The paper lantern above her swayed faintly, the light of second dusk straining through yellowed parchment cut with geometric patterns. The young woman, Naiya, rolled onto her side, her long floppy bunny like ears softly slapping against her face, and groggily reached for the bundle of papers just pushed though the mail slot of her workshop-bedroom.

  Orders.

  She drug the bundle towards her as she reluctantly sat up, slit the twine with a fingernail, spread the slips across her blanket, and read each one slowly as she woke up. Alley viper. Cave asp. Horned snake. Swamp basilisk. The handwriting was hurried, crooked, barely legible. Doctors everywhere have terrible writing, even in the Night Market.

  Naiya sighed, stacked the slips into a neat pile, and set them aside. No point in panicking; she already had these in stock, mostly. It had been awhile since she had good basilisk.

  She stretched until her joints popped, then shuffled to the shelves that held rows and rows of glass vials. Pearls gleamed inside each one, pale, dark, luminous or matte, each labeled with a date, a source, and a note on flavor.

  She tapped a fingernail against one marked "Cave Asp – metallic." Yes, there would be enough. She would just need to replenish before the week ended, but thankfully cave asp was always in season.

  She put the pearls into a cloth pouch, attaching a label with dosing instructions before tying it all together in neat knots. The pouches were arranged by clinic, and the post would see these to their destination shortly. She fulfilled the rest of the orders in the same way, even the basilisk, though she was now down to but a single pearl.

  Sigh.

  "I'll have to visit that cat on 86th. Maybe he'll have fresh basilisk for tonight. " she thought to herself, though it was far from her favorite. Or, she could order viper again. That thought made her smirk.

  "I could have viper now." She giggled and reached into the basket by her bedroll, grabbing hold of wriggling danger noodle. It hissed, snapping at her fingers, but to no avail.

  She bit the head and slurped the rest down like one might eat spaghetti noodles.

  "Ooh. Spicy." She quietly burped, resting a hand on her chest before rising to dress for the day ahead.

  By the time she opened her shop's doors, the Market was stirring, shopfronts clattering to life. Her first visitors were already waiting, a pair of adventurers, mud-splattered, crossbows slung across their backs, smelling of many weeks traveling abroad and of campfires under the open night sky.

  “We're headed into snake country,” the taller one explained, thumbing a map creased by many foldings. “We’ll be out a fortnight, I reckon, chasing our bounty."

  He nodded to his smaller, stouter bespectacled companion currently tinkering with his utility belt.

  "He thought we should bring some insurance, just in case. That's why I love him."

  Naiya smiled, glancing at the map before she pulled down a small wooden tray, set out three vials, and slid them forward with slow, careful hands.

  “Adder,” she said, pointing to a pearl the color of old bone. “Woody. The most common in those swamps. Dissolve in boiling water. Bitter at first, but you can cut that by adding peppermint. Drink after the first bite, and you should have immunity for around a week.”

  She tapped the next vial: “Coral snake. They're pretty looking, but their bites cruel. Floral notes, boil again, but this one is pleasant, you can drink it just fine on its own. This snake is rarer, but deadlier. A dose only cures, no further immunity.”

  The last was darker, striated faintly green: “Marsh pit viper. Oily finish. Tastes of iron... like blood. Unpleasant, but crucial, as this wyrm kills quickly. Again, only a cure, no immunity.”

  The adventurers traded a nervous glance. His shorter companion muttered something about how expensive they seemed.

  Naiya only smiled calmly. “My prices are fair, and as well, one would think it is more expensive not to have them.”

  They paid, pockets lighter, and walked off arguing about which path to take. She watched them go, her stomach rumbling softly. That early dusk viper was almost ready.

  By midnight, the Market throbbed with noise, and her shop’s entrance had felt like a revolving door between all the nervous clinic couriers, adventurers preparing for the unknown and the occasional gawker with more curiosity than coin. Naiya closed her doors against the bustling crowded street and drew her lunch from the wicker basket at her feet.

  A black mamba, long and restless. She laid it across her lap and laughed as it tried to bite her arm, stroked its confused head once, then sank her teeth into the slick body, slurping it down in a single gulp.

  The venom burned like spice, but she loved it like how certain mortals loved habaneros; pain as pleasure and fire as flavor, a familiar heat threading into her second stomach. She smiled slowly, sighed, and licked her lips.

  “Spicy again today,” she murmured to herself. “Bitter though. A little smoke on the finish?”

  Already she could feel the weight forming beneath her ribs from breakfast, that pressure from something like a stone polishing itself smooth. A pearl was on its way.

  The pressure in her chest built until it was no longer ignorable. Naiya excused herself from the tallying the days earnings thus far, with a hand pressed lightly to her mouth, and slipped behind the curtain into her workshop.

  The spasms came quick, two dry coughs, then a sharp heave. She bent over the lacquer bowl kept for this purpose, gagging once before the pearl dropped with a wet clink.

  She straightened, breathing hard through her nose yet still calm, and pinched the pearl delicately between finger and thumb. Slick, dark, with faint green threads spiraling through its core.

  “Viper, all right,” she muttered, wiping it clean with a square of cloth before sanding down its rough edges. “Sharp lines, oily luster, hmm. Breakfast turned out decent.”

  She rinsed it in a dish of cool water, set it out to dry, and placed a vial next to the bowl for filing later. Her neat hand wrote in a pleasant script: "Marsh Viper - Slight Heat". Another cure to be shelved, another bundle of coin earned, another future life saved.

  When she opened her stall doors once more, her next client was already waiting.

  A noblewoman swaddled in silk, face pale, hand swollen to twice its size. Her servants flitted nervously around her like moths circling a lantern, one fanning her, another dabbing her forehead with a cool wet cloth.

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  “He bit me!” the noblewoman wailed, thrusting her hand as forward as if showing off a new ring. The puncture wound glistened clearly on the top of her hand.

  “My darling pet, I went to feed him, and he turned on me!”

  Naiya smiled thinly, fingers already searching for the proper vial.

  "Again?" She asked, sweetly. "I told you last time to feed him more often."

  She selected a pearl from the top shelf, marked "Blue Island Pit Viper - acidic citrus notes, curative only." She dropped it into a boiling kettle, letting the water hiss until it clouded, and then poured the tea into a cup. They waited a moment for it to cool, before Naiya slid the cup forward.

  “Drink,” she said softly.

  The noblewoman sniffled, sipped, and then sighed theatrically at the pleasant taste, watching the swelling began to ease as the antivenom worked.

  "You're a godsend!" The noblewoman said, tipping Naiya generously before sweeping out with her entourage.

  "They make better meals than pets." Naiya thought dryly as she watched the silks and servants leave, sighing before returning to her counter.

  The next client was simpler: a rat-catcher, his palm swollen and purple from a cellar adder's bite. He drank his tea without complaint, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and promised to bring her more snakes later in the week. She thanked him again; the two had an arrangement now for many years - she kept him alive, he kept her supplied with stock. A tidy loop, as the Night Market was never short on snakes.

  Naiya logged both in her ledger, her handwriting tidy and precise, before leaning back in her chair. The mamba in her belly was shifting now, her stomach working the venom over slowly and heavily. The pearl was nearly ready.

  She checked the clock on the wall, closed her doors once more and and slipped to the backroom. Two quick coughs, a slight gag and several small pearls dropped into her bowl with only a moderate amount of mess to wipe away.

  "Black Mamba - Spicy, smokey." she wrote on the waiting label, sliding the pearls onto the drying cloth.

  She washed her hands, fetched her bag and shopping basket, and smiled faintly to herself in the mirror as she looked herself over. Time to close shop, run her errands, and wind the day down with a nice stew and her favorite program.

  The Market was still in full swell when Naiya stepped out, phantasmal lanterns casting color across cobbles still slick from a light rain earlier that night. The air carried the scents of spices, roasting meat and heavy pours of stout substances as dozens of restaurants set about preparing meals for those tiring of shopping.

  Her basket hooked neatly at her elbow, she strolled past many neighbors and vendors, her eyes roving past stalls of bottled magic essence and bone-charms, until she reached the crooked sign on 86th Street: Binx's Butchery.

  The cat himself lounged on a counter of cracked marble, third eye half-closed in the center of his brow while his other two lazily tracked her approach. His paws kneaded idly at the counter as though he was working dough into biscuits.

  “Ahhh, Naiya, my favorite the pearl-maker,” he purred, words curling with a Moroccan lilt, seamlessly rolling into one another. “I was wondering when you would come by again. Last time it was... basilisk, yes? Not exactly my top seller, ha ha.” He chuckled to himself, his laugh dry and raspy.

  Naiya tilted her head, her long ears drooping. “Yes, basilisk again. Taste be damned, I need what I need. Do you have it or not?”

  The cat yawned wide enough to show the pink roof of his mouth, then flicked his tail toward a carcass half-hidden as it hanged behind the counter: a skinned basilisk, its venom-glands glistening like oily gems in the candlelight.

  “For you, always. And fresh, yes, yes. Very fresh. I sensed you might be coming, ha ha.” His third eye winked at her, awkwardly.

  She dropped a pouch of coins onto the counter without commenting at that, looking Binx in his two eyes before she dryly asked.

  "Same price?"

  "Of course. " The cat purred louder, eyeing the coin pouch. She carefully counted out three hundred in value while Binx carefully removed and packaged the basilisk glands.

  "See you next week then, pearl-maker." Binx purred as she left.

  On the walk home she picked up a few more necessities: a pair of asps, a paper packet of dried spices, and a jar of pickled serpent heads. By the time she reached her shop again, the basket weighed heavily but pleasantly against her wrist.

  Inside, she cleared the counter and set her pot to boil. The basilisk glands went in first, filling the air with a scent like copper and a pungent boggy musk. She added the pickled serpent heads, now cleaved and chopped, as well as the dried spices to blunt the bitterness of the glands. Handfuls of shallots and bitter herbs joined last, their sharper scents tying the whole strew together.

  Steam billowed, thick, but not unpleasant now. She cracked a window to vent the worst of it, stirred slowly and dipped a spoon to taste while she hummed the melody to her favorite radio play.

  “Still bitter, slightly sour,” she murmured, smacking her lips. “Heavy, but edible. Needs just a touch more of heat.”

  She stirred in another generous scoop of spice, stirred until the stew settled into a steady simmer, and leaned back in her chair, watching the bubbles rise and pop. Her belly gurgled in measure, eagerly waiting to transform this toxic blend into something new.

  Dinner would be ready soon. And after that, tomorrow’s cures.

  The stew bubbled low, and Naiya fetched her old radio from the shelf above her workbench. The box was scuffed, the dials stiff, but it still caught signal from the Market’s broadcast towers. She twisted the knob until laughter and a tinny trumpet blared through the static.

  "Perfect timing." She thought, glancing at the simmering pot.

  Tonight’s program was one of the vaudeville comedies - actors bantering in exaggerated voices, musical numbers punctuating slapstick gags as well as bridging the played acts. Naiya smiled despite herself, shaking her head as a chorus line belted out a jingle about an odd couple that had come into money, but knew nothing of high society or how to properly act.

  She ladled herself a bowl of stew, heavy with basilisk and spice, and ate slowly at the counter while the actors squabbled in the background. Every mouthful carried a bitter tang softened and somewhat masked by the herbs, the venom pooling warmly in her gut. She laughed the loudest when the bumbling husband character gaffed and mistook a Night Market primeval for a waiter, a sad trombone groaning in time with the gag.

  By the time her bowl was empty, the pot had simmered down to a thick stew. She scraped the thick slurry into a ceramic dish, setting it in the icebox for later, possibly lunch tomorrow. She washed the pot and counter carefully, humming along with the vaudeville theme, then carried the radio closer to the bath.

  Steam filled the narrow room as she filled the tub with hot water and then slipped into the bath to soak, one long ear hanging over the porcelain to catch the muffled jokes and banter drifting from the tinny radio on the shelf just outside her door.

  When the play ended with a chaotic blend of chorus and jazz music, she made her way back to the workbench. Her damp hair clung to against her cheeks, a fresh nightshirt clinging to her shoulders. Her belly ached faintly, full of venom and spicy stew. The bath had been long, and these pearls were ready.

  The first cough came sharp, then another. She bent over her lacquer bowl, hands steady as each pearl clinked out in turn: a half dozen dark with purple striations from the basilisk glands, one pale and woody from the asp, a pair of spotted pearls from the pickled-serpent heads.

  She rinsed them one by one, polishing each surface until they gleamed. Set them neatly to dry beside the bowl, each with its label already prepared in her tidy script.

  The pearls from earlier she filed into vials, slotting them by treatment type. Shelf after shelf caught the lantern's light, rows of glass vials glinting filled with small, medicinal treasure.

  At the door, she checked her mail slot: empty now, but it would no doubt be filled with new slips by second dusk tomorrow. She left it propped open with a small brass wedge, ready for whatever the Market demanded of her tomorrow.

  Work was now fully finished, while her little home and shop still smelled faintly of basilisk stew and floral soap from her long bath. The lantern guttered low, and she yawned widely as her ears arched back.

  She set the radio back on its shelf, pulled a stool to her mirror, and opened her half-read book on fae romance. The words swam in the lamplight, some tale about a gallant knight courting a fairy warrior-queen, but her attention drifted as she worked a brush through her damp hair, grimacing and long ears flicking with each pull.

  The day should have been finished. Her belly was already heavy with stew, her shelves lined with fresh pearls, the house in order. But the itch was there, low and insistent. A craving.

  She glanced at the basket by her bed.

  “No,” she muttered, brushing another stroke. “Too much already. I'll have heart burn.”

  The itch only grew sharper the more she thought about it.

  Sigh.

  She set the brush aside with mock resistance, ears drooping in surrender, and reached into the wicker basket. Her fingers searched, then closed around something small and wriggling. The viper hissed, tiny fangs flashing in the fading lantern light as she pulled the serpent free.

  “Just one more,” she whispered to herself, giving in to her cravings.

  She tilted her head back and slurped it down in a one smooth gulp. Heat rushed through her chest, venom crackling in her gut like fresh struck matches. She giggled, sweat already prickling her temples, her cheeks flush.

  “Worth it,” she breathed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  The lantern guttered once, twice, before she pinched it dark. Her bed was warm, the Market’s hum a distant lull, and her stomach purred, content with the latest offering.

  Naiya smiled into her pillow. Another day done. Tomorrow would bring more orders, more spicy heat, more pearls.

  And maybe, just maybe, another midnight snack.