The space was wide and cold. Some kind of climbing plant had managed to take hold down here despite there being no light strong enough to reach this deep.
Kael stood with the water at his shins and his hand pocketed.
'Are all these places some sort of meeting place rather than a market?'
Soft ripples stretched outward from his boots as he moved deeper. This far in, the air had grown humid enough to leave a constant film of moisture across the skin.
He studied the walls carefully. Nothing. He walked the floor, scanning as he went. Still nothing. It genuinely seemed like little more than a gathering space with no obvious purpose.
Fourteen. That was how many blank spots Lorel had left on the map. Kael had passed ten without finding anything of note.
At the eleventh, something changed.
A lit candle floated in a holder, its flame pressing back just enough of the darkness to make its own small bubble of light. A chain roughly an arm's length held it anchored, keeping it from drifting.
Kael walked past it and looked into the room beyond. Once again, vast emptiness.
Just as he was about to step inside a hand clamped around his neck. Kael went still.
"It's more than an hour until it starts." A deep voice, close. "What are you doing here?"
A thick cloud of smoke drifted past Kael with the words. He had already watched the man approach with the primordial eye and chosen to let himself be caught.
"What starts in more than an hour?"
The man raised an eyebrow and released him.
"It's you." Something in his expression shifted. Disappointment, almost.
Kael turned around.
"Have we met?"
He recognised the man immediately, the cigar more than anything. The same one who had grabbed his collar for sparing a mortal. But something was different now. Whatever performance he had been putting on up there had been left at the surface.
"Spare me the theatrics."
Kael raised a hand. It was clear this man didn't genuinely care for status, at least not beyond rank.
"What's about to happen here?"
"You really don't know?"
"No."
Something flickered across the man's face. Amusement, maybe. Confusion too. He flicked the cigarette into the water and immediately produced another.
"It's something like an auction, for the lesser Luminaires among us. Every week people come from across the first two layers to put ingredients, motes, odd jobs, items of interest up for bidding. Whatever anyone needs or wants to get rid of."
He noticed Kael's expression shift slightly and laughed.
"Wondering why I'm telling you all this so freely?" A grin. "The righteous answer would be that I find you interesting. The true one is that I'm a bastard who couldn't care less."
"Is that why you grabbed my collar earlier?"
"I do things that amuse me." The man shrugged. "You looked like a lost puppy back there."
He was performing colder than he was. Kael knew it. This was the man repaying the favour for being let go without losing face, in the only way someone like him would ever allow himself to.
"How many attend these auctions?"
"Depends. Lately, more than fifty per auction."
"How does one get in?"
"You're surprisingly clueless for a noble. Not from around here?" He looked like he was about to elaborate, then didn't. "You get personally picked by the owner of the auction house. Someone like you though probably just needs to ask. More the merrier, right?"
He nudged Kael with an elbow and laughed from the stomach.
"Then I'd like to attend this one."
Forel puffed a cloud and spread his hands in a gesture that suggested the matter was entirely out of his reach.
"Not up to me. I'm just a bidder. You'll have to speak to the man himself." He pointed into the darkness behind him. "Lucky for you he's only a few right turns from here. Go tell him your business. Tell him Forel sent you."
With that he turned and trudged off, like a man with somewhere more important to be.
Kael threw one last glance at the candle, before continuing himself.
The walls here looked no different from everywhere else he had passed through.
"Who goes there?"
A gentle voice carried through the tunnel.
Kael turned the corner and knocked on the brick beside him the way someone might knock on a door.
"My name is Valerian Eireindaile. Forel sent me."
"A new face?"
A man in his mid twenties looked up from the wall he had been fiddling with and straightened.
Why did everyone keep saying that?
"Indeed. I come from the noble family Eireindaile, out of Velthoria. I was hoping to attend one of your auctions. I'm quite interested in." He paused. "Well. Everything, honestly."
"Eireindaile." The man tapped his chin. "I know of them, yes. Though my auction is entirely self funded. I'm surprised someone of your standing would take an interest."
Kael sighed quietly, his expression giving nothing away. He didn't know there was a larger one.
"As I said, I'm interested in everything. That includes smaller operations too. I think your auction would help me understand how things are built and how they actually work. I won't cause any problems. That I promise on my family name."
The man was slightly taken aback by the sincerity of it. It was an unusual reason to request entry.
"Well. I don't see why not. Forel sent you, you said?" He shook his head with a quiet laugh. "That old man does get bored easily."
He extended a hand.
"I go by Sielle. Founder and auctioneer. It isn't much to look at, but this stretch of the sewers is mine."
Kael shook his hand, his eyes narrowing in the dark as they settled on the man in front of him.
Black hair falling to his shoulders. Eyes that carried none of the warmth his voice did. Sielle was a rank three, and a capable one at that. Kael couldn't identify his motes, but it was a reasonable assumption he wasn't short of them. People didn't build underground auctions to break even.
"So." Kael started, crouching beside him with the curiosity of someone who had genuinely never considered leaving. "What are we looking at?"
Sielle scratched the back of his head.
Why was this noble still here?
Some amusement settled in despite himself. The shamelessness of it was almost endearing. Nobles were so removed from everything except politics and combat. And this one seemed actually odd by any noble standard he had encountered.
"This? It's nothing much. More of a time occupation than anything else."
Kael bent lower and peered at a small crack in the wall beside him.
"Is the tunnel starting to give?"
"No. Nothing like that." Sielle's expression shifted slightly. "Someone has been causing trouble in the sewers lately. Going around killing anything they come across. It's disrupting business in more ways than one."
It was mildly surprising how seriously he seemed to take it.
Kael had always assumed the sewers were little more than a breeding ground for crime and disorder. And while that was certainly present, there appeared to be something else underneath it. A kind of order. Not imposed from above but grown from necessity, the way it always did when money was involved.
It was strange though. Why was he examining it himself rather than hiring someone? There was no shortage of information pathway Luminaires in Sole.
Sielle clapped his hands on his thighs and straightened up.
"Well. No need to concern yourself with it, Valerian. This is my burden." He glanced toward the darkness ahead. "The auction starts soon. I assume you can find it." He raised an eyebrow as though waiting for a response, then didn't wait for one. "There's a free spot at the far back where a regular of mine would normally sit. Take it. If any questions appear, you can come and find me after. I'll gladly answer them" he said with a smile
Kael watched him disappear into the dark.
A businessman. Charismatic enough to make it look effortless. But no matter how natural the charm, there was no version of this where Sielle invested this much effort into building goodwill with an apparent rank one unless that rank one happened to be of noble blood.
True to the man's words, the auction was nothing impressive.
Rank one and two Luminaires gathered in makeshift chairs and put forward what they had. Motes, ingredients, the occasional item of questionable origin. Nothing severely illegal changed hands, barring some human remains. But it wasn't necessarily disappointing either.
People had come as much to socialise as to bid, and Kael found no shortage of idle conversation or willing ears. Being the only noble in the room had its advantages. People came to him without being asked.