The Floating Market was exactly what its name promised.

  It was also so much more.

  Emre stood at the edge of a platform that shouldn't have been able to float, watching a city that drifted through the clouds like a ship through water. Buildings of colored silk and treated wood rose in tiers, connected by bridges that swayed in the wind. Balloons of every size and shape hovered above, tethered to stalls and homes and warehouses, their surfaces painted with symbols he couldn't read. And everywhere—everywhere—there were people.

  Or beings. Or whatever the correct term was for the thousands of sentient creatures who had gathered here to trade, to cheat, to buy and sell and barter and steal.

  "First time?"

  Emre turned. An old woman sat beside a stall piled high with what looked like fruit but probably wasn't. Her skin was the color of aged bronze, her eyes the pale gold of a cat's, and she smiled at him with a mouth full of teeth that had been filed to points.

  "Is it that obvious?"

  "You have the look. The wide eyes. The hand hovering near your pocket like you're afraid someone will steal from you." She cackled. "Someone will, don't worry. The question is whether you'll notice."

  Beside him, Sulley laughed softly. "She's not wrong."

  They had arrived at dawn, their transport—a rickety ballooncraft piloted by a being who hadn't spoken a single word during the entire journey—depositing them on this platform with a grunt and a pointing gesture toward the market's interior. Kaelen had gone ahead to make contact with the Sunken King's representatives. Maya was supposed to be watching their backs. Emre and Sulley were supposed to be inconspicuous.

  They were failing spectacularly.

  "The trick," the old woman continued, apparently delighted to have an audience, "is to look like you belong. Walk like you know where you're going. Touch nothing unless you intend to buy it. And for the love of whatever gods you worship, don't make eye contact with the Zarthan."

  "The Zarthan?"

  She pointed.

  Emre looked.

  A creature was moving through the crowd—tall, impossibly tall, with skin that shimmered like oil on water and eyes that were solid black from lid to lid. It wore robes of deep blue and carried a staff topped with a crystal that pulsed with inner light. As it passed, the crowd parted. No one met its gaze. No one spoke.

  "What is it?" Sulley whispered.

  "Merchant. Of a sort." The old woman's voice had dropped. "The Zarthan deal in things that shouldn't be sold. Memories. Lifetimes. The names of dead gods. They're not dangerous, exactly—they follow their contracts to the letter. But their contracts are written in ways that would make your head hurt, and they always, always collect."

  The Zarthan passed out of sight. The crowd slowly returned to its normal chaos.

  "Thanks for the warning," Emre said.

  "Don't thank me yet. Thank me when you leave this place with everything you came with." The old woman's eyes narrowed. "You're here for the Sunken King's people, aren't you?"

  Emre's heart skipped. "How did you—"

  "Everyone knows. Word travels fast in the market." She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "They're already here. Arrived last night with an escort of deep-water guards and enough magic to sink this entire platform. They're in the Spice Pavilion, waiting."

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  "Waiting for what?"

  "For you. For the Debugger. For the one who killed a God Butcher." Her golden eyes studied him with unsettling intensity. "You're famous, you know. In certain circles. The man who rewrote reality and came back from death. The man who loved an Echo so much he followed her across worlds." She smiled, showing those pointed teeth. "They want to see if you're real."

  Emre felt Sulley's hand tighten on his arm. He covered it with his own.

  "I'm real," he said. "Unfortunately."

  "Unfortunately for them, perhaps. Unfortunately for you, definitely." The old woman sat back, apparently satisfied. "The Spice Pavilion is three levels down, east side, marked by red lanterns. You can't miss it. Try not to die before you get there. It would spoil the fun."

  She turned away, busying herself with her impossible fruit, and Emre knew the conversation was over.

  ---

  They found Kaelen near a fountain that sprayed water in colors that didn't exist in nature.

  "The Spice Pavilion," he said before they could speak. "I know. I've been watching it all morning. The Sunken King's representatives haven't moved."

  "Who are they?" Sulley asked.

  "Mer-people. Deep-dwellers. I don't know their names, but I know their reputation. They're old—centuries old, maybe more. They served the Sunken King before he was king, back when he was just another deep lord scheming for power." Kaelen's expression was troubled. "They won't be easy to negotiate with."

  "Then we don't negotiate," Emre said. "We talk. We listen. We learn what he actually wants."

  "And if what he wants is war?"

  Emre was quiet for a moment. Then: "Then we figure out how to give him something better."

  Maya appeared from the crowd, slightly out of breath. "We have company. Not hostile—at least, I don't think so. But there's a group of merchants following us. Watching. Taking notes."

  "Information brokers," Kaelen said. "The market runs on gossip as much as goods. They're trying to figure out who you are and why you're here."

  "Let them watch." Emre started walking toward the Spice Pavilion. "Maybe it'll make the Sunken King's people nervous."

  "That's your strategy? Make them nervous?"

  "It's a start."

  ---

  The Spice Pavilion was exactly where the old woman had said it would be—three levels down, east side, marked by red lanterns that cast bloody light across the entrance. The air here was thick with scents Emre couldn't identify: sharp and sweet and bitter and something that made his eyes water.

  Inside, the crowd thinned. The merchants here dealt in rarer goods—things that required privacy, discretion, the kind of negotiations that happened in shadows.

  The Sunken King's representatives sat at a table in the far corner.

  They were not what Emre expected.

  He'd imagined fish-people, perhaps—scales and gills and webbed fingers. These beings were... human. Almost. Their skin had a faint blue tint, and their eyes were slightly too large, and their movements had a fluid quality that spoke of lifetimes spent in water. But they could have passed for human in dim light.

  There were three of them. Two guards—armed with weapons that looked like coral but probably weren't—and one who sat apart, older, calmer, watching the crowd with eyes that had seen too much.

  Their leader, Emre guessed.

  He approached the table. The guards tensed, hands moving toward weapons. The older one raised a hand, stopping them.

  "Debugger." The voice was soft, musical, accented in ways that made the words feel like water flowing over stones. "We wondered if you would come."

  "You wondered, or your king wondered?"

  A smile—small, but genuine. "Both. Sit. Please."

  Emre sat. Sulley sat beside him. Kaelen and Maya remained standing, positioned to watch the room.

  "You're not what I expected either," Emre said.

  "What did you expect?"

  "Someone angrier. Someone more interested in blaming than talking."

  The Mer-being's smile widened. "Oh, we're angry. Make no mistake. Our people died—thousands of them, in ways that would make your human mind recoil. We lost children, elders, entire families to the hunger of the God Butchers. Anger is the least of what we feel." He leaned forward. "But anger is not strategy. And my king is nothing if not strategic."

  "So this isn't about revenge."

  "This is about survival. The God Butchers are gone—for now. But the damage they did remains. Our cities are ruined. Our people are scattered. Our magic—the old magic, the deep magic that has sustained us for millennia—is failing." His eyes held Emre's. "We need help. And the surface nations, the ones who should be our allies, are too busy fighting over Mando scraps to notice."

  "The Sunken King declared war on those nations."

  "To get their attention. To make them notice." The Mer-being's voice sharpened. "Desperate people do desperate things. My king is desperate. And desperate people, as you may have noticed, are dangerous."

  Emre processed this. War as communication. Violence as negotiation. It was horrifying. It was also, in a twisted way, understandable.

  "What do you actually want?"

  The Mer-being sat back. For the first time, he looked tired—ancient and tired and worn down by centuries of watching his world crumble.

  "We want a place. A sanctuary. Somewhere our people can rebuild without fear of the next catastrophe. The deeps are no longer safe—the God Butchers poisoned them, left wounds that may never heal. We need to come to the surface. To the floating continents. To land."

  "And the surface nations won't allow it."

  "They see us as invaders. As threats. As monsters from the deep come to steal their resources." He laughed bitterly. "We don't want their resources. We want space. A few islands, a few platforms, somewhere to call home until the deeps recover. Is that too much to ask?"

  Emre looked at Sulley. Her expression was troubled—she understood the stakes, the tragedy, the impossible position these people were in.

  "What if we could help?" Emre said slowly. "What if we could negotiate with the surface nations on your behalf? Present your case, explain your situation, find a peaceful solution?"

  The Mer-being stared at him. "You would do that? You, who have no connection to us, no reason to care?"

  "I have a reason." Emre met his eyes. "I've seen what happens when desperate people are pushed too far. I've seen war. I've seen death. I've seen the God Butchers feed on the chaos. I don't want to see any of it again."

  A long silence. Then the Mer-being laughed—a real laugh, warm and surprised.

  "The Debugger," he said. "They said you were different. I didn't believe them." He extended his hand—human gesture, learned for this moment. "My name is Thalassar. And I think, perhaps, we can talk."

  Emre took his hand.

  Behind them, the Floating Market continued its eternal commerce, oblivious to the fact that a war might just have been averted.

  Or postponed.

  Or merely transformed into something else.

  In the Nexus, it was hard to tell the difference.