Page 57 of Fierce Highland Magic

The water had reached his waist. It had reached mine. The pale shapes moved beneath us in slow, circling patterns. Not breaking the vendor's promise.

Safe enough.

We were not drowning. We were merely being held.

I turned toward the entrance arch.

"Back," I said.

Rowan's face went hard. Then he nodded once.

We moved.

The water resisted. Not dramatically. No hands dragged at us. No current knocked us down. Each backward step simply took more effort than it should have. The black surface clung to my legs like cold cloth. The pale shapes shifted beneath us, keeping pace, guiding us away from the exit that had never moved.

My lungs burned by the time I reached the first arch.

When I stepped onto dry cobbles again, I nearly stumbled. Rowan emerged a second later.

Water poured from his coat and boots, but it didn't pool on the stones. It slid backward into the lane in thin black streams, as though the passage resented releasing even that much of us.

Behind him, the blue lamps dimmed. The far arch vanished. There was only black water beyond the entrance now.

The lane hadn't been a crossing. It had been a delay with good lighting.

A bell rang. Once. The sound cut through the market. Every blue lamp shivered.

The water in the lane went still.

Then the Keeper's voice rolled through the thoroughfare, thin and weighted, coming from somewhere I couldn't see.

"That's seven tonight."

A pause.

"Seven."

The number lodged beneath my ribs. Six, when I had stood with Nessa and watched the bell gather itself in the air. Seven, now.

The market's night was shortening. The bells were coming closer together. Somewhere, someone else had reached the point where a bargain finalized and a person became another counted thing.

Rowan looked toward the sound.

His hand closed at his side. A restraint.

I followed his gaze through the crowd, searching for the fox-vendor's red mask.

For a moment, I caught it between two stalls: the long lacquered muzzle, the fixed black smile, the white glove raised in a small mockery of a wave.

Then a lantern swung in the windless air. The vendor was gone.

"This is what you bought?" I asked.

Rowan didn't look at me.

"A passage."

"It didn't take us through."