The lamps below Box Thirty-Seven burned dragon fat. Ambergris smoked in bowls beside the railings. By the time the auctioneer came to the stage, almost four thousand seats were full.
Pei Jing stayed on his stool in the dark. He could feel the tower through the Black Mountain Whetstone. The beams carried the soft noise of people moving, the pull of the wards, and the breath of a few men strong enough to make the brass hum.
Box Five hung to the east, under black wolf pelts. Patriarch Wu of the Black Fiend Hall sat within. He was hunched and thin, with dark skin and a wet rattle in his chest. A bitter mist hung around him. Pei Jing knew the smell of the Nine-Rot Earth Fiend Art. Whatever else Wu wanted to buy, he might need the medicine himself.
Box Nine bore the three-legged cauldron of the Southern Alchemical League. Elder Gu wore saffron silk and ten jade rings. He smiled at the floor while a little thread of his divine sense tested the boxes next to him. The League had much to lose if a man outside its houses could make better pills.
Lord Beitang had taken his seat on an iron-oak throne. Four elders stood beside him and a dozen guards stood behind. He kept his eyes on the jade stand. He looked like a man who had come to take one thing home.
