"How did you enjoy the book? Was it useful?" the veiled woman asked in her usual soft, clear, casual tone.
Makun nodded. "Very useful. Everything I was looking for."
"Good." She held his gaze. "Then you agree the book is valuable."
"Very."
"You know the rule." Her voice stayed light, but its meaning didn't. "To gain something valuable, you give something valuable." She paused and looked at him deeply. "I hope I won't be disappointed."
She was strategic. She didn't threaten him or raise her voice; she used the book. If Makun admitted the book had value, he admitted his debt had weight, and if the debt had weight, failing to pay it had consequences.
Makun understood that. He had seen how the Night Market worked, not the details or the whole system, but its shape: transactions, rules, enforcement, and people who smiled while they measured what you were worth. If he couldn't pay what he had promised, she had options. She could attack him, or she could report him, and either way he wouldn't walk out of the market the same.
He turned her tone over again: soft, clean, casual. He had learned to distrust that kind of softness. Since Old Town he had known she was selfish; she simply hid it well. His bad luck had forced him to learn things he had never asked to learn, and reading people was one of them. It wasn't a hobby. It was a survival tool.
When he was younger, he had cared deeply about people, foster parents, girlfriends, friends, and then he watched the same pattern repeat. By the third foster home, he already knew how it would end, and it was the same with relationships, and with friendships once money entered the room, or fear, or embarrassment.
People were selfish by nature; they couldn't help it. He had read studies once, in psychology and evolutionary biology, different fields pointing to the same conclusion: self-preservation first, altruism second.
Kindness existed, but it was rare, and it was never free. It usually came with a motive attached, recognition, reciprocity, relief from guilt. The worst people were the ones who hid their motives, the ones who smiled while they set you up, and to him the veiled woman was one of those.
When Zack attacked him at the market, she could have stepped in at once. From what Makun could tell, she was far beyond Zack. But she didn't. She watched and waited.
She observed Makun, and Zack, and what Makun might be worth, and if the deal hadn't looked worthwhile, she would have looked away and let it happen. Makun knew that. Right now she was asking about the book as if she cared whether it had helped him, but it was leverage, a quiet reminder: say it was valuable, say it worked, and then admit you owe me.
He couldn't even blame her. Who was he to criticize selfishness? Wasn't he selfish too? He was. Maybe not originally, but circumstances had trained him, poverty and pain had trained him, and the life he had lived didn't reward selflessness.
It was a trait he had learned he couldn't afford; every time he tried it, it turned into a nightmare, and the few people he had helped had left him with stories that ended badly. So yes, he was selfish now. He just didn't lie to himself about it.
He studied her this carefully because she was the only real contact he had made since entering this world. Zuri had pushed him away, Zack had tried to take what was his, and everyone else at the market looked like a predator under a hood. If he wanted to survive, he had to understand how she worked.
"Don't worry," Makun said. "I didn't lie. The only thing is, I don't know how it works."
"You see that empty space?" She pointed at the open floor in the middle of the container. "That's where it will happen." She paused, and her voice shifted, just slightly. "Was it really as you said? Did you really meet a being in the state you described?"
Excitement leaked into her tone, and Makun noticed it. Since entering this world of practitioners, he had stayed focused, sharp and attentive. When Zuri agreed to help him, she had given him information he valued, and at Old Town Plaza he had watched and memorized everything that looked important.
One thing that matched both what Zuri had said and what he had seen was the memory trade. He had seen someone buy a memory with years of their natural lifespan. He still didn't understand how anyone could trade years like coins, but he remembered it. If a market sold memories, then memories had value, and if memories had value, some of them were priceless.
When the veiled woman turned down everything Zack offered, Makun had searched for something Zack couldn't compete with, and he had thought of the presence. He was new then and knew nothing about Hollow dwellers or Primordial beings or any of the deeper terms the book would teach him later. But he knew what he had felt, and he knew it was valuable.
The presence had undone a chain he couldn't even perceive. That alone was a miracle, or a violation, or both, and something at that level could change a practitioner's route, their comprehension, their whole future.
He knew the risk, too; exposing his secrets to an outsider was dangerous, and it made him feel naked. He had no idea that the presence had already laid a veil over him, or what that veil already hid. So he made the choice anyway. If she witnessed it, she would benefit, and that was the only way the deal made sense.
When he told her, she had been astounded, confused but excited, and he had seen belief and doubt in her eyes at once. Why would someone so weak go through something like that and come out unscathed? But he could see that she wanted it to be true, and badly.
Witnessing something like that could grant enlightenment, push her along her route, and give her a foundation for whatever came next. What he didn't know was that she had meant to give the book away all along. It served another purpose, and handing it over had been part of the plan from the start.
"Sit there," she said.
Makun did as she asked and sat cross-legged in the middle of the container, the metal floor cold through his pants. The veiled woman stood, her movements fluid and controlled, every step deliberate and none wasted.
She circled behind him, her silver necklace chiming softly with each step, and lowered herself to sit cross-legged at his back with the same effortless control. Then she placed both hands flat against his back, through his shirt.
They were cold.