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“The guy we met was dressed like me,” Houston said, holding his arms out to either side. “Really nice man named Flint.”
I rolled my eyes. “From Marquise & Empress? Yeah, real swell guy. Did he try to make you pay him with a kiss on the cheek, too?”
Xavi cocked an eyebrow. “Um, no. Wow, Echo, what have you been up to, really? Getting lucky in the Black Market, are we?”
“Well, I could have,” I said, shooting him a death glare.
“But he couldn’t help much with the charms,” Houston said, “so he sent us off to find someone else to consult at Hammerhearth.”
Morrow scratched the back of his head. “The guild of blacksmiths? Well, that’s funny, because he sent us to the guild of artificers.”
I looked between the two of them, tempering my annoyance when I realized something. “You don’t suppose this is Flint’s way of helping us, do you? Like he was trying to get us to see different people for multiple angles on the situation.”
“Except he couldn’t have known that we were friendly with each other,” Morrow said. “Well, apart from the fact that we represent corpos from the same city.”
“That must have been enough to tip him off,” Xavi said. “Either he knew that we would exchange information or butt heads when it came down to it. Either way, we’ve got a couple of perspectives on the situation. You start.”
We told them about how Jackson and Xander determined that the charms had all been enchanted by the same person. A man from Hammerhearth told them about the mix of materials used to create the charms. The resulting alloy maximized the hypnotic quality of their enchantments while also dampening their magical radiation.
“Flint sent us in the right direction, I think,” Houston said.”They’re top-notch blacksmiths and metallurgists over at Hammerhearth, after all. No better people in the Black Market to tell you about the properties and value of various metals.”
Xavi chuckled. “Or the price. Turns out the stuff they use for the charms are cheap as dirt, too. Happy, Inc. really knows how to turn a profit.”
I scoffed. “I believe it. Loki wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t so profitable, on top of giving him leverage over the human population.”
“Sorry,” Xavi said. “Did you say Loki?”
“Oh,” I said. “I forgot to mention.”
I had to clap my hand over Xavi’s mouth as Morrow and I explained the god’s involvement. Trust a drag queen to wildly overreact, but to be fair, it was all pretty crazy to begin with. Houston stood by in silence, his eyes darting around the bazaar like he was trying to fit different pieces of the Happy Links puzzle together.
“All this,” he said, “and we still don’t know what Alexandra Thorpe — sorry — what Loki is up to.”
“The only thing we can count on,” Morrow said, “is that it’s bound to be something horrible. Come on. We can talk more back in Nomicon Valley. Preferably someplace no one can hear.”
He carefully avoided looking at Xavi when he said that, but we all knew what he meant.
CHAPTER 16
The traversal of magical portals took many forms, depending on the personalities and aesthetics of those who built them, sometimes even depending on the temperament of the pocket dimensions they led to. You heard that right. Some of these places could think for themselves.
Sometimes the tunnel between worlds was as idyllic as walking through a glade. Or maybe it was a mind-bending jaunt through a hall of mirrors. The way back out of the Black Market was through a passage that, quite appropriately, appeared to be crafted out of black velvet, the deepest shadow. The passage deadened our footsteps until all I could hear was our breathing. My nerves on edge, I heaved a sigh of relief when Xavi spoke up to break the silence.
“About all of these charms being enchanted by the same person. You don’t suppose they have someone locked in a basement doing it all by themself, do you? Like the lady in Rumpelstiltskin stuck in a room spinning straw into gold, day in and day out.”
“Actually,” I said, “we kind of have a hunch about who it might be. Morrow and I weren’t so sure at first, but we’ve seen this kind of magic before. Charms that charm people? It has to be that sorceress we fought at Occultech HQ. The Goddess of the Valley. Lady Paralumen.”
“You’re kidding,” Xavi breathed. “Didn’t you guys slaughter all her followers? You’d think we’d be past that shit by now.”
“Slaughter is a strong word,” Morrow said, “because most of them were suppressed or detained. The only casualties were those whose life force Paralumen drained when she attempted to usurp a goddess’s station.”
Houston, I noticed, hadn’t actually said anything. I distinctly remembered that he and Angelica had detained their own little cadre of Paralumen’s magpies. If I knew anything about SeraphiCorp, all of them would have been turned loose after a thorough interrogation, which very likely also involved a fiery sermon.
Just when I thought that the gloom of the tunnel was becoming far too oppressive — almost suffocating — a glimmer of light twinkled just past Xavi’s head.
“Oh,” I said. “Are we almost out of the portal? I didn’t realize.”
Houston gasped. “That’s not the exit.”
