Dove kept her hands on her side of the counter. The man facing her looked capable of carrying it away without interrupting his bad mood.
Short silver waves framed a face cut by old scars. One pale line crossed his jaw, and more showed above the collar of his coat, pale against the dark skin at his throat. He was tall, broad through the chest, and quiet in a way that made the noise behind him seem farther away.
Her brain noticed the attractive parts before submitting a strongly worded warning about the rest. Dove wished it would start with the warning for once.
"The price is agreed before the trade," she said. "If you’re shopping, I can explain it. If you’re here to glare, the hallway’s free."
"Where did you get these?"
He pointed at the cloths without touching them. She appreciated the distinction enough to answer without another joke.
"Supplies I have access to. Small amounts. They’re mine to trade."
"Whose room did you take them from?"
"Nobody’s room."
Varek passed on his round and stopped when the man called his name. "Thorne," the guard replied. "Ash approved the stall. The common stores haven’t reported these missing."
Thorne looked at the goods again. "She finds a way to make someone else pay. She always does."
Three coins arrived for suspicion, raising Dove’s balance to seventy-eight. Sprout identified a promising high-threat male. She thought he looked like an excellent candidate for being somewhere else.
"You can inspect the stock with Varek here," she said. "Then put it back. You don’t get to call me a thief because you dislike the packaging."
Thorne unfolded one cloth. His hands were scarred too, the fingers steady while he checked the seams. Dove watched the cloth instead of staring at the marks, though she could feel him waiting for something she did not know she was supposed to say.
"Nothing fancy," Varek said when Thorne handed it over. He checked it, returned it, and wrote the inspection in his notebook. "The boundary stays clear. That’s the order."
He moved on without offering Dove reassurance. At least she did not have to pretend they had become friends through the thrilling experience of counting towels.
A man waiting with a wrapped piece of flatbread chuckled behind Thorne. "Careful, fox. You’ll have him snarling again. What did you call him before? A badly stitched boot?"
The cloth went still between Thorne’s hands. Dove saw his thumb press into the folded edge, hard enough that the knuckle paled.
"Are you buying something?" she asked the waiting man.
"Just reminding you of your own joke."
"Then find a better one. His face isn’t on the price list."
The man’s grin faltered, leaving the silence unpleasantly bare. She did not rescue him from it. Nobody needed a little joke explained until it became acceptable to laugh again.
Thorne put the cloth down. "You enjoyed it when everyone listened."
"It sounds like I was an asshole. Repeating it doesn’t improve the material."
"You don’t get to talk about it like it happened to somebody else."
The words caught exactly where she had no defense she could prove. She remembered being frightened at a crosswalk, not this man’s face or the people who had laughed at it. He remembered something real too, and both memories had somehow trapped them at the same counter.
"I’m dealing with what’s happening here," she said. "And here, he can ask for soap without making your scars the entertainment."
Thorne watched her long enough for her to want to look away. She let herself look down at the goods instead. She did not owe him a staring contest to prove she had a spine.
"I remember what you cost me," he said. "Keep that in mind when you decide what act you’re doing next."
He left before she could ask what he meant. The bread customer suddenly seemed very interested in conducting a quiet, ordinary purchase.
Dove traded one soap quarter for his flatbread, checked the food before accepting it, and recorded the exchange. Seven quarters remained for sale. He took his soap and went, leaving her with a meal she no longer particularly wanted.
She ate anyway. Refusing lunch would not upset Thorne, restore her own face, or turn Sprout into a less invasive piece of software. It would only make her hungry while she did everything else.
Around the hall, men noticed her and then remembered to look away. One younger adult started toward the stall before his companion murmured something. They both changed direction.
It would almost have been easier if she were ugly. Then at least their first look and their second would agree with each other.
"A favorable adjustment to your reputation may increase conversion," Sprout offered.
She tore off another piece of bread. "I’m not launching a campaign. I’m trying to eat without being stared at like a haunted centerfold."
The system proposed smiling. Dove informed it that her face was on a meal break.
She covered the untouched stock with a clean fold of its wrapping and brushed crumbs away from the sale side. She had always hated finding food on a counter where she was meant to inspect something new. It was a tiny standard to keep, but it was hers, and she did not need anyone’s permission to keep it.
When the bread was gone, she found herself reaching for the pocket where her phone should have been. There should have been something mindless to scroll through, something she could complain about to someone who already knew her. She rubbed the borrowed fabric once and put her hand back on the counter.
She could count stock. She could plan. She could not make anyone here remember a woman they had never met.
An elderly woman stopped beyond the chalk line, the same one Dove had seen leaving the women’s passage. Silver threaded her dark hair, and her warm shawl was fastened with a neat metal clasp. Two men accompanied her, one carrying a padded folding stool.
He opened it without being asked. She sat, inspected Dove’s sign, and waited while the other man placed a covered cup in her hand.
"I’m Mara," she said. "I’m told you’ve forgotten everyone you insulted. That must be restful."
Dove swallowed the reply that would have made everything worse. "Is there something you need?"
"Soap without perfume. And since you’ve apparently forgotten that too, advice costs extra."