MAGNOLIA #2
He pulls back with the harness. Steps away. The air rushes into the space he vacated and it tastes thin.
Grimshaw clears his throat from somewhere around knee height.
"That'll be four hundred gold for the suit. Sixty for the show."
I dig into my purse for Grimshaw's payment, face still burning, fingers clumsy against the coin purse. Four hundred for the suit. Sixty for the show. Highway robbery and worth every copper.
"I don't do shows," Dash says behind me. The weapon harness clinks as he threads it under the jacket. Grimshaw designed hidden loops into the silk lining. Of course he did. The kobold thinks of everything.
"You absolutely do shows." Grimshaw scrambles up his platform to adjust the harness placement. "That was a textbook slow approach with a double cuff roll. I've been tailoring for mercenaries for forty years. You knew exactly what you were doing."
Dash says nothing. Which is its own kind of answer.
I count out the gold with shaking fingers and stack it on Grimshaw's workbench.
The coins wobble. My hands need to get their act together immediately because we have a two-hour drive to Silverleaf and I cannot show up at my sister's rehearsal dinner vibrating like a tuning fork because an orc adjusted his sleeves at me.
The bell above the shop door chimes.
Not a gentle chime. Grimshaw's bell is a chunk of enchanted bronze that screams a single piercing note whenever someone crosses the threshold. It bounces off the stone walls and rattles the pin cushions.
I don't look up. I'm counting gold. I'm busy. Focused. Completely unbothered.
"Well, well, well."
Every muscle in my body locks.
That voice. Nasal. Smug. Pitched at that specific frequency designed to make my skin crawl backward off my skeleton. I know that voice the way you know the sound of a smoke alarm. Not because it's pleasant, but because it's seared into your nervous system through repeated exposure to disaster.
I turn around.
Mark Gunderson stands in the doorway of Grimshaw's Bespoke Fittings like he owns the place.
Like he owns every place. He's got that stance, the one where his chest puffs out and his chin lifts and his legs spread slightly too wide, a man who watched one too many alpha male podcasts and built a personality around it.
Khaki shorts. Boat shoes. A salmon polo with the collar popped.
In an underground monster market. The audacity is almost impressive.
"Magnolia Jenkins." He grins. All teeth. "Picking up my groomsman suit and I find you skulking around down here. Small world."
Not Mark. Anyone but Mark.
Mark Gunderson. Todd's college roommate. Todd's groomsman. The one who knew about Craig cheating with Jade for five months and said nothing.
The one who cornered me at Petunia's engagement party and told me I should be grateful Craig dated me at all because, and I quote, "guys like Craig don't usually go for girls who smell like bread."
I smell like bread because I own a bakery. I smell like bread because I built a business from nothing with my own flour-dusted hands. I smell like bread because bread is delicious and Mark Gunderson can choke on a baguette.
"Mark."
"You look..." His eyes travel down my torn dress, my wild hair, the rope burns on my arm. "Rough."
"I'm in the middle of something."
"I can see that." He takes a step into the shop. His eyes slide past me. Land on Dash. Slide back to me. Something ugly flickers across his face, a quick calculation, the gears of a small mind turning. "So the rumor's true. You actually brought a monster to Petunia's wedding."
The word lands like a slap. Not against me. Against the six-foot-nine wall of armed orc standing three feet behind me.
"His name is Dash."
"Right. Dash." Mark says it the way you'd say the name of someone's imaginary friend. Patronizing. Dripping. He takes another step forward and his boat shoes squeak on the stone floor. "Craig told me you'd pulled something desperate but I didn't think you'd go full freak show."
My hands ball into fists at my sides.
"Does your mom know?" Another step. He's close now. Close enough that I can smell his cologne, something expensive and chemical that makes my eyes water. "Because I'm pretty sure Aunt Delphine is gonna have a stroke when you walk in with—"
"She's not your aunt."
"She likes me better than she likes you, Maggie." He grins wider. Leans in. "Everyone does."
Something moves behind me.
Not a sound. A displacement of air. The ambient temperature in the shop spikes three degrees and the enchanted lanterns on the walls flicker in unison, their flames bending toward the sudden gravitational shift of something massive changing posture.
Mark's grin falters.
I step sideways. Just enough to see.
Dash has dropped low. Not a crouch, not a lean.
A stance. Weight distributed across both feet, center of gravity sunk, shoulders squared and angled forty-five degrees toward Mark like a siege engine locking onto a gate.
His right hand hangs open at his side, fingers loose, the tendons in his forearm standing out like bridge cables.
His left hand finds the brass clothing rack next to Grimshaw's platform. Solid brass. An inch-thick pipe bolted to a weighted iron base.
His fingers close around it.
The metal screams.
Not bends. Not dents. The thick brass pipe collapses flat between his fingers like wet cardboard, crushed into a ribbon of compressed metal that curls around his fist. The sound is high and sharp, a shriek of molecular surrender, and it echoes through the shop for three full seconds.
Dash holds the ruined brass in his fist and stares into Mark's eyes.
He doesn't blink.
Mark's face pales.