With a nod to the troll, he brushed past, earning a curse from the gander-girl. But her City Speak was so mangled and uttered with such guttural inexperience that he stopped and turned to look at her. She was shorter than he, but jacked up to nearly his height by a pair of gleaming black razor-spike boots. Her hair, its color shifting from iridescent blue to white and back again, made a perfect frame for her face. She was beautiful by the standards of either side of the Atlantic if one ignored the cold look in her eyes. She glared at him, waiting for an equally venomous response, but he resisted. Far too much was at stake tonight to humor her.