Went to the market in the south of the old town yesterday. The real market, not that ridiculous "quaint gifts from Perplex City" market they direct the tourists from the towns to. I love it, it's so grungy, that mixture of old and new. It has almost the feeling of an old town fair, sometimes, with people selling weird bits of carved stone they claim to have fetched up from the catacombs (at enormous personal cost and danger to life and limb, of course). Most of them look so obviously fake that it's kind of funny. At least, it's obvious to me. But that's because I've been down there; there's an entrance underneath my dad's "official Academy residence". We were never allowed down there alone of course, but when Scarlett and I were little, and we nagged him enough, sometimes he'd take us for a walk. And (be jealous, be very jealous) not just the bits they show the tourists, but some other places too. Nothing terribly mysterious, but more of those strange mosaics on the ceilings (how did they get up there? Why those symbols? Weird). I always loved it down there; shame I'm a bit too grown-up to ask my dad to let me have a look round now.