Chapter 427: Mira on Market II
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Mira continued, "They have sat too long. Your board has been corrected twice, and the chalk on the edge line has already been rewritten where one earlier price failed to move them. One of them is old enough and sick enough that no ordinary buyer will touch her except for charity, desperation, or cruelty. The others are with weak market appeal, no current bidding pressure, and no household mark worth fearing." Her eyes settled on his. "You will not get your first numbers from anyone by dusk."
The broker’s smile weakened only slightly, but Mira saw the irritation beneath it at once.
He answered the way men like him always answered when truth entered the negotiation too early.
"My lady sees only surface time, not hidden interest. Markets often look still before they move."
Mira turned her gaze back toward the holding line.
The girls did not shift much under inspection, but they did not hold themselves like broken stock either. That mattered. The oldest one remained seated and half-curled in on herself, too tired or too ill to waste pride on posture. The five younger ones were better. One stood with her weight slightly back, ready to pull or run if chains ever allowed it. One looked hollow-eyed but not empty. One kept glancing at the old one. Two watched Mira directly, which was better than fearfully staring at the ground. Mixed blood. Human enough to be mistrusted by one side. Medusa enough to be devalued by the other. That was exactly why they had remained here.
Then Mira looked back to the broker and said, "Then hidden interest is cowardly."
One of the guards behind her almost smiled.
The broker did not.
He spread one hand in a motion meant to suggest patience and good breeding. "I am only protecting the worth of the lot."
"No," Mira said. "You are protecting the memory of the price you wanted. That is not the same thing."
That landed properly.
His eyes narrowed by a fraction.
Then he adjusted.
"Very well," he said smoothly. "If my lady dislikes the individual rates, I can offer a full-lot concession. Six together cost less than buying them one by one. If you insist on choosing only five, the price rises again. That is the inconvenience of separation."
Now that was better.
More honest too.
Mira looked again toward the line.
Six together.
The old one was likely useless for the purpose she had in mind.
Likely.
Not certainly.
And certainty mattered more than preference in purchases like this.
If the price difference remained small enough, she could take the sixth and decide later whether the old sickly woman became a burden, bait, or surprise.
"State both numbers," Mira said.
He did.
The individual rate was what she expected. Too high for the condition of the line, but not stupidly so. The full-lot concession was better. Still angled upward with broker greed, but better. More importantly, payable in low-grade chaos stones without making the purchase loud enough to matter beyond this district.
She named her own number. It was not an insulting number. It was not generous. But it was accurate.
He objected immediately.
Not with anger. Men like him preserved anger for private rooms and dead-eyed servants. He objected with trained offense, with careful market dignity, with the tone of someone explaining that the money itself had just been insulted by the shape of arithmetic.
Mira let him finish.
Then she said, "You are not selling noble brides, trained specialists, or bloodline heirs with family rescue value. You are clearing trapped stock from a line nobody wants to touch. I am offering movement, coin, and reduced feeding cost before sunset. Take the stones and feel grateful your ledger improves."
That struck where it should.
He did not like hearing the truth of his own position said plainly. Brokers never did. They preferred that desperation stayed on one side of the counter and politeness on the other. Mira had no interest in helping him maintain that illusion.
He tried once more anyway.
"The medusa trace alone gives rarity."
"It lowers value more than it raises it in this market," Mira said. Her tone did not rise. It did not need to. "You know that. I know that. And they know that."
Her gaze flicked once toward the line.
None of the six looked shocked to hear it spoken aloud.
That was useful.
It meant they were not children of fantasy. They understood enough of the market they had fallen into. Better to buy women who already understood the shape of their own disadvantage than women still waiting for a miracle to explain why the world had not been fair to them.
The broker exhaled through his nose and gave a lower number.
Mira did not accept it.
She lowered hers by almost nothing.
He stared at her.
That made the structure clear. She was not begging him to agree. He was deciding whether he wanted to continue losing time on stock that had already started costing him more by remaining than it was likely to earn him in any cleaner sale.
He looked toward the six again.
Then toward the stones at Mira’s guard’s belt.
Then back to Mira.
"You want all of them," he said.
"Yes."
"Even the old one."
"For now."
That answer displeased him because it told him she was not buying blindly, and because it hinted she might see value where he saw only drag.
He made one final attempt.
"She is not worth the same protection burden."
Mira said, "Then be thankful I am removing her from your burden."
Silence...
Then, at last, he gave a small irritated nod.
The deal was settled there.
One of the guards stepped forward and handed over the pouch of low-grade chaos stones. The broker took it, opened it, and weighed the contents in his palm before checking several by hand. He tested three more against a touchstone line clipped to his desk edge, then poured the rest back into the pouch with the sour expression of a man who knew fair business when it arrived and hated not being able to call it theft.