The market spread before them like a living dream stitched from shadow and firelight. Arches of old stone curved overhead, and from them hung countless lanterns—some glowing with steady flame, others swirling with ghostly shapes that whispered in tongues long forgotten.
The priest led them forward, his black robes brushing the damp floor.
"Here," he began, gesturing to a row of stalls, "you'll find charms against curses and talismans for safe passage through haunted ground. Avoid the merchant with the crooked teeth—his silver is too thin and not pure."
Azazel listened closely, his eyes darting from table to table. A woman in a crimson scarf sold powders that smoked faintly in their jars. A bearded hunter displayed a rack of preserved demon claws. Somewhere further, the air shimmered with heat around a forge where a smith hammered glowing ingots into blessed steel.
The priest pointed toward a cluster of vendors near a dripping wall.
"That's where you'll get ammunition—bronze for spirits that cling to the living, silver for shapeshifters, and iron for those that crawl up from the dark earth."
Azazel leaned in.
"And salt rounds?"
"Over there," the priest replied, nodding to an old sailor who sold cartridges from a chest smelling of brine.
They walked deeper, and Azazel stopped every few steps to ask questions—how to store holy water so it wouldn't sour, which herbs worked best against forest spirits, how to clean a weapon cursed by contact with the dead. The vendors seemed amused by his curiosity, some even offering him small samples or old hunter tips.
Then, as they passed a stand selling bottled moonlight water, the priest lowered his voice.
"Word is… the grandson of Johann Weyer is in Paris."
Juan's brow lifted, his mouth twitching into a half-smile.
"Any rumors about the apprentice of Bartolomeu de Dias?"
The priest gave him a flat look.
"And who would care about that?"
Juan scowled, muttering something under his breath.
Azazel tried not to laugh.
They reached the ammunition stalls, and Azazel began sorting through boxes of polished rounds—bronze-tipped bullets wrapped in parchment seals, gleaming silver slugs etched with runes, even hollow points filled with salt or powdered holy relics. He bought a careful mix, feeling the satisfying weight in his bag.
The market's hum wrapped around them as they moved toward the far end, where the smell of roasted meat mingled with the sharp tang of incense. Azazel was turning to speak to Juan when movement caught his eye.
Two figures stood at a stall across the market, backs half-turned but unmistakable.
Basil.
And beside him—his apprentice — Ino.
Not far from them, another familiar face emerged from the crowd.
Margarita, the fierce-eyed huntress from Constantinople, with her own student, Hypathia, in tow.
Azazel froze, the noise of the market suddenly distant, his mind sharpening like the edge of a drawn blade.