The village market woke like a beast stretching—slow, noisy, smelling of hides and ambition. Stalls unfolded into crooked mouths. Steam climbed from kettles and people at the same time. The square's center post wore a fresh notice about winter tithe, because nothing warms a town like taxes.
We carried the wolf corpses to the tanner and the cores to a table that had seen too many deals end in swearing. Klaus did the talking. Ragnar did the smiling. Kayra did the seeing. I stood with a scythe and a mark under my sleeve that hummed whenever greed passed within arm's reach.
"Four wolf cores," Klaus said to the guild buyer—a man whose beard had more oil than sense. "Two sound, two cracked. We'll take fair silver."
"Fair is a prayer," the buyer said mildly. "I offer coin."
He weighed one whole core in his palm like it insulted him by existing. "Eh. Weak winter stock. I'll pay eight."
Klaus didn't blink. "They're worth twelve."
"Worth is a song. Eight."
I let the Eyes of Nihility open a sliver. The buyer's pouch glowed faintly—mana threads coiled around heavier coins and a small, sealed core brighter than ours. He had money he wasn't admitting to and power he wanted to keep.
"He can go to nine," Lucifer breathed—a soft smile of a voice. "Maybe ten if you make it his idea."
"How?" I murmured without moving my lips.
"Use poverty. It makes proud men generous in public."
"Klaus," I said, just loud enough for nearby ears, "we'll never afford salt this month if we take eight."
Four heads turned. Not to us. To the buyer.
He lifted his chin. Considered his beard. Considered his reputation watching him from every stall.
"Nine," he relented, grimacing like the number had bit him.
"Ten," Klaus said pleasantly, "and the guild gets first refusal next hunt."
A pause. A calculation that included pride, optics, and flour. He nodded, unhappy in a way that would pass quickly once he counted all the other coins he wasn't spending on us.
"Ten," he said. "Plus the guild tax of one."
"On ten?" Klaus asked.
"On twelve," the buyer said, smiling for the first time. "On what you wanted."
"That's not a tax," Ragnar said cheerfully. "That's a hobby."
But we signed the guild slate because winter doesn't negotiate climate, and silver clinked into our pouch with the heavy music of rent deciding to be possible.
We bought oats, salt, thread, and a handful of nails—the kind of shopping list that keeps a roof honest. Then Kayra stopped walking.
A stall in the far row held books. Real ones: stitched spines, dead languages, pages gone soft with rain and hands. The seller was a thin woman with ink-stained fingernails and an expression that said she sold knowledge because it hadn't saved her.
Kayra reached for a volume whose leather smelled like the corner of a library that still believed in light: Transmutation of Essences, Third Edition, edges singed, a hand-inked rune circle on the first page like a wedding ring.
"How much?" I asked.
The woman didn't look up. "Six silver."
Klaus made a sound like a man stepping on a nail. Ragnar whistled the note you use for falling off a cliff.
Kayra's fingers traced the burned edge. "It covers extraction, distillation, binding, and—" her voice softened—"tattoo inscription."
"Five," I said. "It's singed."
"Seven," the woman said immediately. "It's loved."
I smiled, a small, tired thing. "Six," I said. "And a cracked core shard. You'll get ink to sing again."
Her eyes flicked up at the word sing. She studied me, then the pouch, then the way my sleeve hid a glow. She was an alchemist once, or something adjacent to survival.
"Six and the shard," she said. "No returns on knowledge."
"Agreed," Klaus said before his better judgment filed an appeal. He counted silver with hands that made sure each coin remembered its job.
We walked away poorer and wealthier, the book in Kayra's arms like a rescued animal. Ragnar juggled the remaining coins until Klaus told him to stop inventing godless ways to lose fingers. I glanced back. The ink-seller watched us go with the half-hurt smile of someone who just sold a piece of their spine.
"Good buy," Lucifer murmured, pleased. "Weapons feed for a season. Books feed forever."
"I said that yesterday," I whispered.
"Yes," he said warmly. "I like you better when you agree with me."
We worked the rest of the day the way poor families do: loud enough to feel alive, quiet enough to hear hunger. Meat salted. Nails hammered. Thread threaded. The scythe leaned where I could see it without touching it, as if to remind me love requires respect.
When night gathered in the corners, Kayra cleared the table and set the Alchemy Primer down like lighting a candle.
"Read it," she said, pushing it toward me.
"You first," I said.
"Together," she said, and for once Lucifer stayed quiet as if the word had weight he was measuring.
The first page hummed when we opened it. Runes scrolled in marginal notes with a patience that suggested a long marriage with ink. Kayra's finger followed a recipe for Simple Extraction of Living Essence.
"We have comfrey and feverfew," she said, flipping to a page with leaves pressed between chapters. "And a cracked goblin shard."
"Which I don't have," I said.
"You dropped it on your bed," she lied.
I produced it. Pride is a poor thief.
We set out a clay pot, a coil of copper tube we'd saved from a broken still, a soot-black kettle, and glass that wanted to remember light. Kayra measured herbs like a ritual, not a recipe. I cleaned the copper and muttered apologies to every scratch.
"Heat," Kayra said.
I fed the fire with the humility of someone who knew nothing about alchemy and everything about being careful.
We crushed the herbs, layered them with water, and set the pot to simmer while the coil waited to carry breath from steam to glass. The Eyes of Nihility opened on their own. The room lifted into threads: heat crawling, vapor learning to speak, resin letting go of the memory of roots.
"Shard," Kayra said. "Half of it—no more."
I kissed my luck goodbye and broke the goblin core like it owed me money. We dropped a fragment into the pot. The liquid darkened, then lightened, then threw a sulky hiss that was the alchemical equivalent of swearing.
"Back off," Lucifer whispered. "Let the book do the first lesson."
We did. The coil began to sweat. Drips found the glass in slow, stubborn plinks. The room smelled like bitter green and old rain. A small white smoke lifted and decided to stay.
"It's working," I said.
"It's… thinking about working," Kayra corrected gently. "Turn the heat a hair."
I did. The plinks steadied. A thin stream gathered. Clear liquid with a faint, wrong glow, the kind that suggested it wanted a responsible adult.
"Salve base," Kayra said. "Add a drop to the balm and—"
The pot coughed. The stream turned gray. Something rattled that did not belong to the kettle.
We both dove for the Primer at once, scanning the margins.
"'If cough occurs,'" Kayra read, "—'you added the shard too early. Remove the pot from flame, whisper regret, and start over.'"
"I can do regret," I said. "I regret everything."
We started over.
This time we added the shard at half simmer, not full. The cough stayed in its lane. The stream stayed clear, faintly green, humming under the skin of the glass like an apology made by a friend who means it.
We mixed it with wax, tallow, and patience. The balm turned pearl-pale and held its shape like it believed in itself.
"Test," Kayra said, holding out her hand.
"No," I said.
"We need to know."
I took her wrist, turned the runes forward—Mercy—and drew the smallest cut with a clean needle on the back of my own hand instead. It stung like a small bill. I dabbed the balm.
Warmth moved through skin into vein. The cut blinked, reconsidered, and sealed with the neatness of a good clerk. No scar. No ache.
Kayra's smile was a sunrise that refused to apologize. "We can sell that."
"We can use that," Klaus said from the doorway, where he had been not-watching us with the thoroughness of an eldest brother protecting future mistakes. "Tomorrow we take two jars to market. One we keep."
Ragnar peered in, sniffed the air, and made a face. "Smells like a sick tree learning manners."
"Perfect," Kayra said. "Trees have coin."
We poured the balm into small clay jars we'd saved for hope. Kayra inked a simple rune on each wooden lid with a mixture of ash and spit: a mercy loop, the circle open at one point to remind the salve it could leave pain without inviting death to dinner.
The Primer's next page showed Essence of Fire and Vial of Breath, both of which made the table nervous. We closed the book. Knowledge behaves better when it isn't asked to sing four songs at once.
"Profit?" Ragnar asked, practical as hunger.
"Maybe four silver a jar," Klaus said, doing math against the inside of his forehead. "If the guild doesn't decide healing is a luxury."
"They will," I said. "But we're not selling to the guild."
"Who then?" he asked.
I nodded toward the door, where winter queued up its problems. "People with hands that bleed."
Klaus considered. "That's everyone."
"Exactly," I said.
"Look at you," Lucifer murmured, amused and fond. "Discovering markets like a real, little monster."
"Quiet," I told him. "I'm being ethical."
"Mmm." His smile ran a finger along my thoughts. "Try not to enjoy it."
We cleaned the tools. Kayra tucked the book into a cloth sleeve like a secret that wanted to be loud. The house breathed. The mark on my arm pulsed twice—shadow pleased with industry. Even Shadow likes a shop.
"Tomorrow," Klaus said, "we hunt early, sell early, and find more herbs. If you see pride, leave it on the table. It buys nothing."
"Understood," I said.
He looked at me longer than a brother looks when he only sees a brother. "You cut clean today. Don't let the cutting teach you to love it."
"I won't," I said, and meant it at the time.
Kayra pressed a jar into my hands. "For you," she said. "In case Mercy is busy."
Ragnar yawned, a weapon becoming a person again. "If we get rich off tree goo," he said, "I'm buying a belt that doesn't try to leave."
"Start with a shirt," Klaus said dryly.
They went to sleep in shifts only families understand. I sat with the jars and the book and the quiet. The core shard in my pocket tapped politely against my thigh, asking if night had a minute.
I set the shard on the floor. The Eyes saw its faint light. The mark warmed, and Shadow moved in the way darkness does when it decides it's going somewhere with you.
"Hey, kiddo," Lucifer whispered. "Lesson two."
"What's lesson two?" I asked.
"Debt," he said, comfortable as sin. "You bought a book. It will want blood or brilliance in return."
"Brilliance is cheaper," I said.
"For now," he agreed. "Meditate. Feed your ink."
I knelt, breath matching the shard's stubborn rhythm. The house faded into threads and trust. The tattoo drank a little, then stopped. Enough for tonight. Enough to remind the world I planned on staying.
Something tugged at the edge of my hearing—like a bell rung under snow. Not the shard. Not the house. A core far off, large enough to make the distance forget itself. It called not to my name, but to the shape of my hunger.
"Feel that?" I asked.
"I do," Lucifer said. "Bigger than wolves. Closer than comfort. Tomorrow's problem."
"I like tomorrow," I said.
"Then try not to die before it gets here."
I blew out the candle. The dark went from guest to host. The balm cooled in its jars like kept promises.
In the morning, we would be merchants and hunters at once.
In this world, that meant we were alive.