I swallow hard once, then walk to the glowing door with Aria and Khalil. Khalil approaches the door first, and its carved salmon markings glow vividly in golden hues, as does the mark on the back of Khalil's neck. He exhales deeply once, then opens the door. In front of him is a large yellow and golden swirl leading towards darkness. He steps through the standing door frame and disappears.

The assistant to Fasolt quickly moves over and closes the door once Khalil is gone before moving back out of the circle. Aria is the next to head for the door; as she draws closer, the mark on the back of her neck and the salmon carvings lining the edges of the doorway glow a vivid and shimmery silver instead of the gold they did for Khalil. She doesn't hesitate like Khalil; Aria opens the door and steps through the swirling silvery haze without ceremony.

Once again, the assistant quickly moves over to close the door back to the frame. I move towards the door once he's out of the circle, still pulsing its colorful hues. Shifting in coloration from the silver that was for Aria, the door starts to shine with a golden hue along each marking and etching. The back of my neck tingles with a faint burning sensation, increasing in strength the closer I get to the door. Finally, I reach down, take hold of the surprisingly warm doorknob, and open the door. I peer at the pulsing and swirling golden misty haze in front of me, and then I close my eyes and step through.

For a moment, everything is wrong. My head is below my legs as I feel like I'm spinning out of control; my chest is buffeted by intense pressure, and then just as quickly, a freedom of release as it passes away. My limbs feel like they're being stretched and then released back to my body, almost like a rubber band. I come to a stop in the very center of a dark room that smells very strongly of old, molding books. I cough a few times, trying to catch my breath after the nearly instantaneous teleportation from the Wilds to the human divide.

"Ugh. I hate that every time."

"Yo. You good?"

"Yeah. Aria?"

"I am here."

The faint noise of an emergency vehicle sounds in the distance, and I sigh. There's the first of the racket that will be unrelenting from here on out.

"Well, you know where we should go to trade, Aria, so you lead and we'll follow."

Her dark eyes fixate on the doorway I can barely make out at the front of the dilapidated shop the seam opened up into. My eyes are still adjusting to the darkness. She leads us outside before abruptly turning left and walking down a relatively clean–if currently abandoned–alleyway. The buildings of Asheville loom on either side of us, and the sounds of the city, people, animals, and televisions are a cacophony of noise I did not miss. Tugging down the knitted cap on my head and trying to cover my ears more thoroughly, I follow Aria as she leads us across streets and intersections on the way to where she's been told there are a few supernatural traders in a place owned by the Northwood tribe.

Before too long, the hold of the night has taken over, though with the city's lights, everything is still illuminated to some degree or another. Most city dwellers would consider where we were walking to be dark as pitch, but it isn't until you're in the natural wilderness that you discover what true darkness is like.

"There it is." Aria finally announces, and I look to see where we are headed.

A short, squat building sits in the center of businesses that look closed for the evening. The shop itself calls itself "The Diamond Mine" and looks to be nothing more than a simple pawn shop that you can find in any city anywhere in the world. There's one other open shop on that side of the street we're moving towards, a corner convenience store that seems to get a semi-regular flow of customers.

"Oh dude, I bet they got more hot cheese puffs in there."

"Shut up, Khalil; we have no money yet."

"I'm gonna get me some when we do."

"No, you're not; I gave you two bags already."

Khalil grumbles and insists under his breath that he will buy some before we leave Asheville, but I ignore him. As we walk past the convenience store, all three of us lower our faces towards the ground, having been taught to try and avoid being picked up on as many cameras as possible. Avoid detection, avoid bringing attention to our people; that's what you do if you're a traveler like we are. We go to the dimly lit front door of the pawn shop and then step inside.

Once we open the front door, a bell rings above our heads, signaling our arrival to whoever is inside. There doesn't look to be any current customers in the shop, so the three of us slowly walk inside. Our eyes peer around at storage racks filled with tools, electronics, toys, and old music and video games. Near the front, where the register is, there are two glass display cases with gold and silver jewelry, some gemstones, and watches. The scent of old motor oil and grease is in the air, and nothing at all suggests this is anything but a pawn shop.

A tired-looking older man with a bit of a greasy and unkempt appearance and a five o'clock shadow to boot comes waddling up to the register and huffs as he sits on the stool. He barely looks at us before droning out a rote line.

"Twenty-five percent off tools today, half off televisions and kids' toys. Talk to me if you need any help."

His eyes lower down to his lap, and from the illumination, I can see that he's poking around on the screen of a cellphone. I blink a few times; the mental dissonance from the Wilds to the human world is always a little tricky for me to get through in the first hour. I barely have time to register the appearance of the first cellphone before I suddenly cringe and put my hands up to my ears as a police cruiser and siren screams past the front door of the shop, heading off at high speed to parts unknown.

That movement catches the eye of the man sitting behind the register, who turns off his cellphone's screen before sliding it into a pocket. His dark eyes settled on me more pointedly, followed by Khalil and Aria. He clears his throat like nothing is wrong, then looks away and murmurs in faerie speech.

"Recently arrived travelers?"

The three of us look in the man's direction, and I nod. Aria speaks first. She responds in her usual, stilted way but speaks in fey this time.

"Through a seam not far from here, yes. Greetings to you."

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The man exhales suddenly like the world's weight is off his shoulders. He slides off the stool and walks over to a wall, which is part of a hallway that leads back to a pair of offices behind him. Instead of saying anything else, he presses a tiny black switch on the wall. The lights on the front of the shop suddenly dim, and when I look over my shoulder, I can see the neon OPEN sign flickering off and metal blinds rolling down over the shop windows. Once the movement and noise are finished, the man shakes his limbs out and walks right back to the stool. He only half leans against it this time when he starts speaking to us again.

"Folks call me Sprout; you can call me Sprout."

"I am Aria, and this is Khalil and Orion."

"Reckon it's been a bit since we got some travelers here in the city, probably about a good month or so. What brings y'all here? It's a bit of a carnival around here lately, not in a good way neither. So, you'll wanna be careful. Bloodsuckers are getting all wild with each other, causing issues for everybody. It's a damn mess."

The tired-looking man speaks in a heavily Southern accent, which is unusual for me to hear. It takes me concentrating relatively hard to understand him until my ears get used to the dialect. Aria takes charge of the current discussion, and I walk up to the jewelry cases and gaze down at the different sparkling things being advertised below the glass while listening.

"We have heard there were issues in the area, but we are here looking for fey."

"Well, you ain't found one yet. Sorry, Missy. I run this place for some faerie sorts, though. Unless you're talking about something else?"

"We are looking for a large group of fey–perhaps a village worth–they would have all arrived together a few weeks past."

The man raises his thick eyebrows, the lines and creases on his forehead scrunching up as he does.

"Naw, nothing like that I've heard of. You might be mistaken?"

Aria shakes her head.

"No, we are not. It is possible they did not make it into the city proper."

"Don't see how that could be; seam always lets folks off a few blocks over yonder–probably where you lot came from, huh?"

"We did come from there, yes."

Sprout nods as if she just made proof of his point for him. Aria doesn't respond to that directly. Instead, she looks at me and nods.

"Er, hey. I'm Orion."

"Sprout."

"So, we're looking to get a few things here in trade if you guys do that here…"

The man grins, all crooked teeth showing from left to right in his face. That smile stretches just a little too far on both sides of his face to be comfortable to look at.

"Thought you'd never ask! Come into our warehouse, watch your step going in, I told them to fix it weeks ago, but you know that saying: if you want something done right, gotta do it your own damned self."

He stands up from leaning against his stool and waves us rapidly around and behind the counter. Then he starts towards one of the two doors in the hallway. He pulls out a keyring full of at least a hundred keys but doesn't hesitate, seemingly knowing precisely what key he's looking for. With a quick movement of a key to lock, he turns the door handle and opens up a door that leads to what is some sort of a pocket door–except far, far more expansive than the one we use on trading runs to stable animals at night. He stands next to the door, holding it open and gesturing the three of us inside.

We all make our way around the counter and through the open door. As we step down onto a wobbly first step, we're introduced to what is essentially a large five or six-car garage that has been locked down and renovated wherever it is to be a trading market. Three "lanes" of traffic exist, with items hanging and placed on shelves leading up to three tables being tended to by three individual fey.

"Wait, wait," Sprout says, not allowing us to walk away just yet. "Got some ground rules, nothing too wild. No thievery, just don't. We'll catch you doin' it, and bad things'll happen. Gotta take no for an answer. If you get too upset over haggling, we'll kick you out. Don't bother other shoppers; wait your turn and get it done right. No funny business."

All three of us nod to the unknown type of supernatural gatekeeper calling himself Sprout–though I have a sneaky suspicion, because of his greasy countenance and stretchy smile, that he's a hobgoblin–and he nods to us. Sprout then steps back through the door and into the storefront shop, presumably returning it to its "open" state. The door is closed behind us, and all three of us turn to take in our surroundings. I give a low whistle.

"I should have brought more to trade; I didn't expect a large setup like this."

"Yes, Orion. I would agree."

"Dude, this is awesome. They have all kinds of stuff here; lots of it doesn't even look faerie-made. Like, check out the cursed objects over there. That's wild! That's so illegal in some of the cities in the Wilds!"

"Khalil, chill, man, keep your voice down."

"Sorry, sorry. Just didn't expect all this."

"Same. I'm going to see if I can find one of those modern bows with the plastic or fiber or whatever the hell they are arrows. Might be able to have a bow after all. Catch you guys in a few minutes."

Khalil and Aria nod and the three of us drift apart, each drawn to separate areas of the converted garage. A few others are milling about, and one man is animatedly haggling with one of the three vendors at the other end of the market. I only watch them for a few moments before I see a setup of various weapons. There are guns, knives, and, to my happiness, a couple of human-made modern hunting bows. I reach around a counter, drawn like a moth to the ingenuity, and pick up one of the compound bows hanging up on the wall.

Impressed already, I exhale. It isn't a magical bow by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a well-designed item. I step back and look around for a nearby target. Sure enough, about ten feet away, there's a simple target nearby, and I turn to face it. I pick up one of the three carbon-fiber arrows for individuals to test with. The tips of the target arrowheads have been blunted, but I don't mind.

I draw back the bow and fire the test arrow at the nearby target, and it's smooth and almost effortless. But the bow is too large. If I want to carry it in a bag–or even a duffle bag–I'm going to have to try one of the smaller models hanging up. I set the first compound bow back on the rack and try out two more, both much smaller than the first. I immediately disliked the smallest bow, as the draw was not smooth. I set it back and try the third one, which is only about an inch or so longer.

The bow's body is full charcoal gray, close to black, and it feels excellent just gripping it. I test with all three complementary testing arrows on the tiny target nearby and absolutely love the draw and loose's smoothness. I turn the compound bow over a few times in my hands, appreciating the weight and creation even if it's hideously ugly by elf-kin standards. I pluck the test arrows out of the small target and place them back where they were initially. I pick up two boxes of six arrows each and a simple modern five-arrow quiver that hooks to the compound bow itself.

Once I'm happy with my choice of bow and arrows, I meander away while looking at the trinkets, knick-knacks, magical items, and assorted elixirs and potions all for sale at this market. A pair of other shopping supernaturals bypass me, and no one greets each other. I pick up a bundle of nylon rope before looping it over my arm. I see some packs and bags that are back where I left the weapons, so I return and sort through them. Sure enough, there's a bow pack, which is essentially a backpack with a specialty area for slotting in a compound bow. With that now claimed, some of me hopes that I have enough to trade for since I don't know what these things are worth here.

I shuffle along, checking out the various stuff inside on racks and hanging too. There are unexpectedly some caged animals, and I even see a reafan and a grabbat amongst the wildlife. I see Aria already speaking with one of the vendors, and she seems to have a few trinkets like necklaces and rings in front of her. I don't see Khalil initially, but when I finally spy him, I see him in front of modern electronics, gazing at them with wide eyes and an openly desirous stare. I roll my eyes a bit before heading towards one of the unaccompanied vendors at the end of the market.