Teal lanterns hung low like small moons, their tassels dripping, their light pooling on wet cobbles the color of old teeth. When the curfew hiccuped, the Night Market cleared its throat and switched on.
Leon stopped at the mouth of the alley and let the place introduce itself. The air smelled of warmed metal and citrus peel. Stalls shouldered together under narrow awnings—spices, wires, boots, syringes in blister packs, batteries stacked like fat coins, a rope of dried peppers wound around a crate like a necklace. Sound sat low, a hush enforced by someone's patience rather than fear.
"Cameras down to ambient," he said, quiet. "No faces. Market's a dignity zone."
"Copy," Nyx said. "Ambient only. Though for the record, you are strangling our stickiness." A pause, then softened: "It's a good look—for you. The Glass Saint is watching the rain bead on copper."
A boy stepped out from shadow with a coil of waxed cord. He tapped Brutus's forearm and held the cord up like a question. Brutus lifted his hands. The boy wrapped a peace-tie around Brutus's right wrist and the hilt of his sheathed baton, a neat figure eight that made violence a two-step harder than impulse could manage.
"Good rule," Brutus said to the boy.
"Matron's," the boy said, and touched a teal bead at his throat.
Leon held out his pen. "No blade," he said.
The boy eyed the pen, decided it could write worse harm than it could stab, and tied it anyway, looping the cord around Leon's fingers until the pen lay along his palm like a tame animal.
Sister Irena fell into step with them at the arch, her blue-lamp satchel catching the teal lantern light and drinking it. "No sermons in here," she said, somewhere between warning and promise. "Just trades."
"Then I brought the right person," Leon said, and turned to the woman who had joined them two blocks back, her hood dark with rain, her bag organized into labeled pouches: MAE NAVARRO, a laminated badge from a life with forms and signatures clipped to the strap as if anyone here might ask to see it.
Mae's eyes were the kind of steady that made numbers calm down. She had a surgeon's neatness without the scalpel. "You are asking for insulin, antibiotics, and AA lithiums on a day everyone is asking for the same," she said, voice low. "You need routes, not boxes."
"Boxes get us through noon," Leon said. "Routes get us through the week."
A woman in a shawl of teal net walked out from behind a table heaped with coils of cable and baskets of brown glass bottles. Age had pressed its thumb into her cheeks and left patience behind. Her hair, silver and black, was braided into a crown that didn't mean royalty so much as kept it out of the way. The teal bead at her throat matched the lanterns.
"Architect," she said, as if they'd met twice—once properly, once in rumor. "You bring a wall that eats alleys to my door and ask me to sign with a pen. I like that you still bother with pens." She gave a small smile that didn't show teeth. "Matron Feroce."
"Matron," Leon said. He didn't offer his hand. He tipped his head toward a coil of cord hung like a noose between two posts. "We respect ties."
"Then you know the other rule," Matron Feroce said. She nodded at the teal lanterns. "No faces, no fists. Your cameras will mind me or they will drown in tea."
"Nyx?" Leon said.
"Ambient only," she repeated, sweetly wounded. "My lenses are wearing veils."
Feroce's mouth ticked. "Good. Now tell me what you want and what you're paying with."
Mae unrolled a little waterproof pad. The ink didn't run. "Insulin," she said. "Short-acting and long, unexpired. Amoxicillin and doxycycline, factory seal. AA lithiums—thirty packs. IV tubing—four cases. Pediatric masks—cloth is fine. I have lot numbers and test strips."
Feroce glanced at Mae's badge—hospital procurement, old world—and the way she held her pen like a plumb line. Respect sharpened a degree. "You are not the show," she said.
"No," Mae said. "I'm the receipts."
Feroce's eyes warmed the smallest measurable increment. "You're early," she said. "Your hero with the white jacket usually does the sweep past second bells, cameras bright as a wedding."
"He's invited to our council tonight," Leon said. "He's very welcome to sit and listen."
Something like amusement moved under the matron's shawl. "And pay."
"And pay," Leon agreed.
She gestured toward the rear of the stall where a curtain of plastic sheeting divided the public aisle from a small office with a table, two stools, and a teapot that had been old before the city learned to spell itself. "Dealers talk in the aisle," she said. "People make contracts in the back."
Leon ducked through the plastic. The space was thick with the soft rattle of rain on the sheeting and the faint hum of a battery fan. A cat with one ear slept in a fruit crate. Feroce poured three thimblefuls of tea into cups that had once matched someone else's kitchen.
A man already sat on the second stool. He wore a gray suit that hedged its bets on which decade it belonged to and a smile that didn't reach his ears. A ring on his little finger was a fat, dull gold.
"Forgive me for being impolite," he said, and unrolled a thin plastic portfolio that crackled like a bag held too close to a heater. "But we rarely see a city's Architect at a table this modest. I am Thole. I represent an interested party."
"Greed Baron?" Leon asked, not sitting yet.
Thole's smile sharpened. "An unfortunate nickname. We prefer Efficiency House. We bring liquidity. Discounts. Syndication. Sponsors love a steady pipeline."
Mae's pen clicked once. "Syndication as in debt disguised as marketing?"
Thole spread his hands. "As in community support. The Baron rewards civic initiatives with price relief in exchange for…branding cooperation." His ring tapped the folder. "We have a standard package: twenty percent off market rates for medical and energy essentials, in exchange for exclusive rights to rebroadcast your feed segments with an Efficiency House frame. Just a logo in the corner, a tasteful lower-third."
Leon glanced at the plastic sheeting where the market's breathing pressed and released as people passed. "Lower-thirds have a way of becoming contracts," he said. "And we prefer receipts to discounts."
Thole's smile thinned. "Twenty percent is a lot of lives. We can go to twenty-five if you—"
"We'll pay our own twenty-five in interest," Leon said, "if we have to borrow from ourselves."
Feroce made a small approving sound into her tea cup.
Thole rearranged his smile to sympathy. "This is a dangerous time for principles. The Baron has rescued entire districts from…liquidity crises."
Mae set a folded paper on the table like a card. "Or bought them for less than the cost of a clinic."
Leon sat and slid his pen out from its peace-tie. He set the Civic Ledger on the table, flipped to a blank half page, and wrote in the clean block print of a man who knows other people will read him.
Emergency Requisition Escrow (Draft)
– Parties: The Last City (Architect), Signing Vendor (Night Market)
– Trigger: Declared emergency (food/med/energy) certified by Civil Affairs (Mae)
– Action: Architect may requisition stock at posted market price
– Payment: Within 30 days at posted price + 12% interest (Insurance Pool)
– Public Receipts: Items, quantities, vendor name posted on Civic Ledger
– Merchant Protections: Theft insurance from Market Pool; Ombuds review disputes
– Penalty: Gouging (>25% over last posted market median) voids contract; seizure allowed with receipts; Charter status revoked
He pushed the Ledger around so Feroce could read. "We will pay an interest we set ourselves," he said. "We will publish the receipts. Vendors who sign get access to our Insurance Pool. Vend with dignity. No cameras in faces unless you consent. No Dawnshield angels in your aisles unless you invite them."
Feroce read without hurry. She traced "Insurance Pool" with a fingernail. "Who funds it?"
"Merit," Mae said. "And a Market Holiday—two days a month when we collect no stall fees, in exchange for fair prices the rest of the time."
Feroce looked at Leon over the page. "You are writing generous rules with someone else's money."
"We will make it ours," Leon said. "We pass laws tonight. Due Rations. Blue Lamps. We will add Market Holidays to the agenda. In public. You can speak."
Thole coughed a laugh into his ring. "It's charming. It's also naïve. You cannot guarantee trust. Sponsors punish slow heartbeats. The Baron's logo would—"
Leon lifted the pen and wrote one more line.
– Branding: No external sponsor logos in civic institutions or markets without Council approval (public vote)
He looked at Thole. "We do logos for clinics and markets when nurses vote for them, not when rings knock on tables."
Thole's eyes cooled. "Then consider a private arrangement. The Baron can route goods through friendlier hands."
"Those hands would be your hands," Mae said. "And we'd find them in our escalations and never stop paying."
Feroce's mouth did something that could be mistaken for a smile if you didn't know the subject was algebra. "The Baron can watch our backs by not walking behind us," she said.
[Contract Draft: Emergency Requisition Escrow — Proposed]
[Effect Preview: +Prosperity (Stability), +Trust (Market), −Favor (Greed House)]
[Craft House: +Interest ("Receipts as content")]
[Greed Baron: Alert — "Price Discipline Threat"]
"Ad-break in 05:00," Nyx murmured. "We can turn this into an instructive moment. Producers love clauses they can misunderstand."
Leon tapped his pen against the ledger once and stopped. "No faces," he said. "Ambient only."
"Fine," Nyx sighed. "I'll film the teapot like it's a character study."
Feroce dipped her head. "You will put a merchant ombuds office between us," she said. "Not your own people."
"Citizen press council will host it," Leon said. "Naming later. For now, a box with a lock and a slot and a chain around it in a public place."
"Good," Feroce said. "People trust boxes more than men."
Thole slid the portfolio back inside his jacket like something that had tried to bite him. "I will inform the Baron you chose pride over relief," he said. "When your people riot, they will ask why you refused help."
"They will ask who you sold them to," Mae said, and the corner of her mouth made a small, sharp angle. "And we will show them the lower-third."
Thole stood. The suit shone like it had been rained on and never dried. "We buy cities," he said softly. "With courtesies first."
Feroce didn't look at him when she said, "This is my aisle. Take your courtesies outside."
He took them. The plastic sheeting brightened and darkened once as his bulk disturbed the lantern light on his way through.
Feroce blew across the surface of her tea and decided. "Signers get the Pool and the holidays," she said. "I will walk the aisle and gather names. If you lie, this market will starve you. If you keep your receipts, we will feed you first."
Leon turned the ledger back, wrote the simplest line he could think of, and slid it to her with the pen.
– Signatures:
She wrote "Feroce" in letters that looked like a clean knot. "And another rule," she said. "No child faces in my lanes."
"Already policy," Leon said.
"Good," she said. "I prefer when men arrive ready."
Mae spoke now, the way someone explains a stitch to a hand that's never held a needle. "We'll need lot numbers," she said. "I'll test seals. We'll pay in order of need."
Feroce laughed with real pleasure, a small river sound. "I am going to enjoy not teaching you."
They rose. Leon retied his pen to his wrist. The cat opened one eye and dismissed them.
Feroce pushed through the sheeting and called with a practiced hush that carried: "Escrow at the Last City. Signers to me."
Heads turned. Hands hovered, deciding if dignity required pretense.
"Publish the clause," Leon said.
A translucent card walked at the edge of his vision.
[Public Notice: Emergency Requisition Escrow — Night Market Sign-Up]
– Posted price +12% interest within 30 days
– Theft insured from Market Pool
– Gouging voids contract; seizure permitted with receipts
– No faces filmed in aisles without consent
– Blue Lamps honored at stall fronts
[Audience: 34,888 → 36,002]
[Craft House tipped +300 Favor: "Contract porn."]
[Greed House −400 Favor: "Hostility to efficiency."]
[Trust: +2 (Market District)]
[Prosperity: +1 (Stability Prediction)]
chat_Arbit3r: He signed a market with a teapot.
Saint'sChalice: Elegance in the mundane. Continue.
Nyx's voice ticked with numbers and a delicate distaste she didn't bother to hide. "Trickster hates you right now," she said. "They prefer pies to clauses."
"Pies later," Leon said.
They followed Feroce down the aisle as she took names with a little brass stamp that left teal ink loops on a ledger that had seen three generations of grocery lists. Mae checked lot numbers and seals with quiet efficiency, sliding test strips between fingers and caps, eyes counting in a language only she and the inventory could hear. Brutus kept his hands visible, the peace-tie letting patience settle on his knuckles.
"Tell your Wardens," Feroce said, stamping, "that my aisle is neutral. If they need to stand somewhere, stand by the Blue Lamps. Don't block the tea."
"Understood," Brutus said.
A boy with a chipped tooth peered at Leon from under a tarp. He held up a jar of buttons like an offering. "You need black ones?" he asked gravely. "For funerals."
"Not yet," Leon said, and hoped the ledger would let him keep that in pencil a little longer. "We're stocking for hunger."
They finished the circuit. The names on Feroce's ledger made a small army when lined up. A trader with a blue tattoo of an anchor on her neck signed last and tapped the paper with a fingernail. "We'll hold you to the interest," she said. "And the holidays."
"You'll have ombuds," Leon said. "With keys we don't hold."
Sister Irena brushed rain off the Blue Lamp she'd set at the market's arch. "People have spent their entire lives never hearing the word ombuds," she murmured. "They will like how it tastes."
"Or they'll spit it out," Leon said. "And we'll try a different one."
He turned to go and nearly walked into a hand-painted sign nailed at eye level on the exit post, the paint still wet enough to shine. The letters were careful, the kind of careful that hates to be crossed: TAX.
The arrow under the word pointed toward Canal Street.
Feroce followed his gaze. "The Vipers have a new brush," she said.
Brutus's jaw worked like a man chewing something unwise a second time just to be sure he hadn't missed a flavor. "Stockade Crew," he said. "Or their cousins. They want a toll."
"They want a performance," Nyx murmured, the edge back. "You can walk the line, be forced to bow, and the War King will purr. Or you can cross it and make him angry. Trickster loves both failure modes."
Leon looked at the word TAX and imagined it across the throat of a street. He imagined the morning crowd stopping at that line and the camera watching them be humiliated. He imagined a child stepping across it without reading and a man using that step as receipt for cruelty.
He pulled the waxed cord loose from his wrist and offered the pen back to the boy at the arch. "Thank you," he said, tying the cord back around the pen himself in a neat knot he could undo in a hurry. He underlined TAX with his eyes and then looked at the market as if it could help him carry a word out into a different sentence.
"Matron," he said. "If we make a mess out there, I'll sweep it before your tea gets cold."
"Good," Feroce said. "And Architect—"
He looked at her.
"The Baron will not stop with courtesies," she said. "When he comes with prices that don't look like money, bring me the bill."
"I will," Leon said.
Nyx breathed in his ear like she was reading a weather report she didn't like. "Ad-break in 02:00," she said. "We can sell a 'line in the rain' moment if you plan to step over that paint. The Glass Saint will tip if you frame it as a choice instead of a tantrum."
"Frame it as a clause," Leon said.
They stepped back into the street. The rain had thinned to a wire. The teal lanterns watched the alley mouth. The word TAX waited, neat, patient, public as a dare.
"Hands where the cameras can see them," Brutus said, half to himself, stepping into the open with the presence of a door that had decided to stay open.
Mae tucked her badge inside her coat, where it would be less a target and more a mirror. "If you step, step clean," she said. "And say out loud what you're buying with the step."
"I'm buying everyone's minutes," Leon said. "With interest." He took the Civic Ledger out and, against the post under the word, wrote a line that would be a law if he could stick to it.
– No Ransom. No Toll. Due Rations. Receipts or nothing.
He capped the pen and let the word TAX look at his line and decide if it wanted to be a fight.
[Objective Update: Confront Canal Vipers' toll line]
[Plan: Cross publicly with clause; offer tribunal; seize on gouge under Escrow if needed]
[Risk: Notoriety +; War House agitation; Trickster mischief]
[Reward: Trust + (Public), Merit + (Lawful defiance)]
The market breathed behind him, a sound like tea warming on a stove. Feroce's ledger closed with a click. The Blue Lamp glowed steady and small.
Leon put his boot down on the far side of the red paint and felt the rubber squeak on damp stone like a sharpened line.
"Nyx," he said. "Announce: Tribunal at sundown. Public comment on tolls. Market Holidays proposed. Blue Lamps for clinic corridors."
"Done," she said, and because she couldn't help it, because her job was show, she added in a tone that held both pride and hunger, "Make it worth the ad."
He drew the next breath slow and even so his mask wouldn't fog. He did not rub the paint with his heel. He did not perform a kick. He stepped as if there had never been a line there to begin with and let the camera do the work of the world rather than the other way around.
The teal lantern behind him swung once, the tassel brushing the word and smearing it by a hair. It looked like a finger had pressed into a sentence and refused to leave.
On Canal Street, a whistle blew. The Stockade Crew turned their heads toward the sound of a man stepping where he had been told not to.
Leon didn't lift his voice. "We pass laws here," he said.
The rain wrote quieter versions of the same sentence along the green ribs of the Bloom.
The cliff came on time: a figure in a bomber jacket raised a hand into the air—the hand holding a brush dipped fresh in red—and smiled toward a camera that wasn't his. The brush dripped. The ad-break ticked. The market's tea stayed hot.
[Cliff: Toll confrontation begins next chapter]
[Seeds: Market Ombuds box; Greed Baron retaliation; Council agenda — Market Holidays, Due Rations, Blue Lamps]