Page 23 of Fierce Highland Magic

"Everyone wants something."

"What does he want from you?"

The fox-faced vendor lifted one gloved finger and tapped the empty scale pan.

I smiled at him. It cost nothing to smile.

Usually.

"An old debt," I said lightly. "He is very patient."

"That is not reassuring."

"It isn't meant to be."

Lyra kept moving.

Good.

That was all I needed. Motion. Refusal. Dawn, eventually.

The pin at her collar flashed. Silver light caught beneath the thistle's tiny leaves, brighter than the lanterns overhead.

Cold moved through my chest.

Recognition flickered—a face almost surfacing—then slid away.

The thistle looked familiar.

It could not be.

It had been too long.

No.

That was not the thought.

There was no too long. No before worth measuring. No memory I was prepared to follow into its proper shape.

I looked away.

The market immediately offered me distractions: a stall of singing knives, a man selling storms in glass jars, the flash of a white mask in the crowd.

Anything but the pin.

Anything but the cold certainty that if I looked at it again, I might understand why it had found her.

"Are you all right?" Lyra asked.

The question was simple.

It landed like a hand against a bruise.

I forced my smile back into place.

"Perfectly."

"You went quiet."