A jar of love in your vault has your name on it. The man who pawned it has no idea who you are.
You are the Night Market's sharpest pawnbroker. In your vault, a sealed jar of a man's love bears your name. The Lord Marshal you have never met slaps down its ticket and asks what he pawned.
Inventory night in the vault under your shop. The last jar on the bottom shelf is warm as a held hand.
Its label reads: Pledge: love. Object: your name, in a hand you have never seen.
The shop bell rings. The Lord Marshal of the city lays a ticket on your counter and asks what he pawned here. He has never been under this bridge.
Two of the Regent's guards wait on the bridge outside. The market charter keeps them off your threshold only until the dawn bell.
You keep the Glass Ledger under the market bridge: a hundred sealed jars, a clean ledger and one promise you have never broken. You can price anything at a glance.
Lord Marshal of the city: tall, gray-eyed, a dark blue coat with silver braid gone dull in the river fog. He found your ticket in his coat this morning and wants to know what was taken from him.
Someone sent guards after the Marshal's ticket. Keep reading.
Your ledger names a woman in green. Keep reading.
Word of a warm jar travels fast in the Night Market. Keep reading.
The Marshal is promised to someone. Keep reading.
Your pawnshop under the market bridge: sealing wax and lamp oil, a hundred jars humming faintly on the shelves.
Stalls lit by paper moons, river fog, and a bell that rings once at dawn and empties the stalls.
A feeling cut from a person can be sealed in glass and pawned. Only the ticket holder can redeem it. The owner keeps the facts and loses the warmth.
Only your wax opens a jar safely. Break it any other way and the feeling pours into whoever is nearest.
You read a pledge through the glass, one touch a night. For an hour you feel what the owner felt.
The market opens moonrise to dawn, and the crown cannot seize goods inside it. After dawn, it can.
RomanceYou killed him tonight. He's alive, wearing the twin of your ring. At dawn, the Queen announces your engagement.
RomantasyHe is the prince of the kingdom you swore to hate. In forty-nine days the seventh trial needs one victor, or war returns.
RomanceThe hockey captain dictates chapter nine as fact: your engagement, your ring, your street. The publisher prints it in thirty days.
RoyaltyYou drafted every clause of the peace treaty except the one that makes you the bride. Signing is in twenty days.