Claus tightened the last rope on the curtained archway and stepped back to judge his work. Two years of letters, deals, and quiet plans had finally taken shape. The painted sign glowed above the red drapes, and stubby Neo-Caps shuffled into place to greet the road. After half his vendors fled, he needed something the Sun Hole had never seen. He needed it today. He crossed the courtyard of his shop and uncovered the silver pedestal the Dryads and Satyr smiths had forged for him. The runes along its base caught the morning light. Onto it he set the harmonica from a drowned Atlantean court, and beside it the curved hookblade of a royal sea-horseman. He lowered the dragon-blown glass cover over both. The seal hissed shut. His tome, Ether and Muck, hovered open at his elbow. Claus pressed his thumb to a fresh page and the enchanted tag bloomed above the dome in bronze-gold letters. Sold as Set. Cost: Legendary+. The words hung in the air like a promise he could not take back. At the fork outside the entryway he set the last piece. The preservation jar thudded onto its stand. Inside, the striped body of a Sting Claw floated in cloudy druid brine, claws spread, jaws open. Few had seen one whole. Fewer had seen one still. A cart slowed on the road. Then another. A hooded rider reined in hard, staring at the jar. Word would travel before sundown. Claus felt his chest tighten in a way that was almost calm. He wrote one line in his tome: The bazaar is open. He closed the cover, and somewhere past the bend, hooves began to gather.

By midday, the road past the Glowing Snail was thick with dust and hoofbeats. Claus walked to the sign-up tent he had raised at the edge of the field. The big striped canvas snapped in the wind. Inside, two Neo-Caps waited with ink pots, and the glowing vendor scroll hovered above the table. Claus smoothed his coat and opened Ether and Muck. Only the truest would pass today. The first arrivals were easy refusals. A spice peddler with no goods. A trinket seller who flinched when Claus asked his trade route. Claus shook his head once, and the Neo-Caps guided each away. He would not fill his bazaar with soft hands. Not after losing half his list to whoever had whispered in their ears. Then the canvas darkened. A wide shadow crossed the entry. A tamer ducked under the flap, and behind him padded a beast on six limbs. Yellow fur. Gray plated legs. A black hourglass mark along its ribs. The Neo-Caps froze. The beast bared a long tusk and waited at its master's heel. Claus felt his pulse settle into the calm he knew well. "Name and trade," Claus said. The tamer set a clawed token on the table. He spoke of cages built in three kingdoms, of monsters sold to kings. The beast huffed. Claus studied the man's eyes for the same vague excuses he had heard from the cowards. He found none. Only hunger for a stage. Claus pressed his thumb to the scroll. A new line bloomed in red and lavender script. He signed four more that afternoon: a swamp hunter pair, a desert mystic with a basket of charms, a friar with sealed jars, a fae brewer with a crate that hummed. Each one looked the Sting Claw jar in the eye on the way in and did not turn back. By dusk the scroll held eight names. Claus closed Ether and Muck and watched the lanterns lift along the tent ropes. Half a list, but a list of the brave. He wrote one final line for the night. The bazaar has its vendors. Then he looked toward the bend in the road, where a hooded shape had been watching since noon, and did not move.