step.

Sterling watched the portal collapse while tightening the small wire reel around one palm. He tested its hook against the silk, then looked toward the moving petals.

"Get me outside this thing alive and I’ll owe you one." His breathing stayed controlled as another bridge shifted overhead. "You can decide what an obscenely rich man owes you afterward."

Sio followed Sterling’s gaze toward the bridge and found the upper gallery empty. Karkas had already moved.

A pair of boots landed on the swaying silk above them, and Karkas straightened with one hand around the living rope while the information broker flickered into existence beside his shoulder. The bridge dipped beneath Karkas’s first step, its living strands creaking as he started toward Sio without looking anywhere else.