The woman's gaze tracks down to me. Travels from my broken tusk to my scarred arms to the bloodstain on my left boot that I haven't had time to address. Her cigarette droops.
"Magnolia, sweetheart, I hem curtains and let out waistcoats. I don't buildarchitecture."
"He just needs a tux. Standard formal wear."
"His neck is thicker than my dress form. Both my dress forms. Stacked on top of each other." The cigarette tip flares orange. "You need Grimshaw."
The name lands between us like a dropped blade.
Magnolia goes still. "Grimshaw works out of the Hollows."
"Grimshaw works out of wherever Grimshaw pleases, but yes. The Hollows market, third sub-level, past the mushroom vendor and the cursed jewelry stall. He's the only tailor in the city who keeps Orc measurements on file." Tessie takes a long drag. "Tell him I sent you. He owes me for a corset dispute."
The window closes.
Magnolia stares at the dark glass for four seconds. Then she turns to me with an expression I catalog as controlled panic overlaid with aggressive determination.
"The Hollows," she says.
"I know the Hollows."
"Of course you do."
"You don't."
"I've been."
"When?"
"Once. To buy saffron."
"The surface market. Not the sub-levels."
Her jaw works sideways. The flour crescent on her cheek catches lamplight. "How bad is the third sub-level?"
"On a scale of your mother's psychological warfare to actual warfare?"
"Sure."
"Actual warfare. But with better shopping."
She squares her shoulders. The same locked-jaw expression from the shield carry. Edges where softness lives.
"We have ninety minutes before the underground market closes." She starts walking south. Wrong direction. "If your mercenary reputation is as good as that napkin contract suggests, you can keep us both alive in an underground market for thirty minutes."
"Correct direction is north."
She pivots without breaking stride. "I knew that."
She didn't.
The Hollows entrancesits behind a condemned tannery on Bleeker Row. A rusted iron door, no handle on the outside. I knock twice, pause, knock three times. The door swings inwardon greased hinges and a goblin with one eye and exceptional dental work peers up at us from a stool.
"Dash." He grins. All forty teeth. "Bringing a snack?"
"Client."
"Ah." The grin doesn't change. "Ten silver entry. Five for the lady. Three more if she screams."
