Page 58 of Fierce Highland Magic

"It did not kill us."

"That is a catastrophically low standard."

"It is the market's preferred one."

"You knew this could happen."

"No."

"You knew something could happen."

His jaw tightened.

"Yes."

The admission had no charm around it. That made it worse.

I wiped black water from my hands onto my wet jacket. The water left no mark, but my skin still ached with cold.

"You spent your standing," I said.

He said nothing.

"You spent it after I told you not to."

"I know."

"And the market gave you a path that was technically safe because it was legally obligated to do so, but it made the path useless."

"Yes."

The answer was quiet.

I looked at him.

At the gray line beneath his throat. At the soaked black coat. At the hard, carefully blank expression of a man who had expected his own sacrifice to fix something and had been handed proof that it did not.

A narrow side corridor climbed along the outer wall of the lane, almost invisible behind a stall draped in strips of gray cloth. Unlike the blue-lamp passage, it was dry. A low stone stair rose between two leaning walls toward a pale archway above.

At its mouth sat a woman on a three-legged stool. She was so unremarkable that I had missed her entirely.

Plain brown dress. Gray hair braided down her back. Small hands folded in her lap. No mask. No glittering wares. No gleaming cup or bottle designed to catch the eye. The air near her smelled faintly of damp stone and old rain.

A wooden sign hung beside her.

The letters were stitched in silver thread.

ONE TRUE SOUND

The woman looked at me. "Passage," she said.

Her voice was ordinary. That frightened me more than anything else had.

"What kind of sound?" I asked.

"A sound you know well."

"What do I receive?"