The Black Market was not of the living; it was a cut out of the world; it was a massive maze of rusty shipping containers and scrap metal with black ink leaking from all over the place.
There were flashes of white light above me like broken code, and I could taste rust and rotten fruit in the air.
"Put your head down," said this total stranger.
He moved quickly and jerkily, and I could see his amber eye scanning a group of men with no faces who were betting using photographs that were lit from inside.
"In the Market everything is for sale; your shadow, your breath, the beat of your heart; they will think you are selling if you stare too long," he said as I continued to follow him.
My arm faded a little more with every step (the see-through part of my arm was now up to my elbow, and I could see through my own arm at the steel beams behind it).
I was not just losing my body, but I was losing weight
.A stall was draped with thick curtains of black velvet, completely blocking any light outside the stall.
Behind the bone-like counter stands a thing with no head and a huge gramophone horn growing out of the neck.
The stranger said to the thing, "Merchant," and then tapped the counter in a rapid and steady rhythm.
"I brought a Blank to see you. He is leaking code which will turn to static when there is no longer a tether," the stranger said.
The gramophone-like horn turned to face me as if the thing had been installed with a speaker.
The noise that the thing made was not a voice but rather a recording of a man crying, with the pitch fashioned to sound like a whistle.
"A new guest," the horn said, and the way it said it was created from a variety of different accents.
"I can smell the 'Real' on him, and I have not smelled the London rain for forty years."
"He needs a tether," the stranger repeated with a tone of urgency.
After leaning forward as if the weight of the two silver wires that held the leather skin together caused it to creak, the Merchant said:
"A tether costs. I do not want your memories, boy. I have enough of them.
I want a Secret—one you have not told anyone, one that you would rather have avoided, and one that you feel stupid saying because it hurt to say it."
The city forced itself onto me.
I thought of the Doppler smiling with my own facial features, laughing in my kitchen. Then I thought of that night on the bridge over the Thames, looking down at the dark, black murky water and asking myself if anyone would notice if I just jumped off.
I had never told a soul, not even my sister, and especially not her.
"I have one," I said softly.
The Merchant slid a dark glass jar to me.
The glass was cold and it hummed and vibrated with the memory of many other people's shameful moments.
"Whisper it into the jar."
I bent down and the cold brass of the horn came up to my ear.
I whispered into the jar my truthful feelings of loneliness, this heavy burden I had carried for so long, into this jar.
I felt a sharp pain in my chest as if to say, "This will be worse than having a tooth pulled without any numbing."
This jar of shame softly glowed a sickly purple color like a bruised fruit.
The trader said, "Okay, you're in."
The trader reached down below the station and took out a big heavy cuff made of iron, and then placed it onto my hand—and I screamed.
The pain I felt was because of the weight and sheer mass of the metal, but this was not heat.
Rather, it was almost like someone had taken a little piece of iron railway spike and nailed it to the floor of my being.
Where the iron was in contact with me was no longer see-through.
I could now see my hand—it looked human—well, maybe not fully human.
There were scars and it felt very heavy!
"You have received a Limiter," said the dude standing next to me.
Then he paid attention to me when it looked as though I was going to fall over.
"What this Limiter will do is allow the Marrow to
was breathless when I looked up again.
I could feel the weight of the iron cuff on my arm; it ached like an anvil of lead.
"What do you mean, 'catch'?" I asked.
"The cuff, in a way, 'runs' on your pain," he answered.
He looked down at me, his amber eye holding some tiny bit of pity.
"If you ever stop feeling the sting of that secret, if you heal from that secret, then the cuff loses its grip on you and you'll be gone. For good."
I looked at the cuff around my wrist.
There would be no more disappearing or being invisible, but I was now chained to my own damage.
"Good," I said as I elevated myself back onto my feet and made a fist.
The weight of my fist felt good; it was so much like a weapon, and I couldn't wait to use it as such.
"I don't want to heal. I want to stay angry until I find that thing."
Don't settle into your comfort zone."
He said to me as he turned and looked to where we came in near the marketplace.
"This merchant has not only stolen your secrets but also put them on display at the front of his shop and attracted more attention than you can ever imagine; people here sense these secrets like blood in the water."
A moment later, we heard the merchant's glass jars rattle behind us.
Something is coming through the crowd.
It's not clanging together as a Warden's weapon would; but instead was hissing like an extinguished flame.