Sly led Martin through the night, chatting away about his past.

  “My dad was a dockyard worker in his youth, but drinking and bad living aged him before his time. He ended up as a rat catcher and a gambler. He provided the rats for many of the fights on the east side. He used to take me with him to check the traps and deliver the more spirited ones to the fight pits. The ones with more interesting colors he’d take to the pet shops on High Street. There’s quite a demand for fancy rats among the noblewomen of the city. I imagine most of them don’t know what they’re doing and end up with a bit finger before too long.”

  Sly said this last bit with a laugh.

  “Anything sold to nobility can catch a hefty price. Will you follow in your dad’s footsteps?”

  “I’m doing alright at the Landing now. Maybe in the future, though, eh?”

  “So your dad taught you about this side of the world, too?”

  “He did.” Sly gave Martin a look before continuing, as if deciding how close to let him in.

  “He still around?” Martin ventured a question.

  “No. He… when I was young.”

  “My condolences.”

  “Aye. He was a good man. Made some bad choices, though. He got mixed up with the followers of some minor Cosmic deity whose name I never did find out. In the end, he came up on the wrong side of an Inquisitor.” Sly spit, drawing the peeved look of a man in a trench coat, hurrying past holding what looked to be an urn.

  “Church was kind enough to deliver the ashes to my mum a few days later. Couldn’t bury him on holy ground, so we cast him into the sea. ‘Course, the wind picked up right when my mom tried to cast, and a hearty helping blew right back into her face. Just like my dad, doing the worst till the last.”

  Martin smiled slightly, not quite willing to laugh, giving the context.

  “You don’t dabble in any of that stuff, do you?”

  “What? The cosmic? My dad taught me a bit of mysticism before he passed, but I seldom think of it these days. I’ve got my own bag of tricks without resorting to any bargains that’ll leave me without a head or soul, or floating out at sea.”

  “Seems like a wise strategy to me.”

  Even as he uttered the words, part of Martin wished he had heard them before he had crashed into the river. The cosmic was an inextricable part of his life now, and he could only pray that the fates Sly had just listed out were not fates he was destined to meet.

  “You still haven’t told me where the night market is.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Sly said with a wink. “Truth is, it changes somewhat regularly. They’ll only open a couple of times in the same spot before moving on to the next one. It’s unknown who runs the market, but they say whoever it is has the finest team of architects and designers in the city, and they’re employed full-time in building the next night market.”

  “Sounds excessive.”

  “Perhaps, but if it prevents Inquisitors, soldiers, outlaws, and the like from raiding, then it’s a relief to folks like me.”

  “What exactly are folks like you?” Martin asked with a laugh.

  “Good, honest folks just trying to get by.” Sly smiled as well, his voice breaking just a touch at the admission. “The current night market is actually above ground. They’ve somehow renovated the rooftops of an entire chain of houses to make the market. It’s disguised as if by magic, and littered with exits and ways out to the ground floor and underground.”

  “On the rooftop? As if by magic? Let alone how farcical that seems, Sly, you just told me you avoided dabbling in that sort of thing.”

  “Oh ye of little faith. Just trust me until you see it for yourself.”

  They let their conversation drift to meaningless things and dockyard gossip until they arrived at the aforementioned housing block. The block was a jumbled mess of houses of all shapes and sizes, cobbled together over years of construction and destruction. From the ground level, it didn’t even appear as if there was a uniform height to be called a rooftop, but the houses did squeeze together so tightly they could almost be considered one unified building at this point.

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  Sly counted the houses down from the corner and led Martin to an ancient oak door. Sly knocked, and after a moment, a scraping sound could be heard as a cover was lifted from the glass peephole.

  “What’ye want?” came the voice from inside.

  “I’m here to see a man about some artwork.”

  “Buying or selling?”

  “Selling.”

  “Jus’ a minute.”

  A moment later, the door opened and the two men were ushered inside. The large man who opened the door for them gestured for them to follow and led them through the house. They wound their way through several crowded floors of residents and up several flights of stairs before arriving at a final door. The man produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. It opened up to the cool evening air, revealing a crowded rooftop. The man quickly waved them in and then closed the door behind them. The sound of the lock turning could be heard behind them, but Martin’s attention was already on what was in front.

  Looking around, he could see that what he had assumed from the street to be uneven rooftops were actually false walls, protecting the roof from view of the street and giving the illusion of impassable rooftops. In reality, the roof was very uneven from building to building; however, with the use of ramps and steps, it was possible to walk from one end to the other with minimal difficulty. The greater difficulty instead was navigating the mass of stalls, tents, and people moving quietly along the rooftops. There was some whispered discussion here and there, but to Martin’s shock, most trade seemed to be conducted silently.

  Martin looked at Sly to ask a question, but in keeping with the atmosphere, Sly simply held a finger up to his lips and then gestured to Martin to follow him. Sly seemed familiar with the market and made his way quickly to the far end, stopping only once to backtrack and take a turn before a purple tent to get around a path blocked by an overturned cart selling dried herbs of the sort Martin had never seen before. It was all Martin could do to keep his mouth closed. On every surface, there appeared to be some trinket or treasure he had never seen before. Even more amazing to him, from somewhere deep inside of him, he could feel a sort of pull coming from a few of the objects.

  As he tried to figure out the source of this pull, Sly finally arrived at the shop he was looking for. The two men waited for a moment as an elderly woman haggled silently with a dark skinned man behind the table. The two pointed up and down and even made some crude and violent gestures Martin had scarcely seen before. At last, the two seemed to settle on a price, and the woman deposited a bag of coins on the table. The man quickly removed the correct number of coins from the bag and returned the bag along with a thick leather-bound tome. With another rude gesture, the old woman was away.

  Sly gave a brief nod of greeting and placed the package he had been carrying gently on the table. The dark skinned man gingerly unwrapped it, exposing a thin book. Although its cover was plain, its title font was written in a golden lettering in some language Martin couldn’t read. The pages were gilded as well and seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. As the book was lifted out of its wrapping, Martin began to feel the same pull he had felt on his way over here, but far stronger. Now in the presence of a much stronger force, Martin recognized it for what it was—a Cosmic taint.

  His mouth opened slightly in shock. He wanted to ask Sly what the object was, but he was already beginning to haggle with the merchant, who was silently adding and removing different value coins and items in response to Sly’s gestures. Martin’s eyes fell upon the packaging that the book had been carried over with. It had looked like simple linen, but now that it was unwrapped, Martin could see numerous symbols written on the inside in a strange purple ink. Several of what appeared to be dark green leaves had also been placed within the layers of linen. Martin could only assume they had been deliberately placed there to suppress the cosmic taint of the book.

  As to why Martin could now sense the taint at all, he soon hit upon another idea. He had recently sacrificed the cursed revolver to the Faceless God. That, along with his contribution in killing the servant of the Beautiful Goddess, had resulted in his gaining favor with the Faceless God, but it wasn’t until now that Martin realized what that favor meant. He seemed to have received some increased sensitivity to the Cosmic. If that was the limit of his increased power or just an aspect of it, he wasn’t sure. He had meant to ask Jacques before, but Ioan’s tale and the threat Rafe posed had pushed it from his mind. He silently resolved to find out the next time he saw Jacques.

  At this time, Sly was finishing his negotiation. The book was quickly rewrapped in linen packaging, and a heavy purse of coins was pushed back to Sly. Sly picked it up and weighed it once or twice—a meaningless gesture as he had just watched the man count out and deposit the coins into the bag—before the bag disappeared into his jacket. Sly flashed the man a smile and made an elaborate bow before turning to leave. Martin fell into step beside him, a million questions on his mind.

  Sly didn’t lead them directly back toward the door they came in through, but instead took a leisurely walk along the rooftop. They stopped to look at a few curios that caught their eye, and even sampled a piece of smoked meat that claimed to be whale. It was salty and tough and delicious, but Martin found it hard to imagine which part of the whale it had really come from. Sly gestured toward a door, and the two began to walk in that direction when Martin felt the tugging sensation again. It was coming from a stall not far out of the way, so Martin quickly grabbed Sly’s sleeve. When Sly turned to look at him, he made a gesture with his head toward the stall and made his way over. Sly shrugged and followed behind.

  A portly, masked man sat under a cheap tent, fanning himself absentmindedly. Before him on a thick blanket lay a selection of everyday objects. A crude handwritten sign leaning against a wall read “Real Magic Trinkets Protect Yourself From Cosmic Forces!” Not many people stopped by this shop, and Martin could easily see why. Upon seeing where Martin was headed, Sly attempted to stop him by mouthing the word “scam,” but Martin just made a gesture for him to wait and crouched down to look over the items.

  His eyes passed over a pair of glasses, pens, a broken wristwatch, cutlery, and numerous other pieces of junk before settling on the true source of the pulling sensation—a lighter.