Ronan didn't let go of my elbow right away. He didn't grip, just rested his hand there like a promise he hadn't said out loud. When he finally stepped back, it was to plant himself between me and the direction the hooded figure had gone, as if he could block whatever I'd seen with the breadth of his shoulders.
"Two bushels," I told the grain merchant, forcing my voice steady. "At last week's price."
"Last week's price is for last week's weather," the merchant said, fingers already counting profit that hadn't happened. "There's talk of salt winds and short harvests—"
"Talk isn't grain," I cut in. "Two bushels. Last week's price. Or I go to Dorek and tell him you're selling stones for flour."
The merchant sputtered, then remembered I could and would do exactly that. "Fine. Two. Last week's price. And a hinge for my storeroom door."
"Done," I said, because it was, and because I needed to keep moving.
We traded, and I tucked the chit into my apron. The square swelled and thinned with the tides of barter; a juggler tossed copper cups and caught them on the backs of his hands to polite applause; a woman with honey hair sang a fisher's lullaby that made the oldest men pretend they had something in their eyes. Over it all, the gulls cried like they were remembering a funnier world.
"You're pale," Ronan said under his breath.
"Forge-light complexion," I said.
"Liar," he murmured, but he was smiling again, that soft-edged smile that made mothers nudge daughters and daughters nudge trouble. "Tell me where to stand, and I'll be a wall."
"Walls are for people who can afford gates," I said, picking up the basket. "I prefer doors I can kick open."
He huffed out something like a laugh. "You kick open enough doors, and one will swing back at your teeth."
"Then I'll learn to We worked the square. Nails to a cooper, hinges to a baker, a small knife to a boy who swore it was for whittling and not at all for making himself brave in front of other boys (it was both, and he paid in careful coins and gratitude). With each sale, the feeling of being watched ebbed and returned, like a tide testing the shore. Twice more I caught a glimpse at the edge of the crowd—a hood, a shoulder, the way stillness can be louder than movement—and twice more it vanished when I turned to name it.
"Eria," Ronan said suddenly, voice pitched light but tight. "Left. Don't look like you're looking."
Which, naturally, made me want to look. I did not. I tested the edge of a hinge with my thumb as if steel could tell me secrets.
"Three men," he went on, conversational as bread. "New boots, dust from the coastal road, cloaks that pretend to be merchant-brown but hang like uniforms. No banner. They've asked the fishmonger about salt barrels like they've never seen a barrel before."
"Summer?" I asked, equally mild.
"Or someone who wants us to think so." He rolled a shoulder. "Either way, they smell like coin that isn't theirs."