Page 84 of Fierce Highland Magic

The market did not stop feeding because we needed time. The market never stopped.

Lyra's pace had not slowed. Her attention stayed forward, on the path, on the calculation that lived behind her eyes. She had heard the count. She had added the numbers. She was still moving.

I followed.

The tents here were older. Faded. The fabric had lost whatever color it once held, and the vendors who stood behind their counters had the patient stillness of people who had stopped expecting customers and started expecting something else.

A figure stepped from behind a stall.

Nessa.

Her hands were fists at her sides, knuckles white. Her breathing came short—fast and shallow, the rhythm of someone who could feel the edge of a cliff beneath her feet.

She looked different. The flat cheer that had carried her through every conversation was gone, replaced by something sharper. Something that had edges. Her eyes were wide, and there was fear in them—actual fear, the kind that required courage to feel.

Lyra had bought that back. At the hinge. With her mother's face.

"You're going to the center," Nessa said.

"Yes," Lyra said.

"To the Heart-Lantern."

"Yes."

Nessa's hands twisted at her sides. The fear was visible in her whole body now—the tension in her shoulders, the way she held herself as if bracing for something.

"If you break it," she said. "If you destroy it instead of—"

She stopped. Started again.

"The binding doesn't release. If the market burns, the binding tightens. Everyone who's been claimed stays claimed. Forever."

The words landed like stones.

I had not known that. I had assumed—hoped—that if the worst happened, if Lyra could not restore the old fair, she could at least burn this one down. Walk away from the ashes. Leave the corruption behind.

But the corruption would not burn.

The corruption would only tighten.

"Restoration," Lyra said. "Not destruction."

"Yes." Nessa's voice cracked on the word. "Please. I can want things again. I can be afraid again. But if the market breaks instead of heals—"

"I understand."

Two words. No hedge. No calculation.

Nessa's hands stilled.

She looked at Lyra for a long moment. Then she turned and walked back into the space between stalls, disappearing the way the Green Woman had—just absent, the fear she carried written in the air she left behind.

The stakes had changed. It required precision. The market had to be healed, not destroyed. The old fair had to be restored, not replaced. One wrong move and everyone who had ever been bound would stay bound forever.

Lyra's jaw was tight. She did not speak. We kept walking.

The light continued to thin. Gray bled into gray. The lanterns that still burned had the dim, uncertain flicker of candles about to go out—they weren't extinguished, but close. Close.