D Madhu
The Merchant of the Two Worlds
Every trade has a price. His was the future.
Adrian Vale is twenty-four, broke, and newly fired for being too slow. On the walk home he finds a green door in an alley where there has only ever been a wall.
Behind it is a shop that trades between two worlds. On one side, his own city: loud, wasteful and full of things. On the other, a dying land of ash where three cans of peaches are worth a fortune in gold, and a torch can buy a soldier's loyalty.
Every Keeper before him ended the same way. And the figure at the bottom of his page is climbing faster than any of theirs.…