“It’s a mud trap, Juliette.”
“I’ll take my chances with the logistics.”
She stepped onto the least suspicious patch of ground.
The ground didn't just give way—it liquefied. The shelf of silt vanished beneath her boots. There was a wet, heavy thwack.
Then silence.
For a heartbeat, she froze—a strategist realizing the market had just shifted. Then gravity took over.
Juliette Wilder—negotiator, professional optimizer—slid three feet down the slope and landed squarely in the muck.
The group went silent.
Well, shit.
She sat there for a moment, perfectly still. No flailing. No gasping. She just stared at the point where the bank had failed her.
Then she brushed a strand of hair off her face and looked up at me. “The slope angle,” she said, her voice as calm as a recorded deposition, “combined with the soil saturation created an unexpected shift in traction.”
I stared at her.
“That’s a lot of words for a woman who just ate a mouthful of riverbank.”
She didn't flinch. “And you’re spending a lot of time standing up there enjoying the view. Are you going to help me up, or just keep scouting the wreckage?”
I laughed. Raw. Wrong for a guided tour.
Didn't care.
Juliette watched me like I was a new species. “You’re enjoying this,” she said.
“Immensely.”
The guide offered a hand. She took it, mud streaking one leg.
She should have looked ridiculous. She looked furious, filthy, and beautiful enough to make my judgment unreliable.
“Well,” she said, brushing her palms. “If anyone asks, this was field research.”
“You learn fast.”
“I prefer controlled environments.”
“You chose poorly.”
She glanced at the mud. “I’m starting to notice.”
A sound rose from the mud beside her boot, low and wet and deeply unimpressed.
Juliette went still. “Tell me that was a bird.”
I looked down.
An African bullfrog sat half-submerged in the muck, broad as a salad plate and wearing the expression of a retiredmagistrate who had seen enough procedural incompetence for one morning.
“Bullfrog,” I said.
