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“Steel City?” says Mistress Solomon. She’s caught wind of our conversation, and she leaves the front of the shop to come peer at what we’re doing. “Are you talking about the smugglers?”
“What smugglers?” says Karri.
“There was an announcement from the Royal Sector at midday. They caught a pack of smugglers from Steel City. Ten of them, all from the same forge.”
My blood goes cold.
Mistress Solomon tsks under her breath. “We’re lucky the night patrol looks out for the people, you know. Those criminals deserve everything they get. We all get our allotment of medicine. No one needs to be greedy.”
I bite my tongue. Not everyone gets an allotment of the Moonflower petals, and she well knows it. Only those who can pay for it. That’s how she makes such a market from her ointments and potions—it’s cheaper to buy from her. It’s cheaper because it doesn’t really work, but I can’t say that if I want to keep my job. Back when the healing effects of the Moonflower was first discovered, there were hundreds of charlatans who tried to pass off other leaves and petals as the Moonflower—but when the king put as strict a penalty on fraud as he did on smuggling, the fake petals quickly went away. It’s easier to just steal it than to grow and nurture something that simply looks the same.
There are plenty of shop owners like Mistress Solomon, though. People who can’t cure the fevers, but who claim to “help” with symptoms. I wouldn’t work for a true swindler, but Mistress Solomon seems to mean well. Most of the potions we create are for frivolous things like clear skin or shiny hair or trouble with sleep. Sometimes her mixtures won’t work, but I know what will, and I adjust my measurements accordingly.
I keep notes in my father’s notebooks of what cures the fevers—the Moonflower—and what doesn’t: everything else.
My ears are still ringing with what Mistress Solomon said: ten smugglers were captured. All from the same forge.
Weston. He doesn’t work with anyone else. I know he doesn’t.
But Weston isn’t even his real name. And if that’s not real . . . ? maybe I don’t really know anything for sure. Maybe the ten of them are people like Wes, who pretend to be working solo with friends in other sectors who don’t know the truth.
I have no way to find him. No way to ask.
I swallow. “Did they read off names?”
“No. Six men, four women. Two of the men died in the capture.”
I feel dizzy. “When—” I have to clear my throat. “When were they captured?”
“They didn’t say. Yesterday, today, does it matter?” She sniffs haughtily. “You’re overgrinding that thistleroot, Tessa.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She’s wrong, but she won’t like me saying so. She doesn’t like the idea of an impertinent young woman telling her how to run her business—which is how the last girl was let go. I need this job. No one thinks an eighteen-year-old girl from the Wilds could be a real apothecary. My father would have found these tinctures and remedies ridiculous, and he would have told Mistress Solomon to her face—but my father isn’t here to pay my rent, so I obediently drop the pestle on the worktable and scrape out the powder.
When she moves away, Karri is eyeing me. Her voice drops very low. “Is your sweetheart a smuggler?”
“What? No!” I’m sure my face is redder than fire now.
She goes back to her herbs, tossing a small handful into her bowl. “Mother says a lot of them are just trying to feed their own families. She’s heard stories of men who promise the moon, getting women to help them, and really it’s all for a half-dozen mouths to feed at home.”
I scowl into my bowl. My stomach is churning, tying itself into knots. I don’t know what’s worse: Wes dead at the hand of the King’s Justice, or Wes having a family at home.
What a thought. Dead is worse. Of course.
I always thought he was close to my age, but maybe he’s older. I only ever see him in the dark, with kohl-smudged eyes hidden behind a mask. He could easily be twice my age, I suppose.
“Be careful, Tessa,” says Karri.
I glance up. “I’m always careful,” I say. And then I perfectly measure my medicines to prove it.
Oncethe dinner bells begin ringing through the streets, Karri and I are free to go. She lives at home with her family, while I’ve lived alone in a rented room in a boarding house since my parents died. She watched me all afternoon and invited me to dinner, probably thinking my “sweetheart” must have been one of the captured men. I can’t take her pitying glances for one more moment, so I turn her down and head home.
I stop in at the confectioner’s anyway, deciding it isn’t too much of an indulgence if I can hear any more gossip. As I hand my coins across, I say, “Can you believe they caught so many smugglers?”
The clerk nods sadly and says, “They’ll all be put to death tomorrow, I reason.”
That icy grip on my spine refuses to loosen, especially when she adds, “I understand they’ll be doing it at the gates. You know that will draw a crowd.”
I wish I had a way to find out if Wes is part of it. He can’t be.
