"Then stop walking toward her."
His eyes flick to Magnolia. Back to me. To the ruined clothing rack on the floor. Back to me. The calculations behind those pale eyes are simple arithmetic, the kind even a cave fish can manage. Mass. Force. The distance between his soft body and the door.
"I'll just... pick up my suit another time."
"Good."
He takes another step backward. His shoulder bumps the door frame. He flinches like it burned him.
"Tell Craig I said hey," Magnolia says behind me.
The male's face does something complicated. Anger and humiliation and terror fighting for control of the same small piece of real estate. Terror wins. It always does. He turns, catches his foot on the threshold, stumbles into the corridor of the underground market, and disappears into the crowd at a pace that falls just short of running.
His footsteps fade. The chemical flower smell lingers.
I roll my shoulders. Crack my neck. The adrenaline spike was minimal, barely a flicker on the scale of threats I've processed in years of contract work, but the muscles in my jaw are tight and I have to consciously unclench my teeth. The reaction was disproportionate to the threat level. A soft male in salmon fabric and leather shoes is not a combat scenario. I have faced down armored trolls, enraged basilisks, a Frost Giant chieftain who ate her enemies' kneecaps as a negotiation tactic.
None of them made me want to break something the way that small man's voice did when he stepped toward her.
Irrelevant. File it away. Complete the contract.
I turn to the tailor. Grimshaw stands frozen behind his cutting table, shears in one hand, a length of measuring tapedraped over his shoulder like a dead snake. His four eyes blink in sequence, top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right.
"The suit."
Grimshaw blinks again. All four at once this time. "The... yes. The suit. Your suit. Which is finished. And looks wonderful. Truly my finest?—"
"How much?"
"Ah." He glances at the destroyed clothing rack. "That was antique brass. Dwarven-forged. Circa third age."
"How much for everything."
His lower set of eyes narrows. The upper set stays wide and frightened. It gives his face a lopsided quality, like two different people arguing behind the same skull. "The suit is four hundred gold. The rack... I could perhaps let go for another sixty."
Highway robbery. The rack was worth fifteen at best. Mass-produced gnomish metalwork with a faux-antique patina. I pulled three identical ones out of a raided goblin warehouse last spring.
I reach into my belt pouch and count out the coins. Four hundred for the suit. Twenty for the rack. I stack them on the cutting table in two precise columns.
Grimshaw's mouth opens.
"The rack was gnomish. You know it. I know it." I tap the shorter column. "Twenty is generous."
His mouth closes. All four eyes blink. He sweeps the gold into his cashbox with practiced speed, the coins vanishing like startled minnows. "A pleasure doing business with you, sir. Do come again. Perhaps through a door that is not adjacent to any of my remaining fixtures."
I gather the suit, folded in dark enchanted silk that has finally stopped fighting and now lies docile as a sleeping cat. I drape it over my arm. The fabric is cool against my skin and humswith a faint residual magic, a low vibration like a purring animal accepting its new master.
I turn back to Magnolia.
She stands exactly where I left her. Fists still balled at her sides. Chin up. Spine straight. But her eyes are bright and wet and her lower lip has a barely visible tremor that she is fighting with every ounce of will in her small, stubborn body.
She smells like bread and fury and something sweet underneath that I cannot name.
"We should move."
Magnolia blinks. The wet brightness in her eyes retreats behind a wall of forced composure so fast it's almost military. She unclenches her fists. Smooths her palms down the front of her vintage dress, a pale blue thing covered in tiny printed flowers that has somehow survived the underground market, the hellhound stampede, and a wrestling match with sentient fabric without a single tear. Impressive structural integrity. I make a mental note to ask about the manufacturer.
"Right. Yes. Moving. That's what we're doing." She snatches her bag off the tailor's counter and slings it over her shoulder with more force than necessary. "Thank you, Grimshaw. The suit is gorgeous. Sorry about the, um?—"
