Page 50 of Fierce Highland Magic

Rowan's standing.

The thing the market had been taking from him in bright lines beneath his skin.

"Rowan."

He looked at me. Just directly at me, one dark brow lifting beneath the black curls dampened by the market's silver rain.

"It's nearly done," he said.

"That isn't a defense."

"No," he agreed. "It's an observation."

The silver gathered faster.

The line at his throat flared cold-white, bright enough to paint hard shadows beneath his jaw. His mouth tightened once, almost invisibly.

I took a step forward. The fox-vendor turned his mask toward me.

"Careful, traveler," he said. His voice came warm and soft from behind the painted smile. "A bargain disturbed mid-closing may become uncertain in ways no one enjoys."

My feet stopped, unsure. The market had rules. I had learned that much. Gratitude made debt. Wanting could make a person visible. Taking marked you. Giving freely did something the market disliked enough to notice.

But interrupting a half-made trade?

There were no odds to assign when the possible outcomes included accidentally selling your name, your future, or the memory of your own hands.

I hated not having odds.

"What are you buying?" I asked Rowan.

His gaze stayed on mine.

"Passage."

"For whom?"

"That question contains a trap."

"Answer it anyway."

The fox-vendor's scale tipped.

The empty pan sank beneath Rowan's hand.

A bell-like note rang from the metal, soft and beautiful and final.

The silver light vanished.

Rowan's hand slipped from the scale.

For a second, he stood very still.

The pale line at his throat dimmed from white to a thin bruised gray. It did not disappear. It looked smaller somehow, less certain of its place beneath his skin.

The fox-vendor bowed.

"Blue-Lamp Lane," he said. "A clear crossing to the Old Quarter. You will find the passage safe enough."