Rain clung to the city like static. It slid down bus stop glass and neon-lit gutters, leaving trails of light across Kairo Vale's jacket as he made his way through the alley behind Fourth Street.
Crowboy walked beside him, barefoot on the wet pavement, humming tunelessly. His burnt hoodie had holes in the sleeves, and his black eyes flicked toward every shadow like he expected someone—or something—to follow.
They probably were.
"You sure this is the place?" Kairo asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "It doesn't look like a corpse market. Looks like a condemned vape shop."
Crowboy tilted his head. "It's both. They sell nicotine and necrotic flesh. Sometimes in the same package."
Kairo grimaced. The past week had been nothing but spirals. Ghosts in his kitchen. Rotten whispers in the sink drain. Waking up with ash under his fingernails and names in his mouth he didn't remember saying.
Since the Ashbrand fused with him, he hadn't had a single normal hour. Not even in his dreams.
And now he was standing in front of a neon sign that read: "VAPE LORDZ - NO REFUNDS."
Beneath it, a sigil was drawn in faint blood. He never would've noticed it before. Now, it pulsed when he looked at it. Like it knew he could see.
Crowboy knocked on the metal door three times, then once, then twice.
A slot opened. Red eyes blinked out. "Who dares disturb the bones of commerce?"
Crowboy smiled wide. "The Ashbrand walks."
Silence.
Then the door creaked open.
Inside, the smell hit like a truck—clove smoke, embalming fluid, and something older. Something rotting.
Kairo followed Crowboy down the stairs, every step lit with flickering candles. They passed walls covered in bone masks and shelves full of vials labeled with words like "Graveoil" and "Soul Tar."
At the bottom: a market underground.
The space was bigger than it should've been—like a warehouse tucked beneath the world. Glowing lanterns swung from chains above long rows of tables stacked with dead things: mummified limbs, skulls with silver teeth, preserved organs in glass jars.
Vendors wore masks made of bone, stitched leather, and even flesh. One stood on stilts made from femurs. Another had a cage full of giggling disembodied heads.
Kairo stopped walking.
"What is this place?"
Crowboy spun. "The Gray Bazaar. It's neutral ground. No killing, no binding, no bargains you don't intend to keep."
Kairo kept his hands in his pockets. "Why are we here?"
"You need supplies. Tools. Also…" Crowboy sniffed the air. "A few of your summons are decaying. Improper bonding."
"Which ones?"
"Whimsy's body is unraveling. Dregg is too stitched. Mother Rattles keeps trying to rebirth herself through the kitchen sink."
Kairo blinked. "What?"
Crowboy shrugged. "It's what she does."
A bell rang at the far end of the market. A new vendor had arrived—pushing a coffin on wheels. People turned. Even the floating skulls paused in mid-laugh.
Crowboy's smile vanished. "Uh-oh."
The vendor wore a porcelain mask with black tears painted under the eyes. His coat trailed behind him like smoke. The air around him chilled.
"That," Crowboy whispered, "is a Soulbinder."
"Good or bad?"
"Yes."
The Soulbinder stopped and opened the coffin.
Inside was a body—tall, armored in bone-metal, runes etched along its ribs. But what made every other vendor back away wasn't the body.
It was the spark floating above it.
A soul. Intact. Awake.
And angry.
Kairo took a step forward, and the spark snapped toward him like a snake sensing prey.
The Soulbinder tilted his head. "A new caller. And so soon."
Kairo opened his mouth to speak, but Crowboy stepped in front of him.
"No deals. Not with him."
"But he has—"
"He sells Thronereapers," Crowboy hissed. "Spirits so powerful they can kill your other summons just by existing. You're not ready."
The Soulbinder's porcelain mask turned toward Kairo again. "One day, little ashling. When your leash is longer."
And just like that, he pushed the coffin further into the crowd.
Kairo let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "What the hell is a Thronereaper?"
Crowboy didn't answer. He just kept walking.
----------
At a smaller booth, an old woman with gold pins in her lips sold soul threads. Crowboy haggled for a vial of marrow oil and a jar of Binding Wax. Kairo paid in ashmarks—tokens that had appeared in his pocket the day the Ashbrand woke up. He didn't ask where they came from.
By the end of it, Kairo had a toolkit: ink that glowed under moonlight, chalk made from saint bone, and three needles carved from obsidian.
"For threading and sealing," Crowboy explained. "If you want your summons to stop leaking into your dreams."
"...Good to know."
As they left the booth, a skeletal hand reached out and grabbed Kairo's wrist.
Another vendor—this one just a face wrapped in linen, whispering from within.
"You seek to keep four," it rasped. "But five already hate you."
Kairo froze. "What?"
"They crawl. In your veins. In your blood. The slots fill too fast. The challenge will come. And the boy—"
Crowboy moved fast. One motion. His hand burst into black shadow and slammed the vendor's face into the table.
"Keep talking," he said softly, "and I'll unspool your soul and feed it to the Veil."
The vendor whimpered and vanished into smoke.
Kairo stared. "What did he mean? Five hate me?"
Crowboy's hands were still shadow-wrapped. "Not all bindings are clean, Kairo. Some of the ones you wear… they remember pain."
"They want revenge?"
"They want a throne."
----------
They left the market in silence.
Above ground, the rain had stopped, but the clouds hung low. Kairo's head ached. His heartbeat felt like it echoed with every step.
"Hey," he said finally. "Crowboy?"
"Mm?"
"If I lose control of them… if they get stronger than me…"
"You'll die."
"Will you kill me?"
Crowboy stopped walking.
Then, slowly, "No."
Relief flickered through Kairo.
"I won't let anyone else have you," Crowboy continued. "If you fall, I'll burn your soul to ash and bury the brand with you."
Kairo stared.
Crowboy smiled again. "That's what family's for."