Page 75 of Fierce Highland Magic
Movement would cost more memories now. Passage would cost more. Safety—whatever version of safety the market offered—would cost more.
I had traded my protection for his freedom.
Rowan's hand dropped from the bone counter.
He did not thank me.
His jaw went tight instead. His hands closed at his sides, fingers curling into fists that pressed white against his knuckles. The charm that had carried him through every conversation since the fox-vendor's stall—the warm deflection, the jokes placed carefully over whatever lived beneath them—
Gone.
His face was hard. His shoulders had drawn back, pulled tight beneath his coat.
The fury was physical.
Not at me.
I understood that immediately, the way you understand the shape of a fire by where it isn't burning. His anger was not pointed in my direction. It was pointed everywhere else—at himself for not seeing it, at the market for making me choose, at the whole architecture of a world that made protection into poison.
He stood very still. The amber light from the open passage painted hard shadows beneath his jaw.
"You did not have the right," he said. His voice was quiet. That made it worse.
"No."
"That was mine to spend."
"Yes."
"I did not ask you to—"
"I know."
The words came out clipped. Short. The rhythm my voice always took under pressure, except this pressure was different. This pressure was watching a man discover that his entire method of being in the world had just been refused by someone who had no authority to refuse it.
"You had no idea what stripping the claim would cost you."
"No."
"You could have let me finish."
"No."
"You could have—"
"I could not." The last word landed harder than I intended.
Rowan stopped.
His hands were still fists at his sides. His jaw was still locked. But something in his face had shifted—not softened, but changed. As if he were looking at me and trying to find the version of me he thought he understood, and failing.
"The guest-claim was your protection," he said.
"Yes."
"Now you have none."
"Yes."
