Makun stared at the charms on the old man's table. Collection. Harvest. Farming.
The words didn't line up with what the presence had told him. I have already given you a gift. She had broken the link herself and opened the Mystic world to him, and she had said nothing about a harvest being ready or a farmer coming to collect. So either this old man is wrong, or he's only seeing part of the picture. And after what the presence and Zuri had told him about how powerful whatever stood behind these chains must be, he doubted a luck charm would help.
Still, he wasn't about to dismiss anything. Information was the one thing that had kept him alive this long. When you had nothing else, you learned: the law, so people couldn't cheat you; first aid, because hospitals cost money; basic martial arts, because the streets weren't safe. Information had saved him more times than luck ever had, and if he didn't learn the rules of this world, the world that had been feeding on him without his knowledge, he was dead.
He looked at the old man more carefully. Zuri had been practicing for fifteen years and still needed a reading to see that something was wrong with him. This man had seen it at a glance, reading his spiritual signature like a name tag. He knows more than he's letting on.
"Do you have any books?" Makun asked. "Books that could lead me onto the road of a true mystic?"
The old man looked up, his eyes sharpening again. "Books? You want written knowledge?"
"Yes."
"Hmm." He studied Makun. "Information. I see. You probably don't trust anyone."
Got that right.
"I don't have anything here," the old man went on, "but I can get something for you. Be ready to pay, though. That kind of knowledge is precious." He glanced up at the sky, then back at Makun. "Look around. Browse. Next week, come back with something interesting."
"Interesting how? What's the price?"
"I'll know it when I see it." The old man smiled slightly. "Interesting things have a way of finding people like you. Bring me one, and we'll talk."
With my luck, trouble certainly finds me. Makun wanted a clearer answer, but the old man had already gone back to arranging his table. Everything here was a negotiation. Fine. He had a week.
He walked deeper into the market. He passed a stall selling what looked like preserved organs in jars, another with maps drawn on animal skin, a third with stone tablets covered in symbols he couldn't read. Vendors weighed out dried herbs, two people haggled over a vial that glowed faintly blue, and a woman whispered about protection wards to a nervous customer. The energy here was dense, pressing against his half-opened third eye, and this world was turning out to be far deeper than he had imagined. Most of what was for sale he didn't understand yet, and most of the services meant nothing to someone who had only just walked in. What he needed was something concrete, something he could study on his own without trusting strangers who spoke in riddles.
Then he saw her.
A woman sat behind a blanket spread on the cobblestones, a veil covering her face completely except for her eyes, which were dark and didn't seem to blink. Around her neck hung an elaborate silver necklace whose links shifted slightly, as if they were alive. Silver. Safe. On the blanket lay small bowls of ash, dried plants he didn't recognize, animal bones arranged in careful patterns, clay figures and painted stones.
And a book.
It was thick, with a worn leather cover and a spine cracked from use, its pages yellowed with age. The title was burned into the leather in plain letters: The Goal of a Mystic.
His heart jumped. That's exactly what I need. His bad luck had taken his job and was about to take his home; his whole life had been one long string of failures and accidents. But maybe this book could change that. Maybe understanding this world would give him the tools to fight back against whatever had been feeding on him for twenty-three years.
He stepped toward the blanket. "Excuse me—"
"I want that book."
The voice came from his right. A man stood two steps away, tall and lean, in a dark coat that looked expensive. His face was sharp and angular, his eyes too bright and too focused, and they were fixed on the book. The veiled woman looked up at the two of them in turn and said nothing.
Of course. Of course someone else wants it. Makun's jaw tightened. Even here, in a mystical market in the middle of the night, his timing was terrible.
The tall man stepped closer to the blanket. "How much?"