Page 30 of Fierce Highland Magic

His hands were copper-colored. The skin itself had changed—darkened to the color of old pennies, of blood left too long in the air.

A vendor stepped aside as he passed. Then another. A woman in a mask of white feathers actually retreated into her tent and drew the flap shut.

No one spoke to him.

No one looked at him.

"Rowan," I said quietly.

His gaze had already found the figure.

"What happened to him?"

"He took something."

"Everyone here takes something."

"He took without trading."

The figure stumbled past a stall selling glass hearts. The vendor there—a tall creature with too many joints in its fingers—made a sign I didn't recognize and turned away.

"The market marks it," Rowan said. "The hands. You can see what he did."

"What does the mark mean?"

"It means he cannot trade here again. It means the stalls will refuse him. It means—" He stopped.

The figure raised his head.

For one moment, his face turned toward me. Empty. Without anger, or grief, or fright. Just—empty. As if whatever had lived behind those eyes had been scraped out and nothing had moved in to fill the space.

Then he was gone, swallowed by the crowd.

The copper smell hung in the air for another breath.

Then a bell rang.

Once.

The sound came from somewhere deeper in the market, but it filled the thoroughfare like water filling a glass.

A figure emerged from between two tents.

He was tall and thin, dressed in gray that was almost black. His face was weathered, ancient, carved into the expression of a man who had stopped being surprised by anything a very long time ago. In one hand, he held a silver rope. The other hand moved at his side, fingers counting something invisible.

"That's four tonight," he said.

His voice was slow and weighted, spaced like the bells he seemed to serve.

"Four."

He passed within three feet of me.

His eyes moved to my collar—to the pin—and his counting hand paused.

Then he nodded, once, and continued down the thoroughfare.

"That's four tonight, four."