Basement?
Alphonse stared at the number display beside the elevator shaft. The digits had counted down past zero.
Negative three.
Someone spent a fortune digging that deep. Which means whatever's down there is worth.
He waited. The elevator hummed. The cage rose through the shaft, passing the numbered floors in reverse. When it settled back on the tenth floor with a soft chime, the gate slid open to reveal an empty interior.
Alphonse stepped inside. The gate closed behind him.
"Negative three," he said.
Nothing happened.
The cage sat motionless.
Voice-locked. The destination requires specific authorization.
He tried again. "Basement."
Nothing.
"Sub-level three."
The cage didn't move.
Alphonse stood in the silence for several seconds. His mind worked through the problem.
The elevator responded to Marie's voice. Either it's keyed to her vocal signature specifically, or it requires a passphrase that sounds like a normal destination command.
He thought for a moment longer.
"Auction."
The crystals ignited. A deep hum vibrated through the platform. The cage shuddered once and began to descend.
The numbers ticked down on the display beside the gate. 10... 9... 8... The floors passed in smooth succession, each one visible through the cage's iron lattice for a brief moment before sliding upward and out of sight.
5... 4... 3... 2... 1...
The cage passed the ground floor without slowing.
-1... -2... -3.
The platform settled. The gate slid open.
A corridor stretched before him. The walls were rough-hewn stone, fitted with iron brackets at irregular intervals. Only two of the brackets held mana lamps — one at this end, near the elevator, and one at the far end, a distant point of blue-white light perhaps sixty meters away.
Everything between was shadow.
Alphonse stepped out of the cage. His soft-soled boots made no sound on the stone floor. The [Shadow Cloak] wrapped around him like a second skin, bending the ambient light, suppressing the tiny sounds of his breathing and movement.
He was invisible. To any observer, the corridor was empty.
Even so, he advanced slowly. One step at a time. His eyes swept the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Looking for tripwires. Pressure plates. Enchantment triggers. Any of the defensive measures that a woman running an illegal auction beneath a capital building might employ.
He found none.
Either she trusts the elevator's security completely, or the real defenses are magical and beyond my ability to detect.
The latter possibility kept his pace cautious.
The corridor had no side passages. Just a single wooden door stood set into the stone wall. Heavy oak, reinforced with iron bands.
Alphonse pressed his ear against the wood.
Silence.
I should have connected my mind with someone before coming down here.
The oversight irritated him. If Marie or one of her attendants had been on the other side, a [Mind Connection] would have told him exactly what he was walking into. Instead, he was operating blind.
He gripped the handle. Held his breath.
Turned it.
The latch clicked. The door swung inward on oiled hinges that made no sound.
He slipped through the gap, pulled the door shut behind him, and pressed his back against the wall.
An office.
The room was well-appointed but utilitarian. A heavy desk of dark wood at the center, its surface clear except for a brass lamp and a leather-bound ledger. Three chairs faced the desk. A bookshelf lined one wall, its shelves holding not books but document cases, labeled with numbers rather than titles.
Two doors led out of the office. One was set into the wall near a bank of large windows. The other door was behind the desk.
Alphonse crossed to the large windows first.
A grand hall spread beneath him. Vast, circular, easily a hundred feet in diameter. The ceiling was vaulted, supported by stone columns carved to resemble figures, their features rendered in exquisite and slightly unsettling detail. Mana lamps hung from iron chandeliers at three different heights.
The architecture reminded him of an amphitheater. The floor was tiered, descending in shallow steps from the outer edges toward a central stage. The stage itself was a raised platform of polished black stone, circular, perhaps twenty feet across, lit from above by a concentrated cluster of lamps.
Around the tiered floor, dozens of people.
Alphonse counted quickly. Ninety, give or take. Consistent with the number the attendant had mentioned upstairs.
They were dressed for wealth. Silks, velvets, furs, jewels. The men wore tailored doublets and polished boots. The women wore gowns that would have made Isabelle's formal wardrobe look provincial.
Every single one of them wore a mask.
The masks varied wildly. Some were simple domino-style strips of colored fabric. Others were elaborate constructions of lacquered wood, feathered plumes, and gilded filigree that covered everything from hairline to chin.
With complete anonymity established, the crowd had abandoned every pretense of decorum.
Servants in matching moved through the tiers carrying silver trays laden with crystal glasses. The drinks were not just wine. Alphonse spotted the distinctive blue glow of lunaveil. A mana-infused drink that the empire's upper classes consumed recreationally, known for its euphoric effects and its obscene price per bottle.
In the lower tiers, where the lamplight was dimmest, the behavior escalated. A woman in a green mask had her hand inside the trousers of the man beside her, her wrist working in a lazy rhythm while they both faced the stage as if nothing were happening. Three guests shared a small brass pipe, the smoke curling upward in violet threads that carried a sweet, chemical scent. Madra-root, an alchemical narcotic that the empire had banned from public sale six years ago.
In a shadowed alcove near one of the carved pillars, two figures were locked together. The woman's back was pressed against the stone. The man's face was buried in her neck. Her leg was hooked around his hip, and the rhythmic motion of their bodies left nothing to interpretation.
No one paid them any attention.
Alphonse absorbed the scene with the clinical detachment of a man who had, in a previous life, raided establishments exactly like this one.
Not just on the edge of the law. Well beyond it. And that's just what's happening in the audience.
That's why the secrecy. That's why the teleportation contracts. That's why three floors below ground level.
He moved to the door near the windows. It opened onto a narrow staircase that descended steeply, curving around a central column before terminating at a ground-level entrance masked by heavy curtains.
Alphonse slipped through the curtains and into the hall.
He moved through the crowd like a ghost.
The [Shadow Cloak] made him functionally invisible. Guests looked through him, past him, their masked eyes registering nothing where he stood. He could have reached out and touched any of them, and they would have startled at the sensation of invisible fingers without ever seeing the source.
"The Duke's position is untenable. If the southern front collapses before winter, he'll have no choice but—"
"Seven hundred gold for a shipment of Dwarven steel? That's robbery. Last quarter it was four hundred—"
"My husband suspects nothing. The fool thinks I'm at the opera—"
"Heard the Academy is doubling its intake. Every noble brat with a [Fire Spark] thinks they're the next Archmage—"
"The Kessler girl married Hohenberg, didn't she? Waste of good breeding stock on a brute who—"
That last fragment made Alphonse's step slow. He turned his head toward the speakers.
But the conversation had already moved on. He let it go.
The fragments painted a picture. These weren't common criminals or back-alley smugglers. These were the empire's elite. Nobles, guild leaders, military officers, merchant princes. The people who made decisions that moved armies and shifted economies, gathered in a basement, wearing masks, buying things that couldn't be bought in daylight.
He reached the edge of the tiered floor and looked toward the stage.
Marie stood on the raised platform. Even from this distance, even through the mask she now wore, her identity was obvious to anyone who knew her.
Her two attendants flanked her, similarly masked. The man to her left, the woman to her right. They stood at attention, hands clasped behind their backs.
Marie raised one hand. Conversations trailed off in concentric rings from the stage outward. Glasses were lowered. The couple in the alcove paused mid-thrust.
Silence settled over the hall.
"Hum, hum, hum."
Marie's voice filled the space. Her words reached every corner of the vast chamber with crystalline clarity.
"Ladies and gentlemen, good evening."
A murmur of acknowledgment rippled through the crowd. Glasses were raised in her direction.
"You must be quite entertained by our little environment." A smile curved her lips below the mask. "However, we now have all the interested parties present for the main event. So I trust you'll forgive me for interrupting your... diversions."
A few laughs. Someone in the back tier whistled.
Marie's expression didn't change, but the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees.
"Let me remind everyone," she continued, "that when you were teleported to this establishment, you automatically accepted the confidentiality contract."
The laughter stopped.
"The terms of that contract are absolute. What you see tonight, what you hear tonight, what you purchase tonight, none of it exists beyond these walls. Do not speak of it to spouses, to business partners, to confessors, to anyone."
She paused. Let the silence sharpen.
"Do not forget what happens to those who break the confidentiality agreement."
Marie's smile widened.
The silence held for three full seconds.
"Excellent." The warmth returned to her voice as if it had never left. "In that case, I'll leave you in the capable hands of my assistant. Enjoy the evening."
Marie stepped off the stage. Her attendants parted to let her pass. She descended the steps, crossed the floor without glancing at any of the masked faces that tracked her passage, and disappeared through a curtained archway at the far side of the hall.
The female attendant took Marie's place at center stage.
She was younger than Marie. Late twenties, perhaps. Her mask was silver, and below it, a wide, practiced smile.
"To start our auction," she announced, "we will begin with the simpler items."
She gestured toward the side of the stage. Two guards in unmarked armor emerged, carrying between them a long table draped in black velvet. They set it down and retreated.
"We will start with magical weapons."
The velvet was pulled away.
Six weapons lay on the table, each one resting on an individual cushion of silk. Even from twenty feet away, the mana emanating from them was palpable.
"Lot one," the auctioneer announced. "A [Shadowfang] blade, forged by the Dwarven smiths. Single enchantment. The blade generates a field of magical darkness along its edge upon activation. Strikes delivered within the field bypass standard magical barriers. Starting price: one hundred and fifty gold."
The bidding was immediate. Three paddles rose before the auctioneer had finished her description.
"One-fifty from number twelve. One-sixty from forty-seven. One-seventy from twelve again—"
The sword sold for two hundred and twenty gold. A sum that would have funded the Hohenberg barony's military budget for a month.
The remaining weapons followed in quick succession. A war hammer with a lightning enchantment. A pair of daggers that could phase through physical matter for a fraction of a second, long enough to bypass armor. A longbow that generated its own arrows from condensed mana.
Each one was a masterwork. Each one sold for sums that made Alphonse's mind immediately begin calculating the profit margins of weapons manufacturing.
If I could learn to craft at this level, or even half this level, the revenue would dwarf anything the barony produces from agriculture or trade.
"Congratulations to number twenty-three," the auctioneer said as the final weapon was claimed. "Your item will be transported to the designated collection point as soon as the event concludes."
The guards cleared the weapon table. The crowd stirred. Glasses were refilled.
But the energy in the room had shifted. The weapons had been appetizers. Alphonse could feel it in the way the masked figures leaned forward in their seats=.
They were waiting for something else.
"Next," the auctioneer announced, "we move on to shipments."
The guards returned. This time, they didn't carry a table. They carried crates.
Three of them. Heavy wooden boxes, each one roughly four feet on a side, banded with iron and sealed with wax stamps that Alphonse didn't recognize. They were set on the stage in a row.
"These crates are part of a larger seizure," the auctioneer explained. She circled the first crate, one hand trailing along its rough surface. "They were intercepted at the bay twelve days ago. Undocumented cargo. No customs seals. No declared owner."
She paused. Let the implication settle.
"Our intelligence indicates the shipment originated from the Qadira Guild's southern distribution network. It was stolen from a Qadira vessel by pirates operating in the strait. How it arrived in our harbor is a matter of some speculation."
A low murmur ran through the crowd.
"We have no information on the contents," the auctioneer continued. "The crates have not been opened. They are sold as-is, sight unseen. The buyer assumes all risk."
The bidding for the crates was fierce. Faster and more aggressive than the weapons. Paddles shot up before prices were even announced. The first crate sold for three hundred gold. The second for three-fifty. The third, smaller than the others but heavier, went for an astonishing five hundred.
Several more smuggled items followed. A case of mana crystals with no origin paperwork. A set of alchemical compounds in sealed glass vials.
Each item sold quickly. The crowd knew what they wanted.
Then the energy shifted again.
This time, the change was dramatic. Alphonse felt it before he saw it. A collective intake of breath. A tightening of posture throughout the hall. Masked faces turned toward the stage with an intensity that hadn't been present for the weapons or the smuggled goods.
This was what they'd come for.
"Now," the auctioneer said, "onto our third category."
"Slaves."