“Does Harristan know?” I say.
“No.”
My brother will want to issue a statement early. He’ll expect me to make an example of them all.
At least one of us is sleeping.
“I’ll call for food,” I say. “Send a message to the Hold. I want to speak to the patrolmen who captured them. Tell them I’ll want to question the prisoners after sunrise. Separate them if they haven’t already done so. I don’t want them conniving a story.”
Quint has taken a piece of paper from the desk, and he’s been writing since the moment I began speaking. He’s good at his job. “Shall we make a public announcement?”
“Not yet.” My thoughts are reeling. Eight all at once. We’ll be lucky if we don’t start a riot. “Tomorrow. Midday.”
He glances up. “Should I wake the king?”
I think of Harristan’s cough. The fever. He needs to sleep. I blink the thoughts away. “No.”
Quint nods and rises, taking his paper with him. “I’ll see to it.”
I follow him to the door. He pauses with his hand against the handle and turns to look at me. “You asked about wine . . .”
“I’ll order plenty.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Tessa
I shouldn’t be daydreaming about Weston. It’s the least productive way to spend my time. I should be focusing on measuring thimbleweed for Mistress Solomon’s ointments, or thinking about how many houses we missed this morning since Wes said it wasn’t safe to sneak into the Royal Sector. I should be thinking about how many coins I have in my purse, and whether it would be too indulgent to buy some sweets from the baker.
I should be mourning Mistress Kendall and Gillis. But thoughts of their deaths fill me with more rage than sorrow, and my hands begin to shake, until it’s all I can do to avoid flinging rocks at the patrolmen myself.
Thoughts of Wes are safe, and nearly as indulgent as the sweets would be. He was pressed so tightly against me yesterday morning, his palm against my cheek, his voice so soft in my ear.
When we were in danger, my brain whispers at me. It was not a romantic moment.
I don’t care.
Karri, the other assistant, is grinning at me over her own scale. We’re the same age, but instead of the freckled tan skin and brown hair that I have, Karri’s skin is a rich, deep brown, with shiny black hair she wears twisted in a rope that reaches her waist. “What are you blushing about?” she says.
I bite the inside of my lip. “Nothing.”
She leans in against the table and drops her voice, because Mistress Solomon doesn’t like it when we gossip. “Tessa. Do you have a sweetheart?”
I try not to blush. Instead, my traitorous cheeks burn hotter. “Of course not.”
I would never hear the end of it if Weston knew I was blushing over the idea of him being my sweetheart. Never.
“What’s his name?” she says.
I blink at her innocently. “Whose name?”
“Tessa!”
I add some thimbleweed to my bowl and begin to smash it with the pestle, grinding it against the stone. “It’s nothing. There’s nothing.”
She pouts, but her brown eyes are twinkling. “Tell me about his hands.”
Unbidden, my thoughts summon the image of the apple held between his fingers.
I sigh. I can’t help it.
She bursts out laughing. “You have a sweetheart.”
I glance at the front of the shop. “Shh.”
“If you won’t tell me his name, will you tell me what he looks like?”
Words come to mind so quickly that it’s a miracle they don’t fall out of my mouth. He looks like revolution. He looks like compassion. Blue eyes and gentle hands and quick feet and a core of strength and steel.
I grind hard with my pestle, and Karri laughs again. I wonder how dark my cheeks have gotten.
“I can’t wait to meet him,” she says.
That will never happen. I sigh for an entirely different reason now.
“Is he from Artis?” she asks.
I have to give her something, or she’ll never stop rooting for information. “Steel City,” I say.
“Steel City! A metalworker, then.”
“Hmm.” I add more thistleroot to my bowl.
“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.