Then she had gone mad.

It hadn’t been a long madness. A year, perhaps, of fits and visions and being found prowling through the streets. And when she had come out the other side, she had discovered that she had a psychic’s eyes and a shaman’s touch and that she was going to make a career of it. She’d renamed herself Seondeok and the legend had been born.

She handled wonder every day.

The robotic bee was the moment she realized she was on a fated path. Henry, her middle son, shone brightly, but he never seemed able to direct that light outside of himself. And so when Niall Lynch offered to find her a bauble, a token, a magical toy, that would help him, she was listening. The beautiful bee struck her the moment she saw it. Of course he had also shown it to Laumonier and to Greenmantle and to Valquez and to Mackey and to Xi, but that was to be expected because he was a scoundrel and could not help himself. But when he had met Henry, he had let Seondeok have it for nearly nothing, and she would not forget that.

Of course, it had been a gift and a penalty, since later, Laumonier had kidnapped Henry for it.

She would have revenge for that.

She didn’t regret it. She couldn’t make herself regret it, even when it threatened her children. This was a fated path, and she felt right on it, even when it was hard.

When she found herself next to the Gray Man, Greenmantle’s old hired muscle, in an off-campus Aglionby Academy lot, and discovered that the blood on his shoes was Laumonier’s, she was instantly interested in what he had to say.

“A brave new way of doing business,” the Gray Man said in a low voice, as the parking lot was quickly beginning to fill up with a small but potent number of forbidding-looking people. It was not that they looked dangerous, necessarily. Just odd in a way that suggested they didn’t look at the world at all like you did. They were a very different group than the people who had come to the school the night before. Technically both gatherings had a lot to do with politics. “An ethical way. There are no armed guards outside of furniture stores to prevent people from bludgeoning employees and carrying out sofas. That is the business I want.”

“That will not be an easy goal,” Seondeok said, her voice also low. She kept her eyes on the cars pulling up, and also on her phone. She knew that Henry had been told to stay away, and she trusted him to keep his head down, but she also didn’t trust Laumonier in the slightest. There was no point tempting them by showing that Henry – and by extension, his bee – were within close proximity. “The people have got used to carrying sofas, and one does not like to stop stealing sofas when others haven’t yet agreed to.”

“Persuasion might be required at the beginning,” the Gray Man admitted.

“You are talking years.”

“I am committed,” he replied. “So long as I can get a decent number of people who are interested in that vision. People I like.”

Here was Laumonier, finally, one of them on the phone. His face suggested he was trying to contact the third one, but the third one was not in a condition to answer. The Gray Man would discuss this with them after the sale had happened. In a persuasive way aided with some truly fantastic weapons that he had found on the Lynch farm.

Seondeok said, “I am not people you like.”

“You are people I respect, which is nearly the same.”

Her smile said she knew he was sucking up to her and she accepted it nonetheless. “Perhaps, Mr Gray. This is according to my interest.”

This was when Piper Greenmantle arrived.

Well, it was not her, at first. It was dread first, then Piper. The feeling struck them like a wave of nausea, rocking from feet to head, sending hands to throats and knees to pavement. It was early afternoon, but the sky suddenly seemed darker. This was the first sign that this sale was going to be something remarkable.

So, first dread, then Piper. She arrived flying, which was the second sign that things were going to be somewhat unusual.

When she landed, it became obvious that she had arrived on a rug of tiny black wasps, which dissolved when they touched the asphalt.

She looked good.

This was striking for a several reasons, first because rumour had it that she had died before her smarmy husband had been killed by wasps in his apartment, and she was clearly not dead. And secondly because she was holding a black wasp that was nearly a foot long, and most people didn’t look as serene and put together as she did when holding a stinging insect of any size.

She strode over to Laumonier, clearly intending to cheek-kiss, but they both bowed back from the insect. This was the third sign that things were going to be somewhat unusual, because Laumonier ordinarily made a point to never look alarmed.

“This is not good,” the Gray Man said under his breath.

Because it was obvious now that the dread was coming from either Piper or the wasp. The sensation kept hitting Seondeok in ill waves, reminding her painfully of her year of being mad. It took a moment for her to realize that it was verbally reminding her of her year of being mad – she could hear the words being said directly into her head. In Korean.

“Thank you all for coming,” Piper said grandly. She cocked her head, eyes narrowed, and Seondeok knew that she was being whispered to also. “Now that I am single, I intend to move independently into the business of luxury magical items, curating only the most extraordinary and otherworldly of crazy shit. I hope you all start to trust me to be a quality source. And our kickoff piece – the thing you’ve come all this way for – is this.” She lifted her arm, and the wasp stepped a little further towards her hand. The crowd shuddered as one; there was something quite wrong about it. The dread, plus the size, the real weight of it moving the fabric of her sleeve. “This is a demon.”

Yes. Seondeok believed this.

“It’s favoured me, as you can probably tell by my fabulous hair and skin, but I’m ready to pass it along to the next user so I can find the next great thing! It’s all about the journey, right? Right!”

“Is it —” started one of the men in the group. Rodney, Seondeok believed his name was. He didn’t seem to know how to finish his question.

“How does it work?” Seondeok asked.

“Mostly I just ask it to do stuff,” Piper said, “and it goes for it. I’m not really religious, but I feel like somebody with some religious background could really make it do some cool tricks. It made me a house, and these pumps. What could it do for you? Stuff. Shall we start the bidding, Dad?”