Eva ground her teeth at the retort, then bared them in an intensely annoyed smile that only merited the name by the broadest definition.

"You've got a lot of nerve, passing yourself off as a purveyor of great magics when you're just a two-bit trader."

Okay, so technically Ea-Nasir had never claimed she was hawking more than metal. But that wasn't going to stop Eva from running her mouth.

And yet, somehow, the confrontation seemed to bend in the merchant's favor, as Eva sought for a real test to prove who was the real connoisseur here.

"Pure quartz. If you're a real dealer, you can at least provide that much for a mage's project."