Chapter 36: The Night Market Returns - The Night Market

The chow mein was going cold, but Pepper still picked through it, absently curling noodles around her chopsticks as though the next bite might delay the inevitable. The tiny Chinese takeaway was steadily busy, the din of the kitchen muted behind a swinging door, while customers waited for their takeout. Rain gathered on the window beside her, streaking through the yellow glow of the streetlamp outside.

Her phone screen lit up. Her last three messages to Claire had gone unread. Unsurprising, but still painful. She stared at them, thumb hovering. Then, with no ceremony, she tapped out one last line and hit send.

Love you. Thank you for being the best sister anyone ever had.

She sat with it for a moment – just a moment – then pushed her chair back, stood, and nodded a quiet thank you to the woman behind the counter. The bell chimed overhead as she stepped into the drizzle.

The wet city met her in that cold, indifferent way it always did. Traffic murmured like a low tide. Pedestrians moved in shoals, ducking under umbrellas or jackets, heads bent against the dark. Not one of them had the slightest idea what was about to unfold.

Pepper’s collar was up against the wind. Her boots struck the slick pavement with purposeful rhythm as she turned onto the wider road. The rain wasn’t heavy, just persistent and needle-fine, a minor annoyance if she bothered to pay it attention. She moved through the streets, a ghost of her former self, remembering her first Night Market and the strange blend of sounds, smells and unfamiliar faces. And danger. Back when everything had felt like an impossible coincidence.

And then she saw it.

Leroux Tower loomed over wet concrete and brick like a cathedral of glass and steel, defiant and luminous. Light bled from its windows, catching passing rain and transforming it into gold wire. Cars passed behind her, one hissing through a puddle and splashing up onto the kerb, forcing her to step aside. She didn’t blink. Her eyes were on the tower. It loomed over the city like a promise waiting to be broken.

Pepper confidently reached for the locket around her neck. She whispered the secret words beneath her breath – three syllables charged with all the weight of intention she was taught – and the world responded.

It began as a shimmer. A faint warping in the air, like heat off tarmac. Then, with a sudden flicker, colour bled into the scene like ink in water. Strings of red and indigo lights burst into being, draped from lampposts and walkways. Bunting raced along from surface to surface as it fizzled into existence. The yard and all the passages surrounding Leroux Tower bloomed into existence as the Night Market unveiled itself, stretching not only around the building but up it – banners unfurling from the upper floors like flags upon some ancient monastery.

The last Night Market had been hidden in a ruin at the edge of the city.

Tonight, this one was in the heart of it.

It was extraordinary.

And she barely noticed.

Her boots tapped onward as stallholders scrambled in the shifting light – some stringing paper lanterns, others laying out their wares with reverent precision. Spices. Trinkets. Bottled drama and mirror charms. Music flitted on the air, the sound of flutes and the thrum of distant drums.

An old woman seated beside a cart of coloured bottles did a double take, lips parting as she tracked Pepper’s stride. Her eyes widened in stunned recognition – the same woman who had warned her from dabbling in such affairs. But Pepper didn’t slow. Her mind was elsewhere, beyond the smells of cardamom and firework smoke, past the shimmer of illusion and soft glamour. She was walking into something now. Something final.

The great glass doors of Leroux Tower were open to all who approached. Inside, the cavernous atrium had been transformed into a hall of celebration and spectacle. The same aesthetic continued inside: lanterns and banners, stalls built into side alcoves, lit candles everywhere, peculiar glowing symbols occasionally blinking into existence on some surfaces before shifting to others or vanishing entirely.

Security flanked the edges of the space in heavy clusters. Enforcers stood silent, eyes sharp. Near the front, Duncan nodded as she flashed her security badge. He didn’t smile. No one did. Not tonight.

Escalators glittered beneath strings of lights, ferrying guests to upper floors where more rooms had been converted for trade and entertainment. Pepper took the main floor slowly, eyeing the makeshift booths already brimming with rare and peculiar items: books that whispered, amulets that pulsed, little jars that flickered with trapped lights. Conversations in twenty languages hummed around her. The very air tasted like mystery. Before this point, she would have felt like a pilgrim in an unholy land. Tonight, she moved like she owned the space, the event, and all that would transpire.

In the centre, high above the crowd, stood a platform artfully framed in obsidian stone and pale gold lattice glowing under the soft light of floating lanterns. It looked more like a temple altar than a podium. Fitting perhaps given the night’s pretence of unity.

Concetta Cavendish and Dominic Ode stood side by side, their silhouettes stark against a golden backdrop of a suspended spiral mural. The crowd around them gathered like a storm, anticipation charging the air as vendors paused their selling and conversations fell quiet. On an upper level, Mortis watched the spectacle unfold, looking vigilant.

The murmuring crowd fell into hush.

Concetta Cavendish stepped forward.

She wore her signature silhouette, but with a difference; instead of white silks, deep red velvet shaped like flowing blood, embroidered in bronze thread, shimmered with movement. Her hair was pinned in soft, deliberate waves. Every gesture was precise; every breath paced for attention. She didn’t need to ask for silence. It met her the moment her heel touched the edge of the platform.

‘Welcome, everyone,’ she began, voice warm, rich. A cultivated hush fell even deeper, like everyone had leaned forward at once. ‘It has been a long time since the Cavendishes have opened their doors in this fashion. That fact is not lost on us tonight.’

She let the statement linger. Let it land.

‘Traditionally, the Night Market is held in neutral territories – a gesture of mutual respect for the pact of peace I, and others, have signed. A promise that no Family shall rise above another. That all crafts, all voices, all bloodlines are given their due.’

Scattered nods followed.

‘But tonight . . .’ Her voice softened, intimate now. ‘Tonight is different. Tonight, we agreed that unity should not just be spoken of – but shown. We live in strained days. Days where messages are lost beneath old grievances, and misunderstandings flourish faster than truth. We are not immune to the fractures of the world. But if our kind is to endure, then we must be more than simply survivors.’

She raised her hands slightly – an open-palmed gesture that invited belief. ‘We must be one. And so, the Cavendish Family offers this tower, this home of ours, not as a symbol of standing – but of shared trust. This place is not just our home tonight. It is yours.’

A subtle pause. A tilt of the head.

‘Let this night be a start. Let it be the first brick in a new bridge we’ve long needed to build.’

With graceful finality, she turned slightly and gestured behind her. ‘And now, allow me to hand over to Lord Dominic Ode, whose commitment and grace has made this evening possible.’

The applause that followed was respectful, well mannered, but thinner than expected. A few claps trailed behind before falling into silence again as Dominic stepped forward.

Where Concetta was warmth wrapped in theatrical civility, Dominic cut a leaner, more measured figure. His suit was tailored midnight, his shirt the deep violet of Ode heraldry. Sharp edges. Coiled composure. He stood with his hands behind his back, surveying the gathering with the weariness of a man who’d seen enough of the world to know how little changed. He lived for spectacles such as these, embiggened by the respect shown.

‘My thanks to the Cavendish Family,’ he said. ‘For Concetta’s outstanding generosity in allowing us within these hallowed, secretive walls.’

There was a pause. A note just a little too dry. He smiled faintly to soften it.

‘This evening marks something . . . rare. Something the younger blood among us may not fully appreciate. We talk often of tradition. Of legacy. But rarely do we speak of survival.’

He glanced across the space, eyes skimming past the vendors, the elders, the Enforcers stationed like statues along the edges of the atrium.

‘It is no secret that we are not united. We have squabbled, accused, jostled for influence with the tenacity of dogs in winter. And yet – look where it has driven us.’ He lifted his chin slightly. ‘To a moment. A gesture. A possibility. One night. One home. Shared.’

There were a few murmurs of agreement now. A tentative rise in tension.

He took a step forward, voice gaining bite. ‘We must learn to work through our disagreements. We must show the next generation that it is not strength alone that keeps us thriving – but the wisdom to know when not to use it.’

And then, in a final rise of volume, he declared: ‘Let tonight be a triumph. Not of one Family. Not of one name. But of all of us!’

The applause came harder now. Scattered at first, then swelling. Some genuine, some obligatory. But applause, nonetheless.

And yet, from where she stood beside a gallery of imported artifacts, Pepper didn’t join the applause.

Not because she doubted Dominic’s sincerity. But because she knew sincerity wasn’t going to stop what was coming. The crowd pressed in with their cheers. Something was going to break tonight. The pressure had built too long, the stakes too brazen, too big, and Laik was going to be right in the centre of it.

What unsettled her most was how little she was thinking about the risk. The danger didn’t frighten her; she’d made her peace with that long ago. No, the real fear wasn’t that tonight would go wrong. It was that it would go exactly as planned. Laik would unwittingly play his part of sacrifice, and she’d be left standing afterward, victorious, with her prize, wondering when she’d started to care enough for the betrayal to hurt this much.

As much as she fought it, the feeling refused to leave.

And in her bones, in the quietest corner of herself, Pepper resigned herself to their fates, accepting that no matter whether she retrieved the Eternal Rose or not, there was a good chance neither of them was going to leave here alive.