"Where are we going again?" Mars asked, trudging behind Fenn as they left the smoke-stained alleys around the Pit.
"To the Undermarket," Fenn said, his stride brisk.
Mars groaned. "And why not the villa? Gods, I could use a hot bath." He lifted his arm and gave himself a cautious sniff, only to recoil with a dramatic pinch of his nose. "I reek like a corpse left in the sun."
"The countess sponsors only Celeste," Fenn replied without turning. His tone was matter-of-fact. "For you to stay there would be freeloading. The other fellow understood this."
Mars sighed, shoulders slumping. "Fair point. Still feels like I drew the short stick."
"You don't say," Fenn muttered, though there was the faintest trace of amusement at the edge of his voice.
He quickened his pace to catch up. "So what's in the Undermarket for me, then?"
Fenn finally glanced his way, a thin smile breaking across his face. "Debt collection, my friend."
Mars blinked, half-expecting he'd misheard. "Debt collection? Never done that before."
Fenn chuckled under his breath but didn't slow down. "Consider it an apprenticeship. You'll thank me later."
The streets funneled them toward the edge of the old quarter, where the stones underfoot turned uneven and damp. Mars eyed the surroundings with suspicion. "You're not dragging me into a graveyard, are you?"
"Close," Fenn said, pulling aside a rusted iron grate wedged into the wall of a crumbling winehouse. "Mind your step."
A stairwell yawned below, wide enough for coffins but narrow enough that Mars had to hunch his shoulders. The air grew cooler as they descended, carrying a tang of mildew and smoke. Their footsteps echoed, hollow and muffled, like intruders in some sleeping giant's lungs.
"Lovely," Mars muttered. "Nothing screams prosperity like a hole in the ground."
Fenn lit a stub of tallow candle, the flame flickering against the walls. He gestured to the stonework as they went deeper. "These aren't sewers. They were catacombs once, vaults for the city's dead. Centuries back, smugglers carved tunnels through the bones, and now…" He raised the candle.
The stair spat them out into a cavernous hall that stretched beyond the reach of the weak light. Here, lanterns strung between iron poles flickered over a maze of stalls, alcoves, and makeshift shops.
The air was thick with incense and cooking fat, smoke curling like veins in the dimness. Crowds pressed shoulder to shoulder, faces masked or painted, voices sharp and bargaining.
Mars stopped at the foot of the stair, blinking at the chaos. "Undermarket, huh. I've seen better-looking anthills."
Fenn smirked. "And like an anthill, disturb the wrong one and you'll be swarmed."
They passed a stall where a hooded crone sold dried hearts strung on gut-twine, another where a boy offered trinkets carved from human femurs. A troupe of masked jugglers performed in a ring of sawdust, their laughter too shrill to be merry.
Mars turned to his companion, squinting against the lamplight haze. "Can I ask you a question?"
Fenn didn't slow his pace. "You just did."
Mars groaned. "Fine. Can I ask another one?"
"You just did."
Mars threw up his hands. "Saints preserve me, I'll just ask anyway. Why did you pick me to come down here with you and not Yvain?"
That made Fenn glance at him, the faintest twitch of surprise in his brow. For a moment Mars thought he might brush the question aside, but instead Fenn gave a short huff and answered. "Knights are easier to get along with. Can't say the same for most mages. And, no offense meant, your friends seem a touch too exotic for debt-chasing under the city."
"Ouch," Mars muttered, pressing a hand to his chest in mock injury. "Exotic, he says. Next you'll be telling me I'm the plain, dependable choice."
"If the boot fits," Fenn replied with a shrug, resuming his steady stride down the tunnel.
Mars fell back into step, shaking his head but unable to suppress a grin. "So that's what I am. The plain one. Reliable as boiled cabbage."
"You said it, not me."
Mars did see the logic in Fenn's words, though it did little to soothe the unease gnawing at him. At times he wondered why he still lingered with this strange company. If Celeste's words were any indication then her plan was to burn the world and rule its carcass. Mars had been young when the Old Empire fell, but the stories of their tyranny had kept six year old him up at night.
Now here he was traveling with fragments of the old world. Perhaps the right thing would be to slip away, to whisper to the Inquisition of what traveled in the shadows beside him. He did not love the Inquisition, who in their right mind did? But between that iron fist and Celeste's dream of a blackened world, the choice seemed clearer than he liked to admit.
Yet the thought of turning them in settled like lead in his gut. That would be betrayal. They weren't just traveling companions. Somewhere along the way, they had become his friends, his first true friends in years. And for a man who had spent much of his life drifting, that counted for more than he dared say aloud.
"We're here," Fenn announced as the tunnel widened into the Undermarket proper.
Mars slowed, his eyes widening at the sheer scale. The Pit felt small compared to this. Here, the cavern stretched farther than he could see, a cathedral of stone and shadow lit by strings of guttering lanterns. Stalls lined the main causeways, spilling into crooked alleys and hidden corners. Smoke from cookfires curled up to the ceiling, mixing with the stink of tallow, iron, and unwashed bodies. Traders hawked their wares with aggressive cheer. Exotic powders sealed in glass, jewelry hammered from stolen gold, cages of half-starved familiars that whimpered at passersby. The crowd was a living tide of rogues, beggars, smugglers, and cloaked nobles looking for sins too expensive to buy above ground.
Mars muttered low, more to himself than anyone, "Does the Grey Rose run this circus too?"
"Not entirely," Fenn said, steering him past a dice table where two men nearly came to blows. "The Embalming Guild turns a blind eye so long as it doesn't touch their flesh markets. They own the corpses, living or dead. The Undermarket is tolerated, not sanctioned."
He lowered his voice. "The Grey Rose have a hand in nearly every stall, every deal, but they don't own the place. Not yet. Something Aunt Veyda would very much like to change."
Mars raised a brow. "Aunt Veyda?"
"The matriarch of the Grey Rose," Fenn explained, weaving between a perfumer's tent and a stall of counterfeit relics. "She and her three children keep the gang together through fear and blood. Where most syndicates bicker themselves to death, she made hers a family business. And she's always hungry for more."
"I'll file that under ominous," Mars said.
"Enough with the questions, we've got a debt to settle."