The next day,
Author
The slave market operated under the guise of a labor exchange.
It sat on the eastern edge of the Blackwood territory, where the granite paving gave way to mud and the air carried the copper tang of unwashed bodies and desperation.
A wooden sign above the gate proclaimed it the "Western Workforce Initiative," as if the chains and iron collars were merely decorative accessories. The nobles who frequented the place called it the Pit. Everyone else called it what it was.
Aria stood at the entrance in a hooded gray cloak, her features shadowed, her gold-crimson eyes dulled to a muddy amber through a pair of tinted lenses she had commissioned from Aquarius. She looked like a minor merchant's wife browsing for kitchen help. No one looked twice.
Leo shadowed her at a d
