The Gray Market was a constellation of bargains and bad decisions, a drifting archipelago of tarpaulin and lantern light that smelled of frying oil, salt, and the faint metallic tang of sigils. At dusk it became a living ledger: names traded like coin, favors written on the backs of hands, and the soft, dangerous hum of things that preferred to be counted in private. Aria moved through it with the practiced economy of someone who had learned to read the market's margins—where a vendor's eyes slid when a stranger lingered, which stalls kept their ledgers under a cloth, which brokers wore their secrets like jewelry.
They had a list. The manifest they'd taken from the Moving Archive had a launch number and a broker cell: Black Keel. Jorren's confession had given them a name—Marek—and a time. The shard's donor mark had pointed to Virelle. Now the Loom needed the ledger's middlemen: the fences who turned donor plates into manifests, the men who stamped wax and moved crates. If they could pressure a fence into coughing up a manifest, they could trace the donor trust to a vault and a patron's hand.
Halv and Rell split the team into two currents. Halv took the skiff and the apprentices to the market's outer ring, where launches tied up and broker launches traded in the dark. Rell threaded the Bonebridge's inner lanes, a tracer tucked under his coat and a list of names in his head. Luna stayed close to Aria, the jasmine at her throat a private weather. The teacher's hands were folded into her sleeves; her eyes were steady, the way someone who had learned to hold other people's burdens looked when she prepared to take one more.
"We don't make a spectacle," Aria said, voice low. "We make pressure. We make the market uncomfortable enough that someone sells a manifest for less than it's worth."
Luna's mouth quirked. "We make them remember that someone is watching," she said. "And we keep witnesses safe while they do."
They began with whispers. Apprentices slipped into stalls with false wares and louder stories: a rumor that a patron house had been buying codex fragments; a rumor that a broker cell had been seen with a donor plate stamped in a spiral. The Gray Market's currency was attention; attention could be bought and sold, but it could also be turned into a blade. Halv's apprentices were practiced at that economy—small lies that smelled like truth, a coin tossed to the right vendor, a question asked in the right ear.
The first pinprick came at a bead seller's stall. A boy with ink on his knuckles—one of the apprentices—let a crate of false sigils fall and spill across the planks. Lantern oil sprayed; a vendor cursed; a handler's knot in a broker's hair tightened as he watched the distraction. Halv's skiff nudged the market's outer ring and a pair of apprentices slipped a folded coin into a broker's palm. The broker's eyes flicked to the coin and then to the apprentice; the ledger's arithmetic had been set in motion.
They did not need to shout. The Gray Market's gossip moved like a tide. A fence who had been counting on a quiet night found his customers thin. A handler who had been paid to keep a mouth shut found himself with fewer routes. The pressure was a slow, patient thing: a vendor who refused to sell a crate, a courier who delayed a launch, a buyer who suddenly decided the price was too high.
But the market had its own defenses. Brokers kept tricks for nights like this: Shade Hares, pale things that slid at the edge of sight and unstitched a memory like a seam. They were small, cruel thieves—touch them and a taste might go, a laugh might thin, a photograph might lose a face. The Loom had seen them before and had learned to guard against them, but the Hares were slippery and the market's handlers were practiced at hiding them in sleeves.
Aria felt the first brush of a Hare before she saw it: a cold like a missing note, a blank where a small thing should have been. A vendor's laugh thinned and then snapped. She turned and saw a pale smear at the edge of a stall, a thing that moved like breath on a mirror. A handler's hand closed on a crate and the Hare folded into his sleeve.
"Shade Hares," Luna breathed. Her voice was a bell in the market's noise. She did not hesitate. The nolisten she cast was not silence so much as a pocket where sound thinned to a memory; it braided the market's edges into a hush that made the Hares recoil. For thirty seconds the market's noise softened and the Hares' pale forms lost their teeth.
The cost landed like a bell after the hush. Luna's ears rang with a high, thin note that would not be shaken loose. She blinked and pressed a hand to her temple; the jasmine at her throat felt too sharp. The nolisten had bought them time, but it had left a ringing that would throb for hours. Teachers paid for such things—small, private erosions that left them thinner at the edges. Luna did not complain. She only steadied her breath and kept the cadence tight.
Halv used the hush to move. She and two apprentices slipped into a cluster of stalls where a fence named Jorren's cousin—an old man called Tarek—kept a ledger of manifests. Tarek's stall was a nest of glass and bone, a place where the market's quieter trades were catalogued in a ledger that smelled of ink and old smoke. Halv's apprentice, the boy with ink on his knuckles, let a crate of false manifests clatter and then offered a coin and a question: "You ever see a private launch with a donor token? A spiral?"
Tarek's eyes flicked to the coin and then to the boy. He was old enough to know the market's arithmetic and tired enough to be tempted by a quick, clean coin. Halv's presence was a shadow at the stall's edge; the apprentice's question was a hook. Tarek's fingers hovered over a ledger and then closed.
"I saw a launch," he said, voice low. "Launch three. A crate wrapped in oilcloth. A donor token at the corner. They paid well."
Halv's hand was a small, private anchor on the boy's shoulder. "Who handled it?" she asked.
Tarek's eyes darted to the market's mouth. "A man named Marek," he said. "Black Keel's runner. He doesn't like witnesses."
Halv's jaw tightened. The ledger's thread tightened into a rope. They had the name they needed. But Tarek's ledger was not a public thing; it was a fence's ledger, and fences had ways of making themselves disappear if they felt threatened. Halv slid a coin across the stall and a small, careful promise: protection for a week, a safe route out if the Bastion's muscle came sniffing. Tarek took the coin and the promise and wrote the launch number in the margin of his ledger.
They had a lead. They had a fence who would talk for a price. But the market's pressure had consequences. The brokers who had been watching the outer ring grew nervous; handlers tightened their knots. A Shade Hare slipped between a buyer's fingers and a vendor's memory thinned; a child who had been watching the whole thing blinked and forgot the face of a man who had been kind to him. The ledger's arithmetic had been paid in small, private ways.
Aria moved through the market like a current, collecting threads. She found a courier who had been paid to be late and pressed him until he named a launch number and a time. She found a handler who had been paid to keep a ledger and made him understand that silence would not protect him if the Loom could show a manifest in public. Each small confession was a stitch in a net.
They did not rely on force. The Loom's work was pressure and protection: make the market uncomfortable enough that a fence sells a manifest for less than it's worth, then anchor the testimony so the Council could not bury it. Halv's apprentices spread a net of witnesses—vendors who had seen a launch, a child who had watched a crate being loaded, a handler who had counted the donor token. Each witness was a small, fragile thing that needed tending.
When the fence finally agreed to hand over a manifest, it was not a dramatic moment. It was a small, careful exchange behind a stall: a folded slate, a wax seal half-pressed, a courier route scrawled in a hurried hand. Halv's apprentice slipped the manifest into a lead-lined case and the fence's eyes darted to the market's mouth as if expecting a blade.
"We'll anchor your testimony," Aria said, voice low. "We'll make sure you're not hunted for this."
The fence's laugh was a dry thing. "You teachers always promise that," he said. "You always mean it."
Luna stepped forward then and set a hand on the fence's shoulder. Her hum braided the market's noise into a thin, steady net. She did not cast the Echo Shield yet; the fence's testimony needed to be recorded and anchored by forensics. The nolisten had bought them a pocket of hush; now they needed to make the manifest speak.
Rell's tracer hummed as he fed the manifest's wax into its lattice. The donor mark resolved into a registry line: Virelle, launch three, a private vault on the Salted Bastion. The manifest's margins held a courier route and a broker's stamp. Forensics translated the ink's pressure into a pattern that could be read in court. The market's hush held like a breath.
Then the brokers tried a trick.
A handler's sleeve flicked and a Shade Hare slipped into the fence's pocket. The pale thing brushed the fence's palm and a small, private thing thinned: a taste, a laugh, a memory of a child's face. The fence blinked and for a moment his eyes went distant. The Hare folded into the market's noise and was gone.
Aria moved before the fence's memory could be lost. She had learned to act fast when the Hares were involved. She grabbed the fence's wrist and held him steady while Rell's tracer poured light across the manifest. Luna's hum tightened into a thin Echo Shield and took hold of the fence's memory like a net. Forensics anchored the testimony and the tracer recorded the manifest's route.
The cost landed like a bell. Luna's ears rang with the high, thin note of the nolisten; the Echo Shield left a haze in the fence's mind that would blur a small, private thing for a day. The fence's eyes were wet with the strain of remembering. He had been paid to forget; the Loom had paid him to remember. The ledger's arithmetic had been balanced with a teacher's small sacrifice.
They left the Gray Market with a manifest in a lead-lined case and a net of witnesses who would testify if needed. The market's hum resumed like a tide; brokers counted losses and whispered about the Loom's pressure. The Thornkin's brief appearance had been a reminder that the Loom had allies in the Night Orchard, but it had also shown how quickly bargains could be called and paid.
On the Bonebridge, as the city's lights blurred into a scatter of coin and rumor, Aria sat with the manifest on her knees and felt the ledger's weight like a living thing. They had a line to the Salted Bastion now: Virelle, launch three, Marek. They had witnesses and a fence who had sold a manifest for less than it was worth. They had paid costs—Luna's ringing ears, the fence's memory haze, the apprentices' quickened breaths—and they had made the market remember that someone was watching.
Luna's hand found Aria's and squeezed. "We made them uncomfortable," she said, voice low.
Aria let herself believe it for a moment. The ledger's thread had been pulled taut; the path forward was a rope they could follow. Dawn would bring a launch and a patron's vault. They would need forensics, witnesses, and a plan that did not trade one set of victims for another.
They had the manifest. They had a map. They had a cost to account for. The Gray Market's lanterns winked behind them as they moved away, and the ledger's margins waited to be read.