Page 16

The market was dirty.

Kierse had been imagining a forest grove containing wooden stalls filled with wares and fields beyond growing the coveted fruit.

Never had she pictured a darkened city street lined with tall buildings that seemed to lean into each other.

The light of the moon vanished into the murky fog that pervaded the area.

Puddles of stagnant water and filth littered the cobbled street, bringing with them the scent of sweat and refuse.

Despite the inescapable feeling of unease, it teemed with monsters and humans alike.

“Whoa,” she whispered.

Niamh sniffed. “God, I hate this place. Can we get in and out quickly?”

“Voicing that aloud seems to be asking for trouble,” Graves said.

Kierse pulled her gaze from a group of mer haggling over a display of bones.

Niamh looked visibly unwell. Graves, despite his cool exterior, also clearly hated it here.

She didn’t see how it was much different than Third Floor, the underground monster market, beneath Grand Central Station in Manhattan.

Both places were dark and dank and filled with illicit dealings.

The real difference was the pervasive dealing of goblin fruit.

Humans gorged themselves on the addictive substance on every street corner. It made her stomach twist.

“Let’s just hurry,” Kierse finally said. “I’ve researched the market and know that we need to find a bookkeeper.”

“Find a bookkeeper,” Graves said with a sigh. “As if it’s that easy.”

Kierse narrowed her eyes. “I know there’s one on this floor. Fraan mentioned it the last time I went to try to get access. I was going to find it on my own, but I assume you’ve both been here before.”

Graves shot her a noncommittal look. Yes, he’d been here. No, he wasn’t going to talk about it.

Niamh just said, “Sometimes we need very specific ingredients for our spells.”

“Excellent. Hopefully you can speed up my search. No stakeouts. Woohoo,” she said with an eye roll. “Where should we start?”

“The goblins mentioned Rio at the gate,” Graves said.

“Rio’s a bookkeeper?” Kierse asked as Graves took the lead navigating the cobblestone streets, Kierse and Niamh on his heels.

From what Kierse had gathered, bookkeepers were sort of a glossary for the market.

Most illicit dealings could be done right out in the open.

Drugs, sex, and weapons were as easy to come by as goblin fruit.

But if you wanted something more interesting, more dangerous, or more unique, then a bookkeeper could find what you were looking for.

“Yes. Likely the one they had mentioned to you before. Though not one I’ve worked with. Their shop is nearby. Let’s try not to draw attention to ourselves.”

Niamh threw an arm across Kierse’s shoulders. “Just look like we belong.”

Kierse leaned into Niamh and forced her face into neutrality.

That had basically always been her motto: stealth over muscle.

Only recently had she had enough muscle to take on a monster, but she didn’t particularly want to do it more often than necessary.

Especially not in a place like this, teeming with monsters.

Every storefront and stall on the never-ending street was run by a goblin.

Signs on the buildings reinforced that impression.

Grax and Gird: Monster Materials with bottles labeled for vamp venom, werewolf bites, and wraith souls.

Cruiggic’s Weapons, showcasing every manner of sword, axe, spear, and knife with a violet banner that proudly proclaimed goblin made .

Gaukul was full of living creatures—spiders, rats, and snakes—and next to it was its competitor, Trutiz, which had all the parts and none of the living creatures.

Safia and Thafia: Fortune Reading was a tiny stall with two goblin women sitting in front of a crystal ball and a deck of tarot cards.

Behind them a goblin man was herding their clients inside to the amulets, talismans, and divination materials.

The rest of the street was taken up with human items: restricted substances, offers for forged documents, and luxury jewelry, as well as the ubiquitous “food”—whatever that meant for monsters or men—and, of course, sex.

In New York, Kierse had lived in the attic of a brothel owned by Gen’s mother, Colette, who was the premier madame of Manhattan. Kierse was far from naive and wasn’t surprised to see goblin brothels inside the market. After all, it was the oldest profession.

They skirted the brothels and continued past other vendors until they reached their destination. It was a plain door with the word Vriosa on the front in red letters and a little yellow sign read: beware of dog .

“Dogs,” Graves said with a sigh.

Niamh grinned. “Not a dog person?”

“Dogs love me,” he corrected her and turned the handle.

Niamh and Kierse exchanged a look as they followed him inside.

The room was bare and dusty. A row of wooden shelves had been smashed and left in pieces, and whatever had been on them had long ago been looted.

Probably by whoever had done this. The floor near the rear of the room was strangely eroded and caving in, the remnants holding together precariously.

Beyond the door, deep gouges marred a door that led to another room.

Its broken hinges clattered as Graves pushed it open.

“Nothing,” he said, standing on the threshold as Niamh and Kierse picked their way to him.

“What do you think happened?” Kierse asked. “A fight, obviously.”

“Bookkeepers are notoriously difficult to find because they get a lot of angry customers.” He kicked aside a few boards. “And angry customers in the market usually leave people dead.”

“I’ve never had to use a bookkeeper to find spell supplies,” Niamh noted. “Is this risk really necessary?”

“Probably,” Kierse said. “What I read about them said that they can find anything you want in the market, but the rarer it is, the more difficult to locate.”

Niamh waved a hand. “Assuredly that’s true, but what I meant was: is what you want worth all this?”

Graves’s eyes shot to hers. She stared him down, daring him to say it was not. Thankfully, he didn’t voice his opinion on the matter.

“Yes,” Kierse said with determination. “Where would the bookkeeper have gone? I didn’t see a handy note with their forwarding address.”

Niamh snorted. “That would be convenient. Is there another bookkeeper that would be easier to locate?”

Graves shook his head. His gloved hand sifted through a pile of rubble, and he came away with nothing but scraps.

“There are other bookkeepers. None close. Plus, since the goblins at the gate mentioned Rio, we’re more likely to have some leverage in negotiations with them.

I wager it’d make the most sense to follow through with this if we can. ”

“All right.” Kierse would have liked an easier option, but she hadn’t thought that going into the market was going to be easy. “So our next move would be to get information about Rio. I’m guessing there are pubs down here?”

“In fact there are,” Graves answered. “I know just the one.”

“Why do I feel like we’re not going to like this?” Niamh asked as she followed him to the door.

“Because it’s Graves.”

“I have an…acquaintance who frequents a place in New York.”

Kierse blinked at his back. “How exactly is that going to help us?”

“You didn’t think that Dublin was the only place that opened into the market, did you?”

“Well…no. I know there’s one in New York, too, but I didn’t think we could reach it.” She frowned. “How many are there? Is there one in Paris?”

“No,” Graves said. “There are only seven openings— Dublin, New York City, Shanghai, S?o Paulo, Lagos, Istanbul, and Rome.”

Niamh linked arms with Kierse as they followed Graves down the main street.

“It’s like the spoke of a wheel. Each entrance comes to the same place, and when you enter from other doors, that section is built out to the aesthetic of that location.

That’s why here on the Dublin side, it has the old-world feel. ”

Kierse frowned at that analogy. She could picture a giant wheel connecting corners of the earth to this one location. It would be incredibly valuable to have that setup.

“How did the goblins achieve this?” She stepped around a particularly filthy puddle, avoiding a lumbering troll who barreled past.

“They didn’t. Goblins don’t have magic,” Graves said.

“Something great and powerful built the portals. Some long-lost god probably. After the god—or creature—left this realm, they were abandoned,” Niamh told her.

Gods. Right. “If everything else is true…”

“It all comes from somewhere,” Graves muttered.

“Anyway, the goblins have built everything else you see here. They found the empty doors and figured out that the fruit would power them to stay open. They’ve been using it for their market for much of recorded history.”

“Wow. That’s pretty impressive. We’re walking through dead god tunnels that have been repurposed as a black market.

The world is a strange place.” She continued down the cobbled street.

“So explain how these portals work. We could jump from Dublin to New York like right now? I could be home just by stepping through their door?”

“Maybe the god could,” Niamh said with a shrug.

“That’s not how it works.” Graves led them down a darkened alley. “The coin that you’re using only lets you in and out of the entrance that you came through. You wouldn’t be able to find the New York opening if you went looking.”

Kierse sighed. “Of course. Nothing can be easy.”

“The easier magic makes your life, the more costly,” he said.

“Much more costly,” Niamh agreed. “I doubt there would even be coins if you could jump between one opening and another. The cost is already the goblin fruit, and since I don’t particularly want it to run more rampant, I’m glad for the limitations.”

Finally, from the gloom, a set of stone stairs was illuminated by bracketed lanterns.