Chapter 11 Mav
MAV
The marketplace hit us all at once: color, noise, and hundreds of scents vying for attention.
Vendors lined both sides of cobbled lanes, shouting over one another in a dozen dialects.
Spices burned the back of my throat as we passed one stall.
Another had silks strung between poles, catching the breeze and flashing impossible shades of turquoise, coral, and magenta.
A merchant roasted skewers of honey-lacquered meat over open coals while a toothless woman sold candied fruit shaped into miniature beasts.
A caged flock of mimic birds shrieked out stolen gossip—“He’s not even her real husband!
” and “That’s not soup, that’s swamp!”—until their seller thumped the bars and hissed for silence.
Somehow, Quinn drew more stares than anything else.
People couldn’t help but look. Even in Branrir’s overly large clothing, she held herself with more regality than I’d wager this town had seen in years.
She kept close, scanning the stalls, fingertips occasionally brushing the weave of a scarf or trailing over glass beads with hesitant awe.
The world seemed to surprise her continually.
Perhaps it did after a century of change.
I tried not to notice how many heads turned as she passed.
Tried harder not to notice how beautiful she looked in the light.
“We’ll gather the necessities,” Branrir announced, rattling off a list. “Tents, dried goods, travel ink, maps, canteens, salve for saddle sores. Thistle, you’ll handle the bargaining.”
“I always do.” She braced her hands on her curved hips.
“I’ll oversee the quality,” Vesper purred from his perch on Thistle’s shoulder.
Branrir chuffed. “Of course you will.”
“And us?” I asked, though I already assumed the answer.
“She needs clothing from this century.” Branrir waggled a finger at us.
“Why can’t you go with Quinn?” I asked, leaning close to Thistle.
She frowned at me. “Because even if I went with you, doesn’t that tether mean you have to stay together anyway?”
And though I knew she was right, I couldn’t halt the grumble that followed.
Thistle tossed me a pouch of coin. “Don’t let her come back looking like a royal ghost.”
“Hey!” I objected. “She’s not the only one here with a reputation.”
“Yours could only stand to improve,” Vesper quipped.
They disappeared into the crowd before I could argue. Quinn didn’t laugh, but the corner of her mouth tugged upward.
Now I had to help her find clothes while pretending I wasn’t memorizing every time her hair caught the wind.
This was going to be a long day.
Quinn eyed a rack of dresses; a tactical problem she hadn’t quite solved. Before I could offer help—or make things worse—a vendor with the largest mustache I’d ever seen swooped in with a flurry of questions about fabric, fit, and “appropriate modesty for a young lady on the road.”
That left me standing awkwardly beside the changing stall as Quinn was handed an armful of options and vanished behind a curtain that looked one gust of wind away from surrendering to gravity.
I leaned one shoulder against the post beside the changing stall, pretending I wasn’t counting the heartbeats between the sound of fabric rustling and silence.
Deeper in the market, patrons haggled over dried fish. A bell clanged. None of it touched me. My entire world had narrowed to a thin sheet hung on a rickety rod, hiding Quinn from view.
I hated how aware I was of her on the other side.
Her soft footfalls on the creaky boards.
The faint hiss of her breath when she tugged at something too tight.
A quiet murmur I couldn’t make out—maybe cursing at buttons, maybe cursing me for standing out here like an idiot.
I should’ve moved. Given her space. Found an excuse to study a rack of cloaks across the aisle or argued with the shopkeeper over the price of satin.
But my boots stayed planted, arms folded, guarding the entrance to a cloth sanctum I had no business defending.
The shopkeeper gave me the look of a man who’d seen this kind of trouble a hundred times.
He puffed at his pipe and offered no comment.
Probably saving his breath for when he overcharged us later.
The curtain whispered as Quinn shifted inside.
Locking my arms across my chest, I exhaled low and slow. This was ridiculous. I was being ridiculous. We were here to buy clothes, not think about the fact that if I closed my eyes, I could picture the pale slope of her shoulder perfectly. I could summon the melody of her laugh from memory.
I was in trouble, and the worst part? I didn’t want to be saved.
The curtain rustled, then drew back.
I choked.
Quinn emerged in what could only be described as the outfit’s foundational layer.
A thin linen shift glided over every curve, making it abundantly clear this was not the final look.
It brushed the tops of her knees. Her arms were bare.
Her freckle-dusted shoulders caught the sunlight. And she looked…
Saints.
She looked like she’d waltzed out of a portrait you kept hidden beneath your bed instead of hung on your wall.
“Uh,” I croaked, dragging my gaze upward with the kind of mental force usually reserved for battlefield strategy. “That is the base layer.”
She blinked. “I do not understand.”
I gestured vaguely, doing everything in my power to maintain eye contact. “The shift. The chemise. Whatever you want to call it. That’s…the part that goes under everything else.”
Her face went scarlet.
“Oh,” she gasped. Then flustered, she muttered, “This century is needlessly complicated.”
She vanished behind the curtain so fast she nearly took it with her.I turned away and let out a long breath through my teeth, pressing a knuckle to my temple.
The tether gave a sharp bite of heat, the sensation of too-hot tea burning my tongue.
I knew she wasn’t mine— not in any romantic sense.
But Saints help me, I couldn’t stop the protective urge that flared every time someone’s gaze lingered too long.
Maybe it was the tether’s doing. Truthfully, I could’ve been fully to blame. I’d always been the jealous sort.
The curtain rustled again.
“I’m warning you,” I began, averting my gaze, “if you come out in less fabric this time—”
The curtain stilled. A beat. “Very funny,” she said, and somehow made it sound like a promise I had no business hoping for.
When she stepped out again, she was in a soft green dress, fitted at the waist, flaring at the hips. She turned slowly, examining her reflection in a dusty mirror.
“Well?” she asked, voice carefully neutral.
I cleared my throat. “That one works.”
Her mouth twitched. “You didn’t even look.”
“Oh, I looked.”
She tried on a second—lighter, looser, the pale blue of river glass. Her arms lifted, fingers turning in front of her as she spun. It swished barely above the knee and made her look—
Well.
Like trouble.
The good kind.
“Too breezy?” she asked.
“Only if the goal is to spark a scandal on horseback.”
She shook her head and disappeared again. We continued this cycle of fitting and feedback across every option the vendor offered, from dresses to boots to cloaks. The last outfit she tried was a simple sleep set: drawstring trousers and a loose cream blouse. She stepped out looking oddly proud.
“No more stealing your tunic,” she said, giving me a pointed look.
I shrugged, trying to make my genuine disappointment appear nonchalant. “Pity. It looked very good on you.”
She gave a smug half-smile. “You are absurd.”
I grinned, lips twitching. “Not wrong, though.”
The borrowed tunic would look even better crumpled on the floor. Preferably with her still wearing that smug little half-smile.
Stop it, Bassiano.
Before I could spiral any further, a pile of dresses and clothing smacked into my chest. I wrapped my arms around them and looked up to see her smirking as she breezed past me to the shopkeeper.
“I would like to purchase these items, please,” she said.
The mustached man nodded, clearly pleased with the coin and unconcerned with my commentary. I followed a few steps behind, wondering when exactly I’d become the kind of man who enjoyed watching a woman shop for clothes.
Actually, no.
I knew exactly when.
About twenty minutes ago, when she walked out of the dressing room like a daydream in a scrap of linen.
I laid her many intended purchases on the counter, half-convinced the shopkeeper was about to adopt her.
Quinn insisted on carrying her bundle of purchases, but could hardly see around them, leaving me the honor of becoming her pack mule.
I hadn’t considered adding ‘beast of burden’ to my short list of mediocre accomplishments, but now I truly didn’t mind.
We drifted past fruit carts and fortune-tellers, a trio of aspiring musicians mangling a jig at the corner.
She glanced sideways at me, thoughtful. “That book Branrir showed us, it did not appear to be handwritten.”
“It wasn’t.”
Quinn stared at me as if I’d claimed the sky was purple.
I jerked my chin toward a red-brick shop wedged between a bakery and a candle stall.
“Come on,” I said. “Time for a different sort of magic.”
A brass plaque hung askew over the door, engraved with curling script: The Ink Press. The windows were fogged with steam and lined with stacks of parchment.
She followed, hesitant at first but quickening as we neared the door.
The moment I opened it, a cacophony rushed out to meet us—mechanical clanks, rhythmic stamping, and the hiss of boiling water.
The heated air was laden with ink and the acrid bite of heated metal.
Inside, the room pulsed with clatter and motion.
At its heart, a massive machine ruled the space: a cast-iron beast of pistons, levers, and gears moving in perfect symphony as two apprentices worked the plates with choreographed grace.
Her eyes went wide. Awe, real awe, spread across her face like sunlight.