The Goblin Market—or rather, markets—were a relatively new idea by otherworld standards.

The first ones cropped up in the UK in the mid-1800s, right alongside the rise of industrialization, colonial trade routes, and a particular new breed of goblin: Market Goblins. It was less a cultural shift and more a supernatural economic revelation.

Why make deals one on one?

Why hawk strange wares from a crooked little shop that never sat in the same alley twice, always one eviction notice away from vanishing, when you could centralize? Aggregate risk. Pool protection. Standardize exchange.

Goblins, of course, saw the brilliance immediately.

Market Goblins weren’t like their feral cousins or the crafty housebound sorts. These ones had round, cat- or pug-like faces, sharp little teeth always showing in something that passed for a smile, and minds wired almost exclusively for mercantile thinking. They loved hoarding, trading, selling, buying—often all in the same breath. They didn’t just like commerce. They understood it on a fundamental level.

They built the Markets.

Once the idea took hold, it spread fast. Faster than most magical traditions ever did. By the early twentieth century, Goblin Markets had gone global. Nearly every major city had at least one. Some were little more than glorified flea markets—tarps, lanterns, whispered deals and hurried exits. Others were sprawling open-air bazaars the size of neighborhoods, layered with stalls, tents, bridges, and walkways that bent in ways city planners would cry about.

What they all shared was Market Space.

A sub-dimensional overlay, tucked just beyond mundane sight. Not fully Otherworld, not fully Earth. A place where space stretched to fit demand, where exits moved when you weren’t looking, and where the rules of ownership, safety, and consequence were… different.

The Markets extended space to anyone—or anything—that dealt in magical goods, resources, information, wishes, secrets. If it could be traded, someone in the Market would price it. Gold was welcome. Favors more so. Names, memories, time, guilt, fragments of destiny—all negotiable.

And once you had a stall?

You had protection.

That was the unspoken contract. Hurt a stallholder and you weren’t just robbing a witch or a goblin or a hedge-mage—you were stealing from the Market itself. And the Market did not tolerate theft without permission.

Which was why Bailey’s situation really bothered me.

Because if four things in suits were knocking over independent operators—people outside Market protection—then either someone in Market Space was looking the other way…

…or someone was quietly encouraging it.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel as the Wizard-Mobile rolled toward the familiar, wrong-feeling alley where the entrance liked to pretend it wasn’t tonight.

If the Goblin Market had answers, I was going to find them.

And if it didn’t?

Then I was about to make myself a very expensive problem.

I walked toward the main doors of the old warehouse, shoulders squared, pace steady, doing my best to look like someone of importance—or, failing that, someone who absolutely was not an easy mark. The second goal mattered more. Market Space had a finely tuned predator sense, and it loved nothing more than someone who walked in uncertain, hunched, or apologetic.

Confidence was a kind of currency there.

As I crossed the threshold, I made sure the iron-and-copper coiled rod sat where it should inside my trench coat. My lightning rod. Yes, I was aware of the pun. I’d made peace with it years ago.

More importantly, it was a tool—my primary one. It focused my electrical magic cleanly, gave it shape and direction, and in a pinch made a perfectly serviceable blunt instrument if someone needed a clobbering up close. It was just large enough to conceal awkwardly, which was a feature, not a bug.

There’s an arcane economy to tools, something most people never think about. How much magical energy a focus can carry depends on materials, craftsmanship, and size. Wands are pistols—small, easy to conceal, quick to draw, and occasionally surprisingly punchy in the right hands. Rods are more like carbines. A bit bulkier, more stable, better control, more reliable when things get messy.

Staves?

Battle rifles.

Long, obvious, powerful, and impossible to pretend you’re not carrying one. Also, all of them are more than a little phallic, which I suspected said more about wizards than anyone liked to admit.

I preferred rods. They were versatile. Mine was iron for a reason. Iron conducts, grounds, disrupts. And if something got too close—or I didn’t have the time, space, or spare energy to introduce someone’s nervous system to a heroic amount of wattage—an iron mace to the face remained a timeless solution.

I reached the doors.

From the outside, they were just that: doors. Scuffed metal, faded warning signs, the smell of old oil and dust. Mundane. Boring. Forgettable.

I took a breath.

Then stepped forward.

The interior of the warehouse was… exactly what it pretended to be. A late-night yard sale atmosphere. Folding tables cluttered with secondhand junk. A handful of people wandering with mild, performative disinterest. Too few bodies for the number of cars outside. Too quiet. Too flat.

I knew better.

Most of this was glamour and seeming magic—layered, lazy, and effective. A soft filter meant to discourage the uninvited, bore the curious, and convince mundanes that they’d misjudged the hype. Nothing dangerous here. Just junk. Just dust.

What I wanted wasn’t in the warehouse.

I drifted toward two adjacent tables stacked with secondhand books. Old paperbacks. Hardcovers with cracked spines. The kind of place that might hide a grimoire or a cursed diary if you were lucky. I felt the familiar itch to stop and dig.

I didn’t.

Focus, Blackwell.

An older man sat nearby in a battered chair. Solidly built. Faded black band tee that looked like it had survived several decades of hard living and questionable decisions. He looked up as I approached, sniffed the air once, then went back to watching the room.

No challenge. No approval.

That told me enough.

Spriggan, most likely. Wrapped in a glamour thin enough to pass at a distance. They were common hired muscle among otherworld folk. Dangerous in all the ways that mattered—packed with nasty magical tricks, and paired with the very mundane talent of being strong enough to break bones with a lazy backhand. They carried violence the way some people carried impatience. Always there. Always close.

I gave him a nod.

He didn’t return it.

Good enough.

I stepped boldly between the two book tables.

The world changed.

Literally and laterally.

The warehouse dropped away like a stage set pulled into darkness, and Market Space unfolded in its place. Sound rushed back in—voices, bargaining, laughter that didn’t quite sound human. Light bloomed from nowhere, lanterns and witchlights and glowing runes strung overhead. The air thickened with scent: incense, metal, ozone, old blood, fresh bread, damp stone.

Stalls stretched out in every direction, impossible in number and geometry. Tables made of wood, bone, crystal, things that bent when you looked too long. Customers and purveyors pressed close together, negotiating with the intensity of people trading more than money.

Market Goblins made up the bulk of the crowd—short, broad, sharp-eyed creatures with catlike faces and hands that never stopped moving. But they were far from alone. Dwarves hammered jewelry at portable anvils, sparks flying dangerously close to passersby. Sidhe lounged behind elegant stalls, trading favors with smiles that came with footnotes. A troll squatted beside a blanket of rocks, proudly selling stones that were either magical or—just as likely—rocks he thought were neat.

And there were humans too. Most magically aware. Some pretending not to be. All selling esoteric odds and ends they hoped were worth the price someone else would pay.

That was just what I could see immediately.

The door guards didn’t bother hiding themselves.

A pair of ogres stood watch near the gate, each twice my height and built like violence given legs. Muscles bulged under skin like oversized hams stuffed into sacks that were far too small, then poured into three-piece suits that looked like they were actively suffering. The fabric strained, seams protesting with every subtle shift of weight.

They watched me approach.

Not aggressively.

Not kindly.

Just… evaluating.

I straightened my coat, kept my hands visible, and walked forward like I belonged.

Because in the Goblin Market, hesitation was blood in the water.

And I was already being sized up.

I took a breath and walked past the door guards.

I wasn’t here for a fight. You don’t come to the Goblin Market looking for one unless you’ve got a death wish, a prophecy, or a truly staggering level of hubris. What I needed was information—which, fortunately, was one of the many commodities the Market loved to deal in.

Unfortunately, finding the right information at a reasonable price was the hard part.

On the upside, being a wizard helped. Most things here could sense latent magical energy, and a spellcaster with a well-developed reservoir wasn’t something to bark at casually. I wasn’t prey. I wasn’t a pigeon. I was, at minimum, a potentially expensive inconvenience.

That meant fewer hawkers.

No one tried to grab my sleeve or shove a cursed trinket into my hands. No whispered special price just for you, sir. Just wary glances and subtle recalculations as I passed.

I appreciated that. I really didn’t feel like being pestered by overeager merchants with flimsy concepts of personal boundaries.

I moved through the stalls with purpose—the kind that said I know where I’m going and if you interrupt me I might hex you. I wouldn’t. I could, but casual curse magic is a level of petty I try very hard to avoid.

This wasn’t my first trip to the Market by a long shot. I preferred earth-side independents—people like Bailey—but sometimes the Market was the only place to get something rare, mundane or magical. Like the A New Hope movie poster hanging in my living room.

That one had cost me a full house unhaunting.

I would’ve done that for free anyway, so honestly? Win-win.

I spotted the stall I was looking for.

Affluent. Polished. Well-lit by witchlights that adjusted their hue to flatter the merchandise. The owner stood behind the counter, preening. A Market Goblin who reminded me of a three-foot-tall pug painted green and dressed like a late nineteenth-century merchant—high-collared shirt, waistcoat, pocket watch, the whole smug package.

“Luka!” I called out.

He turned toward me with a bright, practiced smile that lasted exactly half a second before souring into a small, vaguely canine scowl.

“NO!” he snapped immediately. “Whatever it is you want, Wizard Blackwell, I don’t have it!”

He tried to turn away and very pointedly not look at me.

Rude.

To be fair—justifiably rude.

I picked up the pace and closed the distance until we were at a comfortably uncomfortable speaking range—the kind that said conversation but implied don’t make me lean in.

“Luka,” I said quietly, “come on. We’re pals. Talk to me.”

He turned fully now, planting his feet, little polished shoes squeaking in protest. His dark eyes fixed on me as his face contorted into an annoyed grimace.

“No! Because you are bad for business, Wizard Blackwell!” he snapped, like he’d just accused me of arson in a library. The phrase bad for business landed with the weight of the gravest insult across two realities.

I clutched at my chest and did my best impression of wounded dignity. It was not convincing. Lying has never been a strong point of mine.

“Come on, Luka,” I said. “I paid you back for your losses. And we both know that cockatrice was more trouble than it was worth.”

“That is irrelevant,” he hissed, jabbing a finger at me. “You attract attention. Authority. Consequences. You walk into my stall and suddenly someone’s curse breaks, someone’s contract gets reviewed, or something explodes that was not supposed to explode.”

“Hey, I cause things to explode very selectively,” I protested. And I sort of meant it. I mean—sometimes explosions happened that I hadn’t strictly intended, but that was hardly my fault.

Luka huffed and narrowed his eyes. “You are an altruist,” he said, like he was diagnosing a terminal illness, “and worse yet—an altruist who works at scale. Or worse, for…” He hesitated, the word sticking in his throat like it tasted bad. “…free.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it again.

“In my defense,” I started, then paused, suddenly unsure why I was defending being a decent human being—especially here, of all places. Eh when in the Goblin Market, adjust expectations I decided. “I earn goodwill. And goodwill translates into future favors. Surely you can appreciate that as a business model?”

Luka pinched the bridge of his nose, radiating the kind of long-suffering exhaustion only a goblin could muster. “Do not take me for an idiot, Wizard Blackwell. You have the business sense of a particularly dull turnip.”

He folded his arms, scowl deepening. “You are not welcome at my stall unless you are buying something—and even then, I would prefer more transactions and less small talk.”

I learned just a fraction. “Fine. I’m buying. Let me browse and ask a few questions. Maybe.”

His ears twitched. Then he raised one hand and rubbed his index finger and thumb together—the universal sign for grease my palms.

“Questions need answers,” he said smugly. “Answers cost things, Wizard Blackwell.”

Good.

He was in full merchant mode now. That was easier to deal with than personal resentment—easier than navigating his lingering irritation over the two or three or five times I’d cost him more wealth than he liked to admit. Or his profound philosophical objection to my habit of solving problems without invoices.

I exhaled slowly, glanced at the wares on display—trinkets, contracts, jars of labeled possibilities—and nodded.

“Alright, Luka,” I said. “Let’s talk price.”

Because if there was one thing the Goblin Market understood better than profit…

…it was leverage.

Luka scoffed, drawing himself up with offended dignity. “I am not an information broker. I am a merchant,” he said, leering at me with a grin full of small, neat, unsettlingly clean fangs. “However… If you were to consider buying a few odds and ends, I might let some gossip slip. Yes?”

I sighed, a quiet, long-suffering sound. Of course he wanted the pretense. Luka adored the ritual of commerce—the theater of it. And there was probably some rule, clause, charter, or deeply specific guild bylaw among Market Goblins about selling information unless you were certified, stamped, and paid up with the appropriate association. They loved guilds. And companies. And sub-companies. And sub-guilds of companies that existed solely to regulate other sub-guilds.

I picked up a small bundle of rusted, square-headed iron nails from his table, rolling them in my palm. Old. Heavy. Useful.

“These genuine coffin nails?” I asked.

Luka recoiled like I’d accused him of heresy. “My wares are more genuine than you, Wizard Blackwell!”

I nodded, conceding the point without comment, and fished into my pocket. Coins clinked softly—actual silver and gold. The Market liked money that had weight. History. Value. Or, failing that, things far stranger.

“Fine,” I said, setting the coins down. “I’ll take the nails to start. Maybe while you’re ringing that up, you can tell me about four thugs in suits. Did a poor job pretending to be human. Might be running around with a sack full of enchanted baked goods.”

He snapped up the coins instantly, weighing them in his small hands with practiced ease, eyes flicking over the metal like a jeweler’s scale built into his bones.

Then he snorted.

“No one is running around bragging about sacks of magic cookies,” Luka said dismissively. “And four beings badly cosplaying as humans in suits doesn’t exactly narrow it down, Wizard Blackwell.”

I didn’t react. Just let the silence sit.

Luka’s ears twitched.

“…That said,” he continued, reluctantly, “there has been chatter. About muscle being hired. Quiet muscle. Not for spectacle. For acquisition.”

My fingers stilled on the nails.

“By whom?” I asked.

Luka clicked his tongue. “That information costs more than nails.”

I let my gaze drift over his stall, eyes lingering on the more expensive wares. Jars of emotionally charged ectoplasm sealed with wax and sigils. Crystals and gems that hummed faintly with stored intent. Bolts of silk threaded through with runes, the stitching catching the light in ways that made my teeth itch. Useful things. Powerful things.

Things that were going to cost me more than a fistful of silver.

I was reminded—again—of an early lesson you learn when dealing with the Otherworld: there is no such thing as a unified supernatural rulebook. Goblin-kind wasn’t faerie-kind, wasn’t giant-kind, troll-kind, demon, yokai, oni, or anything else that stalked the margins of reality. Each had their own customs. Their own ethics. Their own definitions of fair.

In this case, it meant goblins weren’t beholden to deal in equal measure the way many fae were. They weren’t compelled to tell the truth unless it suited them. Iron and steel didn’t bother them in the slightest. And, most importantly, Luka would happily overcharge me if he thought he could get away with it.

Which meant this wasn’t about value.

It was about once more about leverage, and as I had stated that was a universal rule in Market Space..

I rested my hand casually on the edge of the stall, close enough to my coat that Luka couldn’t miss where my lightning rod sat concealed. Not threatening. Just… present.

“Luka,” I said mildly, “you and I both know I’m not buying curios for decoration. I’m buying context. And context gets more valuable the longer you wait to sell it.”

His eyes flicked to my hand. Then back to my face.

I continued, “If this turns into something loud, the Market’s going to care whether it liked the price it paid for silence.”

He sniffed. “You assume much.”

“I do,” I agreed. “Experience.”

The goblin leaned back, fingers steepled, calculating. He liked margins. He liked advantage. But he also liked staying on the right side of disasters that turned into policy changes.

“…You want names?” he asked at last.

“I want direction,” I corrected. “Names I can get myself.”

Luka’s ears twitched again. That was a concession he could live with.

“Then buy something respectable,” he said. “Something that tells me you’re serious.”

I nodded once, eyes already settling on a small, unassuming item tucked between flashier wares.

“Alright,” I said.

I reached down and picked up a wand that had caught my eye the moment I’d started scanning the stall. I’ll admit, it was a handy coincidence—I had been meaning to pick up a backup focus. Something discreet. Something I could conceal when a rod or staff would draw the wrong kind of attention.

This one was compact. Polished dark wood, smooth from careful handling rather than age. One end was capped with a lodestone tip, the other set with a thumb-sized piece of amber, both secured by delicate coils of silver wire. Clean craftsmanship. Balanced. Purpose-built rather than decorative.

I tipped the wand slightly and felt the weight shift inside, slow and deliberate.

“Liquid mercury core?” I asked.

Luka perked up instantly, like a bloodhound catching a scent.

“Oh yes,” he said, voice brightening into full merchant mode. “Wand of telekinesis. Very useful. Move objects at a distance. Subtle. Efficient. Excellent for disarming, retrieval, or throwing someone across a room without scuffing your boots. Artisanal work—crafted by a witch out of Coventry. You have a very good eye, Wizard Blackwell.”

I rolled the wand between my fingers, feeling the faint internal pull respond to my grip. Responsive. Obedient. Dangerous in the right hands.

“Range?” I asked.

“Line of sight,” Luka replied smoothly. “Strength scales with focus and intent. You wouldn’t be lifting trucks, but people? Furniture? Weapons?” He shrugged. “Effortlessly.”

I nodded. “No lingering bindings?”

“Clean,” he assured me. “No personality. No opinions. No whispers.”

Good.

I set the wand down carefully. “Price?”

Luka wrung his tiny hands and rocked on his heels, just a little, the way only goblins did when they smelled blood in the water. He leaned closer, breath smelling faintly of old ink and coin oil.

“For my least favorite wizard customer?” he said sweetly. “Ten coins. And a favor of my choosing.”

I didn’t hide the wince. Ten gold market coins was not pocket change. Each one weighed about two and a half grams of gold—roughly five hundred Canadian a piece on the mundane side—and that was before you factored in Market inflation. The open-ended favor was the real knife. That could range from annoying to existentially inconvenient depending on Luka’s mood and bookkeeping.

I considered haggling. Market Goblins liked haggling. It made them feel alive.

“Five,” I said calmly, “and a minor favor. Nothing life-threatening, illegal, or that takes more than a fortnight to complete.”

Luka recoiled as if I’d slapped him with a ledger.

“Outrageous,” he hissed. “You insult my craftsmanship. You insult my time. You insult the honored witch of Coventry who—”

“—would also tell you that a wand sitting unsold isn’t earning you interest,” I interrupted mildly. “And you know I pay my favors. Promptly. With minimal collateral damage.”

He squinted at me. I squinted back.

Market Space hummed around us, the noise of bargaining rising and falling like surf. This was the dance. Neither of us rushed it.

“…Eight coins,” Luka said at last, “and a favor. Not open-ended. Categorized. Informational or logistical. No blood. No binding oaths.”

I considered. Better. Still painful.

“Seven,” I countered, “and the favor expires in a year and a day.”

His ears twitched. Goblins hated expiring assets.

“…Seven and a half,” he said. “And I choose the day.”

I smiled despite myself. “Deal.”

We shook on it—his hand cold and dry, grip surprisingly firm. The Market noticed. It always did.

I counted out the coins, the gold clinking softly as Luka scooped them up with reverence, stacking and weighing them like a dragon with an accounting degree. He wrapped the wand in rune-stitched cloth and slid it across the counter to me.

“Pleasure,” he said, already happier. “Now. Your conversation.”

I leaned in again, voice low. “Four beings. Suits. Uncanny. Who’s paying?”

Luka’s grin faded into something sharper.

“That I cannot say for certain,” he admitted, voice dropping a notch. “But the four you speak of? I did promise you direction. And I know that four beings matching your description were seen coming and going from the House of Libations.”

My jaw tightened.

Great.

The trail wasn’t leading near the Market. It was leading deeper into it—straight toward one of its permanent fixtures. The kind of place that didn’t just exist in Market Space, but anchored it.

The House of Libations.

In the most basic terms, it was what happened when a temple of Dionysus fused with a modern nightclub and then decided it had opinions about consent, consequence, and how loudly your soul could sing when it drank. It was staffed by maenads, satyrs, nymphs, and that special class of clientele who had enough power—political, magical, or purely personal—to walk in and walk out with their sanity and sobriety intact.

Most people didn’t.

Most people went in for a drink and came out with a bargain they couldn’t remember making.

Or a hangover that lasted three days.

Or a new tattoo they don’t remember asking for.

And the worst part was I had only recently been made keenly aware of how bad of an idea this was because faeries and drinking do not mix well.

I glanced at Luka, expression flat. “So you’re telling me the people stealing enchanted baked goods are hanging around the place that specializes in altered states and bad decisions.”

Luka shrugged, too casual. “I am telling you they were seen there.”

“And you’re telling me this,” I said, “because you’ve decided I’m someone else’s problem now.”

His sharp little smile returned. “Precisely.”

I exhaled through my nose and tucked the wand more securely inside my coat. Seven and a half coins, a favor, and now I was headed toward a nightclub-cult-temple that served drinks like they were spell components.

“Any advice?” I asked.

Luka’s ears twitched. “Do not drink.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“Do not accept gifts,” he continued. “Do not dance unless you mean it. Do not speak your full name. Do not make promises. Do not admit desire.”

I stared at him.

He stared back.

“…Fine,” Luka sighed. “Admit desire if you must. But be specific.”

I nodded. None of that was new information—I’d learned most of it the hard way—but the fact that Luka had bothered to give me advice at all was worth acknowledging. I fished a handful of silver coins from my pocket and dropped them into the small, tastefully ominous tip bowl on his counter.

“For the excellent service,” I said, “and note that I didn’t set anything on fire or make it explode.”

Luka glanced at the bowl, then back at me.

“…This time,” he added dryly.

I smiled despite myself, tucked then new wand into a pocket inside my coat, and turned away before he could decide to charge me for the smile too.

Behind me, the Market swallowed his stall back into its constant churn of deals and whispered catastrophes. Ahead of me—past rows of lanterns, music bleeding faintly through stone that hadn’t existed five minutes ago—the air grew warmer. Sweeter. Charged.

The House of Libations announced itself before I could see it.

Laughter threaded with rhythm. Drums under bass. Incense layered with wine and ozone and want. The kind of place where inhibitions went to die and consequences learned to dance.

I squared my shoulders and kept walking.

Don’t drink.

Don’t accept gifts.

Don’t dance unless you mean it.

Don’t speak your full name.

Don’t make promises.

And above all—be very, very specific about what you want.

I reached the edge of the crowd and paused, taking one last steadying breath.

Alright, Blackwell, I thought.

Let’s go see who’s been shopping for trouble.