Page 61 of Fierce Highland Magic

The realization didn't make me feel clever. It made me cold.

"What did you just do?" I asked.

His smile returned.

It was thin, polished, and utterly without warmth.

"Poorly," he said. "I did it poorly." Then he walked ahead.

I followed because the path behind us had vanished.

But I didn't laugh.

Chapter Nine

Lyra

"You paid something back there, and it didn't work, so seventy-thirty you're about to do it again."

Rowan stopped beneath the silver birches.

The path ahead curved away through the market's older quarter, lit by lanterns that hung from the branches like pale fruit. Their light lay broken across wet stone. Below the ridge, Blue-Lamp Lane had vanished beneath the press of tents and black water, leaving no sign that we had spent nearly an hour walking a passage that went nowhere.

Rowan turned slowly.

"You do make accusations in a remarkably organized fashion."

"That wasn't an accusation."

"No?"

"It was a forecast."

"Ah." His mouth tipped upward. "Then I feel much safer."

"You should not."

The silver leaves above us shifted without wind. Each one showed green on one side, silver on the other, turning restlessly as though they couldn't decide which version of themselves to be.

Rowan leaned one shoulder against the nearest trunk.

His coat had dried too quickly after the black-water lane. The fabric looked untouched now, except for a dark line at the hem. His throat didn't look untouched.

The pale mark beneath his collar had faded, but I could still trace it when the lantern light moved: a thin gray-white line running from below his ear into the open edge of his coat.

A ledger written directly onto his skin.

"You told me not to pay for you," he said.

"Yes."

"And then I paid for passage."

"Yes."

"And then it was a poor purchase."

"Catastrophically poor."