Leo stared at the vial.
Three pills. Each one worth at least eighteen hundred gold at auction. The math was simple and the number it produced was staggering.
"That’s more than five thousand gold," he said.
Evander waved a hand. "Buying price, yes. Production cost is a few dozen coins at most. One dark green carapace gives me enough material for a hundred and eighty pills if I’m careful. So please don’t make that face — I’m not losing anything here."
Mira’s eyes moved to Leo with the expression of someone waiting to see what he’d do.
Leo looked at the vial again. Then he looked at Evander. "What’s the question?"
Mira cut in before Evander could answer. "Tell us the question first. We reserve the right to keep our answer to ourselves."
Evander looked at her with something like appreciation. "Fair." He leaned back, perfectly at ease. "My question is simple. Were you the ones who killed that Dark Green Dual-Bladed Demon?"
Silence.
Mira blinked. "That’s it?"
"That’s it."
"You’re paying five thousand gold coins to find out if we killed a demon?"
"I’m paying five thousand gold coins for the answer to a question I want answered," Evander said. "The value of information isn’t determined by the length of the question."
Mira stared at him for a moment. Then she looked at Leo.
Leo looked at Liora. Liora gave the smallest shrug.
"Yes," Mira said. "We killed it."
Evander smiled, unhurried and satisfied, and tossed the vial across the table to Leo. "As promised."
Leo caught it. He held it for a moment and looked at it, the three red pills sitting still inside the crystal.
"Evander," he said. "This is too much. I can’t—"
"It’s a transaction," Evander said. "Not a gift. I asked a question and you answered it. The pills are payment." He propped his elbow on the sofa arm and tilted his head. "Besides, I have another request."
Leo set the vial down carefully. "What request?"
Evander’s expression shifted into something that managed to be both casual and very deliberate. "I’m guessing you’re heading to the Halcyon Capital for the Demon Hunt Selection."
Mira’s eyebrows rose. "How did you figure that out?"
"Anyone traveling from the south toward the Capital passes through Silverrest City. You’re young, you clearly qualified, and you killed a fifth-rank demon on the way here." He counted on his fingers. "It wasn’t difficult. I also wasn’t worried about you exposing me as Master Lin because even if you told someone, no one would believe a person my age is producing third-tier pills." He paused. "Also, you’ll be leaving soon. You won’t be here long enough for it to matter."
Liora made a quiet sound that might have been reluctant admiration.
"So," Evander continued, turning back to Leo, "my request is this. If we both make it to the final stage of the Selection, and if you place in the top three, I want you to choose me as your squad partner."
Liora sat up. "Why him? I’m a mage too."
Evander glanced at her. His expression was polite, and what he said was not. "With respect, Big Sister, your cultivation level suggests that reaching the final stage will be genuinely difficult for you."
Liora went very still. "You can see my cultivation level?"
"Small personal skill," Evander said, without explaining further. He looked back at Leo. "So. What do you think? The promise costs you nothing. If you don’t make top three, it’s void. If you do, you choose me. In exchange, I’ll supply you with pills free of charge for as long as we’re working together." He spread his hands. "I have pills and money. Not much else. Might as well use them."
Liora stared at him. Leo stared at him.
He looked, at that moment, extremely handsome and extremely calculating, and the combination was somehow worse than either thing alone.
Before Leo could answer, his body moved without his permission.
A violent shudder ran through him from his chest outward, and a purple-gold mark blazed suddenly onto his forehead — expanding quickly into nine separate glowing symbols, each one a third of a meter long, floating around his head in a loose ring as spiritual energy flickered visibly from each one.
Then the light collapsed inward, and Veyra appeared.
She hadn’t been called. She had summoned herself.
Both heads were moving, and she pressed against Leo’s side with an urgency that was entirely unlike her usual calm. Low sounds came from both mouths, fast and insistent, directed entirely at Leo.
"Veyra," Leo said quietly. "Easy. I’m here. Tell me."
He couldn’t understand words — she couldn’t form them — but through the Blood Contract, he felt it clearly. Excitement and want and something that didn’t have a name but felt like recognition. Like finding something lost.
He looked up.
On the stage below, the previous cart had been wheeled away. A new one sat in its place, and on top of it — large enough to need both attendants to steady it — was a stone sphere.
It was dull and unremarkable at first glance. Grey surface crossed with dark green veins that branched and looped like something living had been frozen inside it. No shine. No visible energy. Just a rock with patterns on it that caught the light in ways a plain rock shouldn’t.
Seraphine stood before it with an expression Leo hadn’t seen from her yet — the careful neutrality of someone who genuinely didn’t know what she was looking at.
"Our next item is... somewhat unique," she said. "Our most experienced appraiser was unable to identify it. The seller requested a starting bid of ten thousand gold. The Crownhammer Auction House operates on the principle of fairness, and we will not allow our guests to be misled. So I’ll be honest with you."
She gestured at the sphere with one hand.
"From the outside, there is nothing exceptional here. No visible magical formations. No detectable internal structure. Even a ninth-tier powerhouse cannot determine what lies inside without breaking the surface. What we can confirm is this: there are spiritual energy fluctuations within. The green veins you can see are caused by those fluctuations. Our lead appraiser believes there is a high probability of an unusual metal inside." She paused. "But it could be something else entirely. Bidding opens at ten thousand gold. Each raise must be at least one thousand. Think carefully. All sales are final."
Ten thousand gold.
Leo sat with the number and felt it press against him.
Veyra had gone still the moment the sphere appeared on stage. Both heads were pointed directly at it, four eyes unblinking, the urgency from before replaced by something focused and absolute.
She hadn’t appeared because Leo called her. She had appeared because the sphere had been wheeled out.
Through the Blood Contract, Leo felt what she felt: not hunger, not fear. Something older than either of those things. Something that ran deeper than the crystal she had swallowed from the Dark Green Dual-Bladed Demon.
Whatever was inside that stone, Veyra recognized it.
Leo looked at the sphere. He looked at his magic crystal card with its two thousand gold. He looked at Veyra’s four eyes, still and certain on the stage.
He had just gotten the two thousand gold.
He needed to split it with the others.
Ten thousand.
The number sat in his chest like something heavy, and Evander’s voice came from beside him, very quiet:
"Brother Leo. I’ll ask you again." A pause. "Do we have a deal?"
Leo didn’t look away from the stone sphere.
"Tell me your terms again," he said. "All of them."