The words sat in the room for a second. Ludger’s expression didn’t change, but his attention sharpened instantly. Eclaire leaned back slightly and continued before he could cut in.
“If an underworld guild is being used as a tool by nobles, the guild itself will bury direct traces. Its members will know very little by design. But the black market is different.” She tapped one finger lightly on the papers. “Illegal goods move through it. Restricted ingredients. forged records. cursed materials. unregistered relics. smuggled medicines. poison components. burner identities. discrete transport.”
Ludger listened. That… actually fit.
“The black market survives on information almost as much as goods,” Eclaire said. “People there don’t need to know the whole truth. But they notice patterns. Who suddenly buys things they shouldn’t need. Which intermediaries start carrying strange commissions. Which clients pay absurd amounts for silence. Which names are never spoken directly, but still make people careful.”
Ludger frowned slightly.
“Hroth already moved me toward the underworld.”
“Yes,” Eclaire said. “And you found a violent arm of it. A blade. A guild. But blades are replaceable.” Her eyes sharpened. “Markets are harder to control completely. Too many hands. Too many watchers. Too many people making money from noticing what others want hidden.”
Now that sounded useful. Ludger considered it.
The underworld guild master was too insulated. Hans had been a dead end beyond confirming the old murder. Paper trails would matter, yes, but papers could be too slow. Too clean. Too easy to bury under time and bureaucracy.
A market, especially a dirty one, was noisier. And noise meant leaks.
He asked, “You think someone there will know who’s tied to the Obsidian Sword?”
“Maybe not by that name alone,” Eclaire replied. “But if your theory is correct, then whoever is behind this network would have needed more than killers. They would need special components. discreet delivery channels. false documents. perhaps rare alchemical stock. people willing to move dangerous things quietly.” She gave a small shrug. “That sort of activity leaves rumors, debts, habits, preferences.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed.
Ludger’s gaze stayed on her for a moment longer before he asked, “So the people in power use the black market too.”
It wasn’t really phrased like a question. More like he already knew the answer and was checking whether she would say it plainly. Eclaire nodded.
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No softening.
“That is part of the reason it hasn’t been destroyed yet,” she said. “Too many people with status benefit from it existing.”
She spoke the words with the same flat practicality she had used for everything else, but there was a colder undertone beneath them now.
“A noble house may condemn filth in public, demand stricter oversight, complain about criminal elements, and then quietly purchase the services of the same network two streets away through a broker or a side branch.” Her expression thinned slightly. “If the black market only served thieves and gutter criminals, it would have been burned down repeatedly. The fact that it survives tells you who finds it useful.”
Ludger said nothing. She continued.
“Officials profit from seizures. Nobles profit from discreet procurement. Merchants profit from forbidden trade. Underworld groups profit from movement and protection. Some guards profit from pretending not to see.” She gave a faint, joyless exhale. “Once enough respectable hands are feeding from the same rotting table, people stop trying very hard to flip it over.”
That matched the Empire a little too well. Ludger folded his arms, mind already moving ahead. The black market as a neutral sewer. Not neutral morally, obviously, but neutral in the sense that too many different predators drank from it to let any one group destroy it completely. That made it dangerous. It also made it useful.
Then Eclaire added, “You might find clues about the beastmen children there as well and other kidnapped individuals."
That made his eyes narrow at once. The shift in his attention was so sharp that even she noticed it immediately. She didn’t look away.
“If children are being moved, hidden, sold, traded, or supplied to anyone quietly,” she said, “the black market is one of the places where traces gather whether people want them to or not.”
Ludger’s expression hardened. The beastmen kids.
That problem had never stopped being there. It had only been pushed to the side by everything else clawing for his attention at once. Missing children. Chains of transport. Disappearances that were too easy for people in power to ignore as long as the victims were from the wrong race, the wrong class, the wrong side of the wall. Eclaire kept speaking.
“And if you’re serious about going there, you could solve more than one problem at once.”
He didn’t respond, so she went on.
“Take the beastmen with you for that job.”
Ludger’s stare became flatter.
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“Those three?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “They are capable of functioning with you leading them in the empire.”
That was more sensible. She leaned slightly back, still composed, still speaking like she was laying pieces on a board.
“With their sense of smell, they may notice things faster than you would. Blood. fear. beastmen scent trails. transport cages. old holding sites. hidden dens. specific handlers. places where children were moved through recently.” Her eyes stayed on him. “If the black market touches both your noble conspiracy and the missing beastmen, then using them could help you find the rot faster and deal with several problems at once.”
Ludger remained silent. Eclaire misread that silence as consideration and pressed a little further.
“You’d also be giving them a chance to act on something that concerns their own people,” she said. “And if there are hidden pens, traffickers, intermediaries, or storage points, their noses might uncover what ordinary investigation misses.”
Then she stopped. Not because she was finished, but because she finally seemed to realize the room had gone still in the wrong way. Ludger was studying her. Not casually. Not with irritation alone. With the same serious, measuring expression he used when looking at a fight, a trap, or a puzzle that had just shown him a new edge.
It lasted long enough to make most people uncomfortable. Eclaire did not fidget, but she definitely noticed. Finally, Ludger spoke.
“Even though you don’t want to manipulate,” he said, “it comes naturally to you now.”
The sentence landed cleanly. No raised voice. No accusation sharpened for spectacle. Just a statement, and somehow that made it hit harder. Eclaire’s lips parted slightly, then closed again. For a second, no answer came. Ludger kept watching her.
“You weren’t just giving advice,” he said. “You stacked it.”
Her expression grew more careful. Ludger continued in the same even tone.
“You started with information I already wanted. Then you tied it to another target I care about. Then you added a practical advantage. Then you framed it as helping the beastmen act for their own people.” His gaze did not move. “Efficient. Hard to reject without feeling stupid or negligent.”
Eclaire stayed silent. Because denying it would be pointless. Ludger’s eyes narrowed faintly. A quiet breath left her.
“Yes,” she said at last.
No excuses. At least not immediately. She glanced down at the notes between them, then back up at him.
“I wasn’t trying to trap you or them,” she said. “Not in the way you mean.”
“That’s a very noble sentence.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face at that, but she accepted the hit.
“What I said still makes sense,” she replied. “The reasoning is real.”
“I know,” Ludger said. “That’s why it works.”
That shut down the easiest defense before she could use it. Eclaire was quiet for a moment before speaking again.
“I saw an angle,” she admitted. “And I presented it in the order most likely to make you take it seriously.”
She looked mildly frustrated now, though more with herself than with him.
“You say that like it proves something terrible.”
“It proves you were steering,” he said. “Not lying. Steering.”
That was the core of it. Not falsehood. Structure. The subtle art of arranging true pieces so that the listener stepped where you wanted without ever being pushed openly. Eclaire’s shoulders lowered slightly.
“Yes,” she said. “I was.”
Ludger let the silence sit for a second.
Then he said, “The annoying part is that it was well done.”
That made her blink. Not because it was praise. It wasn’t. But because it was a precise assessment, and somehow that was worse.
“I’m not sure whether to be offended or relieved,” she said.
“You should be warned.”
Her mouth tightened faintly.
“That too, then.”
Ludger leaned back again.
“I don’t care that you know how to move conversations,” he said. “That was obvious the moment you stepped in.” His voice remained calm. “What matters is whether you start thinking that because you can guide people, you get to decide for them.”
Eclaire held his gaze.
“I don’t think that.”
“Good,” he said. “Because if you try it on me too often, I’ll start assigning you jobs based entirely on how irritating they are.”
That drew a faint breath from her that might have become a laugh in a less tense room.
“Duly noted.”
Ludger clicked his tongue and looked aside for a second, thinking. The suggestion itself wasn’t bad. That was the irritating part. Bringing beastmen trackers or older rescued beastmen along into the capital’s filth could indeed help identify trafficking trails, hidden holding points, handlers, and side operations connected to the market. It might even expose links between the noble conspiracy and the child abductions.
But using people whose wounds were tied directly to that same trade was not something he would decide just because it made an investigation cleaner. He looked back at her.
“You’re right about one thing,” he said.
Eclaire waited.
“The black market probably touches both problems.”
Her eyes sharpened slightly.
“But,” he continued, “I decide who gets brought into that mess. Not because they’re useful. Because they can handle it.”
Eclaire nodded once.
“That’s fair.”
“It’s not fairness. It’s efficiency with fewer broken pieces afterward.”
That answer fit him so perfectly that she didn’t even bother reacting to it. Ludger exhaled through his nose.
“And for the record,” he added, “next time you notice yourself arranging a conversation to guide me somewhere, say it first.”
Eclaire blinked once.
“Say it first?”
“Yes.” His face stayed blank. “Something like: ‘I’m about to structure this in the most persuasive way possible because I think it matters.’”
To her credit, she almost smiled.
“That sounds absurd.”
“It also sounds honest.”
That dulled the smile before it fully formed.
“Yes,” she admitted. “It does.”
Ludger nodded once, then looked down at the papers again.
“Now,” he said, “put the manipulation aside for a moment and tell me something more useful.”
Eclaire straightened slightly.
“What?”
“If I go into the capital’s black market,” Ludger said, “where would a person with noble backing hide their involvement badly enough that someone competent could still smell it?”
This time, when she answered, there was less performance in the setup. More thought. And that, at least, was progress. Eclaire was quiet for a second after his question, her eyes lowering slightly as she sorted through the answer.
Then she said, “I can give you some pointers.”
Ludger looked at her without expression.
She met the look and added, with dry honesty, “Although, if I’m being fair, you will probably blow your cover at the first opportunity.”