Reeta Skeeter wanted a seat among the dealers who set prices for the rarest goods in the universe. To reach that table, she needed sellers who trusted her. This morning, on the trading floor of Tudtar, not one seller would touch her hand. She stopped at the first stall. The old spice merchant folded his arms. "Word says you shave your weights," he said. "I keep my good stock for honest buyers." He turned away. The next seller did the same. And the next. Her ledger held real money, but every hand kept its best crates hidden. Reeta knew the source. A rival trader had spread the lie. He wanted her routes and her contacts. If sellers only fed her junk, she could never move goods worth a cabal's notice. Her whole climb would stall here, in the dust of a market that had once welcomed her. She needed proof that he cheated, not she. She needed someone who had seen his scales up close. So Reeta went to the one person who knew his tricks. Claire Sketcre had once been her partner, before a deal went bad and they split apart. Now Claire worked the rival's back rooms, counting his crates and hating every hour of it. Reeta found her behind the tiny post office, hands jammed in her jacket pockets, eyes tired and sharp. Claire looked up and laughed, short and bitter. "You," Claire said. "You cost me a year of my life, and now you come begging." "He's cutting my throat with a lie," Reeta said. "You know his scales are rigged. You count his crates. Help me prove it." Claire studied her a long moment. "Why would I hand you the whole market?" "Because he treats you worse than I ever did," Reeta said. "And because when I have a seat at the top table, I'll owe you. You know I pay my debts. That part was never the lie." Claire's jaw worked. She stared at the ground, then pulled a folded paper from her pocket. "His true weights," she said. "Every crate short by a tenth. I copied it last week. I was waiting for a reason to use it." Reeta took the paper. Her hands shook. "This ends him." They brought it to the market council at midday. Reeta laid Claire's figures beside the rival's public ledgers. The numbers did not match. The council weighed three of his crates in front of the crowd. Each came up short, just as Claire had written. The hall turned. Sellers who had shunned Reeta now shunned him. By dusk the council barred him from the floor. Merchants pressed their best crates on Reeta, eager to prove their loyalty. But Claire caught her arm before she left. "He won't crawl away quiet," Claire said. "He has friends higher up than this market. The kind who sit at the table you want. You just made your enemy in the exact room you're trying to enter."

The sellers welcomed Reeta Skeeter now. Her stalls filled with clean grain, honest cloth, and fair spice. But no rare goods came her way. Ordinary stock moved through ordinary hands, and the dealers who set prices for the universe's rarest wares would never glance at such traders. She needed something no other merchant could touch. Claire Sketcre found her at the ledger table that evening. "You're bored," Claire said. She dropped into the chair across from Reeta and tapped the wood. "Good. Bored means you're ready to hear a bad idea." Reeta closed her ledger. "How bad?" "There's a beast frozen in the far ice. A yeti, twisted by some old corruption. Green fire runs under its skin. Collectors of strange things would empty their vaults for it." Claire leaned close. "It's kept inside a black castle. The kind of place people walk toward and never leave." Reeta knew the castle Claire meant. Dark stone. Jagged towers. A red glow leaking through its gate. Traders spoke of it the way children speak of storms. "No one has taken anything out of there," Reeta said. "That's the point," Claire said. "Rare because it's deadly." Reeta rode out the next morning. She left the market behind and reached a lone old tree with a face carved deep in its trunk. Its branches shifted though no wind blew. "You seek the frozen beast," the tree said, slow and low. "Its keeper trades. He does not fight. Offer him what he wants and he opens the gate." "What does he want?" "A name," the tree said. "The name of an enemy for his collection of debts." Reeta stood still. She had one enemy worth that price. The banned rival, with his friends above the market. Handing his name to a creature in a black castle would mark her for those same powerful friends. She walked to the gate. Cold air poured out. Beyond the bars stood the yeti, huge and ragged, green light crawling through cracks in its fur. Its eyes burned. The keeper's voice came from the dark. "You know my price." Reeta gave the rival's name. The gate opened. They chained the beast and loaded it onto her cart. It breathed frost against the ropes and watched her the whole way back. Word of it spread before she reached the floor. A messenger waited at her stall, cloak plain, seal unfamiliar. He did not speak like a market man. "The table has heard," he said. "They wish to see the beast, and the trader who found it." Reeta's chest tightened. She had what the elite dealers noticed at last. But the keeper now held her enemy's name, and her enemy's high friends sat at the very table that had just called her in.

The summons named the day. Reeta had one night to prepare the beast for the elite dealers' table. But the keeper's debt sat on her like a stone. He held her rival's name. If he called the debt in during her presentation, the board would see her marked and shamed, and she would lose every seat she had climbed toward. She rode back to the black castle before dawn. Its dark stone rose against the sky, jagged towers wrapped in red light. She meant to buy the debt back before it could be used against her. But the keeper was gone. The gate stood open, and a woman waited inside. Reeta knew her by the crown of black spikes and the cold that came off her. The witch who ruled from her castle above the world, who wanted only to pull that world down. She was not someone Reeta had ever wished to face. "The keeper served me," the witch said. "He collects names for me. Yours is here." "I came to take my debt back," Reeta said. "Name your price." "You cannot pay it." The witch's voice held no heat. "A name once given stays given. That is the rule." Reeta's stomach dropped. If the debt could not be bought, it could be called at any moment, and the table would learn what she had traded. "Then trade me a new one," Reeta said. "The debt says a name for a name. Take mine off your list. Put another in its place." The witch studied her. "You would sell someone to save yourself." "No." Reeta stepped closer to the gate. "I would give you what you truly want. You want this world to rot. The dealers' table sets the price of every rare thing across it. Corrupt the table, and you corrupt every market below." The witch said nothing. Green light crawled through the yeti's chains behind her. "Free my name," Reeta said. "When I hold a seat, you will have an ear at the highest table in Tudtar. That is worth more than one debt you can spend only once." The witch was silent a long moment. "You offer me a door," she said. "I take the door." She raised one black-nailed hand. "Your name is clear. The keeper will not call it. Reach your seat." Reeta rode back with the yeti breathing frost against its ropes. The debt was gone. The keeper could not shame her before the board now. But she had not walked away clean. She had promised the witch a place at the table she meant to earn. She had bought her big moment by opening a door to the one who wanted the whole world to fall. The presentation was tomorrow. Her name was safe. Her bargain was not.