Midnight was an unreasonable hour for business. It was cold, damp, and generally the sort of time associated with people who had poor morals, worse schedules, and an unfortunate attachment to hidden alleys. Respectable merchants slept at midnight. Respectable nobles slept at midnight. Respectable Grand Dukes, after a day spent dealing with a hidden mouth beneath the Capital, a terrified child with too many memories, a corrupt orphanage dean, and a priest whose silence had been branded into his soul, should absolutely have been asleep at midnight too.
Unfortunately, Fate had requested a meeting. And in the Capital, one did not ignore a person called Fate, not for philosophical reasons, but because she owned the Black Market. There was a practical difference.
