Page 69 of Fierce Highland Magic

"A little glamour. A widened path. A gentler curve at the right moment."

"And how would you know that?"

"Because I drove two hours without seeing a sign for Achnashee, and then suddenly the only road left led straight to it."

Ailith's smile deepened.

"You see clearly when you choose to."

"I see what is in front of me."

"Do you? Or do you see only what you have decided is safe to price?"

The words hit before I could block them.

Rowan stirred beside me.

"Enough," he said. "She has answered your questions. She does not owe you her entire method of survival."

"No," Ailith agreed. "She does not."

Her green eyes held mine.

"But I wonder, Lyra—how long have you been pricing everything before you let yourself feel it?"

My hand closed around the thistle. "That is not your concern."

"No. It is yours." The gentleness in her voice was worse than accusation.

"You are very tired," Ailith said again. "You have been carrying that a long while, haven't you?"

The words went through me like cold water. Because they were true.

I had been carrying it. The pricing. The hedging. The refusal to want anything without first knowing what losing it would cost. I had been carrying it since Daniel, since the posting I turned down, since the moment I learned that a want spoken aloud was a lever someone else could use.

Eight years. Eight years of arriving everywhere pre-armored. Eight years of genuinely wanting nothing, because wanting nothing was the only way to lose nothing.

And this woman I had never met looked at me and named it like she had been watching the whole time.

"I am offering you rest," Ailith said. "Not a bargain. Not a trade. Only a place where you do not have to keep fighting every door alone."

The Pavilion's warmth reached me from somewhere beyond the yews. Tea. Dry clothes. Walls that didn't listen.

For one breath, I wanted it so badly my chest ached.

The thistle went cold against my palm.

I dropped my hand.

"No," I said.

Ailith did not look disappointed.

That frightened me most of all.

"No," I repeated, because my voice had weakened around the word. "I am not going anywhere with you. Not tonight."

"Not tonight," Ailith agreed.