Crystal Candy

Crystal candy is one of the Blare Phagous Artisans' quieter products, and one of their most reliable. It is a refined, Infection-derived compound that glitters in bright, almost cheerful colors, packaged to look harmless: small sachets, glass vials, waxed paper, candy-shell capsules sealed shut. That is the whole trick. It dresses dependency up as something playful right until the drug begins to scoop a person hollow.
  It moves through the Slowboat like a second bloodstream, and there is always a line for it. You can read a buyer's need in their hands, shaking before the purchase and going still after, in a relief that lasts exactly long enough to demand the next dose. Some are rich enough to call it recreation. Others are far past pretending, and for them the transaction looks less like a choice than like paying rent on one more hour of feeling human. The Artisans sell both kinds the same product and let the buyers sort out which they are.