Chapter 7: Market of Whispers

The warehouse door groaned like the QuickStop freezer after the compressor died. Kael pressed his palm to the third support beam, rust flaking onto his fingers like carcinogenic snow. The hidden panel slid aside, revealing stairs that smelled like the mall bathroom where he'd hid from his prom date. Witch-light flickered below, casting shadows that moved a half-second too slow.

The Shadow Market wasn't a place—it was a bad trip. Stalls hunched under tarps made from stitched-together eyelids. A vendor with six arms hawked "authentic hero's courage" in dime bags. Another sold bottled laughter that sounded suspiciously like his high school bully's. The air buzzed with languages that made his fillings ache.

Talis Copperfinger's stall reeked of WD-40 and paranoia. The dwarf looked like a mechanic who'd lost an argument with his own tools—goggles fused to his face with scar tissue, a mechanical arm that kept trying to strangle itself. His remaining eye twitched like a security camera tracking shoplifters.

"No browsers," Talis snapped. His mechanical arm detached and scuttled up the stall's support beam. "Three answers. Then you vanish."

Kael leaned on the counter, channeling his best "bored cashier" voice. "Bandits in House Emberheart colors are torching wagons through Fellspire Pass. Next full moon, they'll hit the silver convoy near Deadman's Switchback."

The dwarf froze. The intel wasn't due to be true for six months. "Who's your source?"

"Need a Thread Compass."

The arm dropped from the ceiling clutching a bronze disc. "What dies screaming in the Weaver's loom?"

Kael remembered Chapter 19's riddles. "The clockmaker's shadow."

Talis hissed like a broken pressure valve. The Compass hit the counter, its needle—a shard of black glass—twitching toward a stall selling teeth.

"East exit. Now."

The device burned like a stolen energy drink clutched in a trembling hand. Kael turned to leave when the threads screamed.

House Nightshade agents oozed through the market like oil spills. Their armor drank the light, turning them into walking voids. A fishmonger shrieked as they pressed a fleshy device to his throat—half-machine, half-something that squirmed. It wailed like the QuickStop intercom during a power surge.

"Unauthorized thread-rats nearby!" The lead agent's voice could've sold used cars. "Seal exits!"

Kael ducked behind a tapestry of a flayed saint. The Compass needle spun like a roulette wheel. He'd seen this panic before—holiday rush hour, a register jammed, Karens multiplying like gremlins.

The east exit was a sewer grate hidden behind a mountain of moldy rugs that smelled like his ex's apartment. He'd almost reached it when the needle lashed sideways, slicing his palm. A hooded figure slipped through the grate, their thread signature pulsing in the Compass like a phantom limb.

Observer. The pattern matched Shadowwhisper's journals.

"You!" A Nightshade grunt grabbed his shoulder.

Kael swung the Compass like a half-empty beer bottle. The needle sank into the man's eye with a sound like popping a blister. The scream wasn't human.

He dove into the sewer as chaos erupted above, the stench of shit and hopelessness welcoming him like an old friend.