I grinned. "Great."
"It will cost twelve gold."
My grin disappeared so quickly that Seraphina actually glanced toward me.
"Fuck you."
Beside me, she covered a suspicious cough with one fist, but the merchant remained perfectly composed. If anything, my outrage seemed considerably less interesting to her than the damaged artifact resting between her hands.
"You asked whether I could repair it," she replied, turning the satchel beneath the light to examine another section of its fractured enchantment. "You didn’t ask whether you could afford me."
"Twelve fucking gold?" I looked down at the considerably smaller collection of silver we’d just spent half the afternoon earning before returning my attention to her. "What are you repairing it with? Melted dragon?"
"The internal spatial lattice has partially collapsed, three anchoring inscriptions are damaged beyond restoration, and whoever last attempted to stabilize the containment matrix used a technique that hasn’t been common for several centuries." Her fingertip followed one of the faded inscriptions until it disappeared beneath a badly damaged seam. "Twelve gold is generous."
Apparently my definition of generosity and hers had been raised in entirely different households.
"Do you accept payment plans?"
"No."
"Indentured labor?"
Seraphina’s elbow connected sharply with my ribs before I’d even finished the question.
"Ow." I rubbed my side while glaring at her. "I’m negotiating."
"Poorly," Seraphina replied, the faintest trace of satisfaction touching her expression.
The merchant appeared entirely uninterested in my financial suffering. Her attention remained fixed on the Spatial Satchel until her fingers suddenly stopped against one of the damaged inscriptions.
Her gaze lifted toward me.
"Give me your hand."
I frowned and instinctively pulled my hands closer to myself. "That seems remarkably unrelated to repairing my bag."
"I noticed something when you placed it down." There was no threat in her voice, only an unnerving degree of curiosity as her gray-blue eyes settled on me with renewed concentration. "I’d like to confirm it."
That wasn’t remotely reassuring.
Still, curiosity eventually defeated common sense, as it had an unfortunate habit of doing around me. I extended my hand across the counter.
Her cool fingers closed around my wrist, and a thin current of unfamiliar mana immediately slipped beneath my skin. My muscles tensed at the intrusion while Seraphina stepped closer, her posture changing almost imperceptibly as one hand settled against the pommel of her sword.
The merchant’s eyes narrowed.
"You’re a Lesser Succubus," she murmured, although the certainty she’d displayed earlier had disappeared beneath something far more interesting.
"We established that."
"No." Her concentration deepened as she leaned closer, her fingers shifting slightly against my pulse. "You’re supposed to be a Lesser Succubus."
My amusement vanished.
"Those sound suspiciously like different statements."
"They are." She released my wrist, but her attention didn’t leave me. The intensity of her gaze was considerably less like attraction and considerably more like I’d unexpectedly transformed from a customer into the most fascinating specimen she’d encountered all month. "Your underlying Succubus signature is unmistakable, but your mana possesses characteristics that shouldn’t coexist within your species. Something has altered it substantially."
A cold knot formed in my stomach. "Altered how?"
"I don’t know."
That answer bothered me considerably more than if she’d known.
The merchant, however, looked delighted.
The restrained professionalism she’d maintained throughout our negotiations slowly gave way to an almost feverish intellectual curiosity. Her eyes brightened as she examined me again, seemingly forgetting for several seconds that there were two other people in the room.
"I’d like samples."
I blinked. "Samples of what?"
She began explaining with the meticulous enthusiasm of someone who had already designed half the experiment inside her head. Blood would apparently provide the clearest representation of my underlying magical composition, while hair with intact follicles could establish whether the anomaly extended beyond my active mana pathways.
Saliva had its own applications, and somewhere during her increasingly enthusiastic explanation, she casually suggested removing a small piece of tissue.
"I haven’t told you how much tissue."
"You were about to."
"A few millimeters would be sufficient."
"Still no."
The disappointment that crossed her face was far more genuine than it had any right to be. She seemed prepared to continue arguing until another possibility suddenly occurred to her, causing her expression to brighten again.
"Other bodily fluids may provide more useful comparative data."
Seraphina, who had been watching this increasingly invasive medical consultation with growing suspicion, became noticeably more attentive.
So did I.
"What kind of bodily fluids?"
The merchant looked mildly confused by the question, as though the answer should have been obvious. "Succubi absorb mana through intimate physical contact, correct?"
’Oh.’
"Then biological samples collected immediately before and after absorption could reveal how the process alters your magical composition." Her explanation became increasingly animated as she continued, one pale hand gesturing unconsciously while she worked through the experiment. "Ideally, collection would also occur during elevated physiological and magical activity. Observing the transition directly would provide considerably more useful information than comparing residual samples afterward."
I stared at her for several seconds before the clinical terminology finally resolved itself into something much simpler.
"Are you asking me for sex samples?"
Her brow furrowed, and she regarded me with the faint annoyance of a scholar whose research had just been described by an idiot. "That’s an unnecessarily crude description."
"Is it inaccurate?"
She actually considered the question as she pondered for a moment.
"No."
A strangled sound escaped Seraphina beside me, and I bit the inside of my cheek before leaning slightly closer to the counter.
"And how exactly were you planning to collect them?"
"Direct observation would be preferable initially," the merchant explained without the slightest hint of embarrassment. "If observation proved insufficient, a controlled comparison may require direct participation."
Seraphina’s head snapped toward her, pale blue eyes widening before narrowing almost immediately.
The merchant didn’t blush. She didn’t smile suggestively or suddenly begin looking at me differently. She had just informed me that she would potentially sleep with me with the same clinical seriousness she’d used to explain a damaged enchantment.
A slow smile spread across my face.
"I really like this shop."
Seraphina turned toward me with an expression of profound betrayal, her arms folding tightly beneath her breasts. "Of course you do."
The merchant had already returned her attention to the Spatial Satchel. "You haven’t agreed."
"Give me time."
"Kira." Seraphina rubbed two fingers against her temple, sounding increasingly exhausted with both of us. "Please don’t encourage her."
I wisely decided not to push my luck.
A second skeleton emerged from the rear doorway while we spoke. Unlike the first, this one wore reinforced leather armor and carried a narrow sword across its back. Several fractured ribs distorted the left side of its chest, and the merchant noticed the damage almost immediately.
She crooked two fingers toward the undead.
It obediently approached.
Without interrupting the conversation, she reached directly between its fractured ribs and pushed two fingers deep into its chest cavity.
I watched in fascination as she felt around inside.
"Your hand is inside his chest," I pointed out, unable to decide whether I was impressed or horrified by how casually she’d done it.
The merchant glanced briefly toward me while continuing to manipulate something inside the skeleton. "Yes."
A quiet click followed before the undead’s shoulder abruptly shifted back into proper alignment.
Seraphina’s expression twisted with poorly concealed disgust.
The merchant withdrew her fingers, inspected the skeleton’s posture, and only then seemed to notice the way both of us were staring at her.
"What?"
I gestured toward the gaping ribs, then toward her hand.
After several seconds, I decided there was no explanation she could give me that would make this less strange.
"Nothing. Please continue."
She dismissed the skeleton with a small motion before returning to the ancient satchel.
"Where did you find this?"
I hesitated briefly before deciding there wasn’t much reason to hide it now. "An Aurelian Sepulcher."
The change was immediate.
Her fingers stopped against the leather as she looked up at me, the casual curiosity in her expression sharpening into something considerably more intense. "An intact one?"
"Intact enough to nearly kill us."
That answer only made her more interested. She began questioning me about what we’d discovered below, and her composure steadily eroded as I mentioned the treasury, the surviving relics, and the ancient remains scattered throughout the structure.
Then I remembered the best part.
"Oh, and there was a Level Twenty-Four Sanctified Undead."
Every trace of her composed merchant persona vanished.
The necromancer straightened abruptly, her gray-blue eyes locking onto mine with startling intensity. "What kind of Sanctified Undead?"
"Guardian." I leaned casually against the counter, enjoying her reaction far more than I probably should have. "Big bastard covered in chains. Lots of holy magic. Tried very hard to kill us."
The questions came immediately, but there was nothing casual about them anymore. She wanted the Guardian’s approximate age, the condition of its body, whether the sanctification had occurred before or after death, whether its mana channels remained active after termination, and how extensively we’d damaged its internal organs.
I managed variations of I don’t know until she finally asked whether the heart remained intact.
"We were a little busy trying not to fucking die," I interrupted, raising both hands before she could bury me beneath another dozen questions.
The necromancer’s expression tightened with unmistakable disappointment. "That doesn’t answer the question about the heart."
"I didn’t check the fucking heart."
She stared at me as though I’d just admitted to burning an irreplaceable historical manuscript.
Then her expression abruptly changed.
"What did you do with the corpse?"
"Left it there."
The woman went completely still.
For several seconds, the only sound in the shop came from glass containers gently bubbling somewhere behind the counter.
"You left it there?" she finally repeated, her voice considerably quieter than before.
I nodded cautiously. "Yes."
Her eyes narrowed. "A Level Twenty-Four Sanctified Undead of probable Aurelian origin, potentially possessing intact organs and active remnants of a centuries-old divine mana matrix..."
She paused, apparently needing a moment to process my crimes against necromantic academia.
"...and you left it there?"
"When you say it like that, I feel like you’re judging me."
"I am."
Seraphina made a quiet sound that suspiciously resembled laughter. I could have sworn she was snickering at me.
The necromancer closed her eyes and pressed two fingers against her forehead, visibly attempting to contain an emotion far stronger than the situation reasonably warranted.
When they opened again, most of her professional composure had returned, although something feverishly bright remained behind them.
"I want to see it."
My gaze drifted toward the broken Spatial Satchel resting between us.
Then back to her.
Now that sounded useful.
"You repair that, and I’ll take you to the corpse."
Her excitement immediately disappeared beneath cold calculation. The transition was so abrupt that I almost laughed.
"What degree of access would I receive?"
"You can inspect it."
"Inspection alone is insufficient." She rested both palms against the counter, considering the offer with remarkable seriousness. "I require permission to remove tissue samples and conduct a partial dissection if necessary. Any discoveries resulting from the examination remain mine."
"Research discoveries, fine. You’re not taking the corpse."
"I require the heart."
"If it’s intact, you can sample it. You’re not taking the entire fucking heart."
"The skull?"
"No."
"One femur?"
I stared at her. "Why do you need a femur?"
For the first time since I’d mentioned the Guardian, genuine confusion crossed her features.
"Why wouldn’t I need a femur?"
I slowly looked toward Seraphina.
She had both hands covering her face.
Apparently I was negotiating with my people.
The discussion continued for several minutes before we finally reached something resembling an agreement. She would repair the Spatial Satchel at cost rather than charging me twelve fucking gold for her labor.
In exchange, I would take her to the Sepulcher and grant her reasonable research access to the Guardian, including samples that wouldn’t substantially damage the corpse.
I still wasn’t entirely certain our definitions of reasonable matched.
Eventually, the necromancer extended one pale hand across the counter.
"Agreed?"
I eyed her suspiciously before accepting it. Her grip was surprisingly firm.
"Deal."
The moment our hands separated, she turned toward her undead and began issuing instructions with enough enthusiasm that the quiet merchant we’d originally met seemed to disappear entirely.
Preservation cases, sanctified instruments, three containment arrays, silver-thread restraints, and something ominously called the black surgical kit rapidly began accumulating beside the counter.
I watched the two skeletons move efficiently through the workshop.
The first carried several preservation cases toward the entrance.
The armored skeleton prepared the restraints and instruments.
I waited for another undead to emerge from the rear rooms.
None did.
My gaze slowly returned to the necromancer.
A woman wealthy enough to own this shop, knowledgeable enough to repair an ancient Spatial Satchel, and so obsessed with necromancy that she’d nearly suffered an emotional breakdown because I hadn’t inspected a corpse properly...
had exactly two undead.
That was strange.
I didn’t know much about practical necromancy despite writing one of the most powerful necromancers in this world’s future, but even I understood that limiting yourself to two undead defeated most of the advantages of the fucking discipline.
"Give me an hour," the necromancer announced as she opened one of the cases and began checking its contents.
I glanced once more toward her two servants before returning my attention to the woman practically vibrating with anticipation. "What exactly are you planning to bring?"
Her pale eyes lifted toward mine, and the excitement gleaming within them was somehow considerably more unsettling than the Guardian itself had been.
"If you’ve actually left a Level Twenty-Four Sanctified Undead inside an Aurelian Sepulcher," she replied, closing the case with a decisive snap, "I’m not going there unprepared."