Magnolia fishes coins from her purse with steady hands. Drops them into his palm without flinching.
"I don't scream," she says.
The goblin pockets the coins. "They all say that."
The staircase descends. First sub-level: potions, powders, stolen goods arranged on velvet cloth under floating witch-lights. Magnolia keeps pace. Second sub-level: weapons dealers, a fighting pit, something that smells like burning hair and tastes like copper when I breathe through my mouth.
Magnolia's hand finds my belt. Two fingers hooked through a loop at my hip. She doesn't ask permission. Doesn't acknowledge the gesture. Her face stays forward, scanning, cataloging threats the way a civilian does, which is to say, too slowly and with too much eye contact.
"Stop looking directly at the vendors."
"Why?"
"Eye contact is a purchase agreement on the second level."
Her gaze drops to my back. Stays there.
Third sub-level.
The noise hits first. A roar of commerce and conflict compressed into a city block-sized cavern. Stalls carved into stone walls, three tiers high, connected by rope bridges and wooden ladders. Torch smoke hangs in a yellow haze. The crowd is dense. Orcs, trolls, goblins, a cluster of dark elves haggling over what appears to be a human skeleton wearing a party hat.
Magnolia's fingers tighten on my belt.
"Mushroom vendor," I say. "Eleven o'clock. Cursed jewelry at two o'clock. Grimshaw should be directly past--"
A horn blast. Low and guttural, vibrating through the stone floor.
The crowd splits.
Not casually. Violently. Bodies slamming into walls, vendors yanking merchandise off tables, a troll physically throwing a goblin into an overhead rope net. The stampede pattern is unmistakable. I've seen it in battlefield retreats and monster runs.
Hellhounds.
A pack of six bursts through the south tunnel entrance. Black-furred, shoulder height of four feet, flames licking between their teeth and dripping onto the stone like liquid amber. Their handler, a massive hobgoblin with a broken chain in each fist, screams commands they ignore entirely.
They barrel straight up the main corridor.
Straight toward us.
I grab Magnolia.
Both hands around her waist. I lift her clean off the ground and pull her flush against me, spinning us into a stone alcove between two stalls. My back hits the wall. Her body presses against mine, feet dangling six inches above the floor. I curl around her. Shield position. My shoulders block the alcove entrance.
The pack thunders past. Heat rolls off them in waves that singe the hair on my forearms. Magnolia's face buries against my collarbone. Her breath comes fast and hot through the fabric of my vest. One hand grips my shirt. The other grips a throwing knife she pulled from my chest harness at some point during the lift.
The hellhounds pass. The screaming fades. Commerce resumes with unsettling speed.
I look down.
She looks up.
Her brown eyes are wide. Pupils dilated. Pulse visible in her throat, hammering. The flour crescent has transferred from her cheek to my vest, a small white smudge against black leather.
She's still holding my knife.
"You can put me down now."
"You're holding my knife."
