“Wait—” Too late. “Storms.”
She slips between stalls. “Excuse me!” she calls out. “Do you have anything for allergies? For human children?”
Locke glances up, tense and wary—a man ready for anything. “I might. Who’s it for?”
“A boy. He’s a changeling. Always sneezing and red-eyed. It’s worse outdoors.”
That she would chase down a globetrotting trader for Johannes—well, that just about wrecks me.
“Sounds like hay fever. I think I’ve got some Claritin.” Locke watches her reaction as if the words he just said make any sense. “What’ve you got to trade?”
“I have something,” I say, catching up. Digging into my inner pocket, I withdraw a tiny vial wrapped in cloth, harvested during the last frost eclipse. I was saving it for an emergency, but if this could help poor sneezy Joha… “Captured moonbeams.”
Locke’s brows lift. “May I?”
I hand it over, pulse hammering. The gatekeeper turns it in his fingers with a low whistle. Light catches on a ring he wears with a big black stone. “Nice purity. You harvested this?”
I nod.
“Do you have any more?”
“Not now, but I can get more. Is it not enough?”
Locke grins. “It’s plenty.” From one of the many pockets lining his long coat, he fishes out a blue box with writing on it, then several coins from his trousers’ pocket. Seeing my confusion, he adds, “This vial is worth more than a quick pharmacy run back home.”
I accept the coins, but he hesitates with the box.
“How old’s the kid?”
“Thirteen, why?” I have no clue what to do with this strange box. Does it go under his pillow? Do we burn it? Is there a spell to speak?
“Good. One pill a day.” Then he laughs. “They’re inside the box. He swallows them. I can bring more the next time I’m here. Can you get more moonbeams? Anything rare?”
“Um…yes? I have moonpetals at home. Dust, occasionally.”
His eyes gleam with interest. “You in trade?”
“Not—not officially.”
“Well, if you ever want to get serious, come find me. I could use a source like you.”
He moves on, leaving me standing with the foreign box and unexpected coin in my palm, and a strange flutter of hope in my chest. Val’s looking at me like this all makes perfect sense—me, bartering with a gatekeeper. As if a half-Lyslander orphan with a ragtag acting troupe could work with a trader (who’s probably also a smuggler, but who’s checking).
Nope. Does not make sense.
“Johannes is going to feel so much better,” Val says.
I smile.
Then I see it. A poster tacked to the pole behind her:
WANTED. Princess Talvie.
No. Make that tacked toeverypole, all the way down the market.
It’s the same flyer as before. Iridescent hair, aubergine eyes, the familiar features I see beneath her moon’s reflection magic stare back at me.
The real princess gasps.
