DASH
The small human male smells like chemical flowers and fear.
Mostly fear now.
His pupils have blown wide, black swallowing the pale blue, and his mouth hangs open in a wet oval that reminds me of a stunned cave fish.
A bead of sweat traces a line from his temple to his jaw.
His body knows what his brain hasn't caught up to yet.
His body understands that he is standing six feet from something that could fold him in half like a letter and mail him to whatever gods his people pray to.
I open my hand. Let the crushed brass fall.
It hits the stone floor with a flat, dead clang.
"You— You can't just—"
I straighten to my full height.
His mouth closes.
Smart.
"The female asked you a question. She said she is in the middle of something."
"I wasn't—" He takes one step backward. His ridiculous shoe catches on a bolt of enchanted silk that Grimshaw left coiled on the floor and his arms pinwheel.
He grabs the door frame. Steadies himself.
The fear-smell sharpens, turns acrid, cuts through the cologne like a blade through lard.
"Listen, big guy, I don't want any trouble. "
"Then stop walking toward her."
His eyes flick to Magnolia. Back to me. To the ruined clothing rack on the floor. Back to me. The calculations behind those pale eyes are simple arithmetic, the kind even a cave fish can manage. Mass. Force. The distance between his soft body and the door.
"I'll just... pick up my suit another time."
"Good."
He takes another step backward. His shoulder bumps the door frame. He flinches like it burned him.
"Tell Craig I said hey," Magnolia says behind me.
The male's face does something complicated.
Anger and humiliation and terror fighting for control of the same small piece of real estate.
Terror wins. It always does. He turns, catches his foot on the threshold, stumbles into the corridor of the underground market, and disappears into the crowd at a pace that falls just short of running.
His footsteps fade. The chemical flower smell lingers.
I roll my shoulders. Crack my neck. The adrenaline spike was minimal, barely a flicker on the scale of threats I've processed in years of contract work, but the muscles in my jaw are tight and I have to consciously unclench my teeth.
The reaction was disproportionate to the threat level.
A soft male in salmon fabric and leather shoes is not a combat scenario.
I have faced down armored trolls, enraged basilisks, a Frost Giant chieftain who ate her enemies' kneecaps as a negotiation tactic.
None of them made me want to break something the way that small man's voice did when he stepped toward her.
Irrelevant. File it away. Complete the contract.
I turn to the tailor. Grimshaw stands frozen behind his cutting table, shears in one hand, a length of measuring tape draped over his shoulder like a dead snake. His four eyes blink in sequence, top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right.
"The suit."
Grimshaw blinks again. All four at once this time. "The... yes. The suit. Your suit. Which is finished. And looks wonderful. Truly my finest—"
"How much?"
"Ah." He glances at the destroyed clothing rack. "That was antique brass. Dwarven-forged. Circa third age."
"How much for everything."
His lower set of eyes narrows. The upper set stays wide and frightened. It gives his face a lopsided quality, like two different people arguing behind the same skull. "The suit is four hundred gold. The rack... I could perhaps let go for another sixty."
Highway robbery. The rack was worth fifteen at best. Mass-produced gnomish metalwork with a faux-antique patina. I pulled three identical ones out of a raided goblin warehouse last spring.
I reach into my belt pouch and count out the coins. Four hundred for the suit. Twenty for the rack. I stack them on the cutting table in two precise columns.
Grimshaw's mouth opens.
"The rack was gnomish. You know it. I know it." I tap the shorter column. "Twenty is generous."
His mouth closes. All four eyes blink. He sweeps the gold into his cashbox with practiced speed, the coins vanishing like startled minnows. "A pleasure doing business with you, sir. Do come again. Perhaps through a door that is not adjacent to any of my remaining fixtures."
I gather the suit, folded in dark enchanted silk that has finally stopped fighting and now lies docile as a sleeping cat. I drape it over my arm. The fabric is cool against my skin and hums with a faint residual magic, a low vibration like a purring animal accepting its new master.
I turn back to Magnolia.
She stands exactly where I left her. Fists still balled at her sides. Chin up. Spine straight. But her eyes are bright and wet and her lower lip has a barely visible tremor that she is fighting with every ounce of will in her small, stubborn body.
She smells like bread and fury and something sweet underneath that I cannot name.
"We should move."
Magnolia blinks. The wet brightness in her eyes retreats behind a wall of forced composure so fast it's almost military.
She unclenches her fists. Smooths her palms down the front of her vintage dress, a pale blue thing covered in tiny printed flowers that has somehow survived the underground market, the hellhound stampede, and a wrestling match with sentient fabric without a single tear.
Impressive structural integrity. I make a mental note to ask about the manufacturer.
"Right. Yes. Moving. That's what we're doing." She snatches her bag off the tailor's counter and slings it over her shoulder with more force than necessary. "Thank you, Grimshaw. The suit is gorgeous. Sorry about the, um—"
She gestures at the crushed brass carcass on the floor.
Grimshaw waves a long-fingered hand. All four eyes have settled into a neutral, transactional calm. "I have already forgotten it, dear. Please never return."
"Fair."
She marches past me toward the shop entrance. The top of her head reaches my sternum. She doesn't look up. Doesn't slow down. Her shoulders are a rigid line under the blue fabric and her steps are quick and sharp, the heels of her shoes cracking against the stone floor like tiny hammer strikes.
I follow. The underground market swallows us immediately.
Stalls packed tight on both sides, draped in enchanted tarps that shift color with the ambient mood of the crowd.
Right now everything pulses a dull, irritable orange.
A kobold selling cursed jewelry shrieks at a centaur blocking his display.
Two goblins argue over a crate of what appears to be pickled eyeballs.
The smell is dense. Sulfur, roasted meat, tanned leather, and the sharp mineral tang of raw gemstones.
Magnolia weaves through the crowd with surprising efficiency.
She ducks under a minotaur's arm, sidesteps a puddle of something luminous and green, and squeezes between two ogre merchants without breaking stride.
She moves like someone who navigates tight spaces for a living. Kitchen spaces. A bakery.
I clear a wider path simply by existing.
The crowd parts. Merchants pull their wares closer. A halfling vendor yanks his entire display cart backward so fast it tips and sends a cascade of bottled potions rolling across the cobblestones. Nobody makes eye contact.
Good.
We climb the winding stone staircase to street level. Late afternoon sunlight hits my face, thin and golden, and after the underground market's torchlit amber it stings. Magnolia squints. Pulls round sunglasses from her bag and pushes them onto her face. They have tiny daisies on the frames.
She still hasn't spoken about the male. Mark. The groomsmen.
I don't ask. The contract parameters, written on a blood-stained napkin currently folded in my belt pouch, do not include emotional debriefing.
They include: attend all wedding events as her romantic partner, maintain physical proximity at all times, present a united and convincing front, and under no circumstances eat any of the wedding guests.
The last point she had underlined three times.
"Van's this way." Magnolia hooks a left down a narrow side street lined with overflowing dumpsters and fire escapes. Halfway down the block, wedged between a dented sedan and a brick wall, sits the smallest vehicle I have ever seen in my life.
White. Rounded. Cheerful in a way that borders on aggressive. The side panel reads Magnolia's in looping pink script, with a painted cupcake underneath that has a small frosted smile. Below that, in smaller letters: Artisan Bakes & Custom Cakes.
Magnolia pulls keys from her bag, unlocks the passenger door, and swings it open with a practiced yank that suggests the hinge sticks. "Hop in."
I look at the seat. I look at the van. I look at the seat again.
The interior is clean but packed. A stack of pink bakery boxes sits on the back bench.
The dashboard is cluttered with receipts, a bobblehead cat with one missing ear, and a half-eaten granola bar.
The passenger seat itself is upholstered in gray fabric with a suspicious flour handprint on the headrest.
The ceiling clearance is roughly four feet.
"You're joking."
"I'm not joking. Get in the van, Dash."
I lay the folded suit across the bakery boxes in the back with care the enchanted silk deserves.
Then I face the door. Angle my right shoulder in first. Duck my head until my chin nearly touches me.
Wedge my torso through the frame. My left horn scrapes the ceiling with a sound like a knife on ceramic and leaves a shallow groove in the fabric liner.
"Oh, come on, that's—I just got that reupholstered."
I drop into the seat. My knees hit the dashboard. The glove compartment pops open from the impact and vomits a cascade of napkins, pen caps, and a single rubber spatula onto my shins. The seat groans beneath my weight and sinks a full three inches, metal springs crying out in protest.