The Reach of the Shadow
Ironspire does not have a market district, exactly. It has a zone where commerce happens and the city pretends not to notice what is being sold.
The All the Way Up — Black Fingerless Elbow Gloves are black lace-up arm gloves that run from the knuckles to the elbow, fingerless, with a cutout lace pattern down the forearm that lets the skin breathe while keeping the silhouette solid and dark. They are exactly the kind of thing you find in Ironspire if you know which streets to walk down and which ones to walk past quickly.
Luna knows both.
She had not planned to go to Ironspire. That is the thing about Ironspire — nobody plans to go there. You end up there the way you end up anywhere that runs on industrial poison and the particular moral flexibility of a city that has been making bad decisions for two centuries and has gotten very good at it. The river that runs west from Ironspire into the Ashen Plains carries everything the city doesn't want to keep. Luna had followed it east once, just to see where it came from. She had not been surprised by what she found. She had been impressed, which is different.
Ironspire has a quarter near the eastern gate where the vendors set up before the city wakes up and pack down before it goes to sleep. The city's official position is that this quarter does not exist. The vendors' official position is the same. Everyone operates on the understanding that the arrangement works precisely because nobody acknowledges it.
The gloves were on a low table near the back of a stall run by a woman who did not give her name and did not ask for Luna's. The table had three things on it. Luna picked up the gloves. The woman watched. Luna pulled one on over her hand, worked it up her forearm, felt the lace-up cutout settle against her skin — the particular give of it, the way it held without gripping, the way the open lattice kept the forearm cool while the solid black cuffs at the wrist and elbow held the line clean and dark and exactly right.
She bought every pair the woman had.
The woman still did not give her name. Luna still did not give hers. They understood each other perfectly.
Cinder was waiting at the edge of the quarter when she came out. He had not gone in. Cinder does not go into Ironspire's pre-dawn markets — not because he is afraid of them, but because he has assessed them and concluded that the correct response to this particular environment is to wait outside and let Luna handle it. He is very good at knowing which situations call for a wolf and which call for a dark fairy who grew up understanding that the world has a back door and has been using it since she was old enough to find it.
He fell into step beside her without comment. Ash materialized from somewhere — she always does — and pressed her flank against Luna's leg for exactly three steps before peeling off to investigate something in the gutter that turned out to be nothing, or possibly everything, it was hard to tell with Ash.
Midnight was on the rooftop when they came through the portal. He lowered his great head through the skylight and looked at the gloves on Luna's arm with the expression he reserves for things that are exactly what they appear to be and are not pretending otherwise. He rumbled once. Low. Satisfied.
Ironspire makes terrible things and occasionally, by accident, makes something worth keeping. Luna is very good at knowing the difference.
→ All the Way Up — Black Fingerless Elbow Gloves
More from Luna's domain: The Ashen Plains — World File & Canon Index | Earthsong Enchantress | Dragonforged — Midnight's Domain | The Sacred Flight of the Death Moth
Are these gloves true fingerless or do they have a thumb hole?
Fully fingerless — all five fingers free from the knuckle forward. The glove runs from knuckle to elbow with a lace-up cutout panel down the forearm and solid cuffs at both ends.
What is the lace-up cutout?
A lattice-pattern open panel running the length of the forearm — keeps the arm cool while maintaining the full dark silhouette. The cutout is structural, not decorative. It moves with the arm and holds its shape.
What is Ironspire?
The industrial city far to the east of the Ashen Plains — source of the contaminated river that feeds the Eastern Swamp. Two centuries of bad decisions and a very sophisticated underground economy. Luna shops there. Read the full Ashen Plains canon.
Who is Luna?
Dark fairy living in human form. Black hair, piercing green eyes. Heavy boots. The Attic's authority on everything gothic, dark, and alternative. She does not explain herself. She does not need to.
What will you find?: All the Way Up — Black Fingerless Elbow Gloves