Mechanica (21 page)

I followed my nose, pulling Caro along with me, and there they were: stacks upon stacks of sinnum buns, ensconced in a sourceless, rosy light and presided over by a part-Fey woman with golden eyes and a quick smile.

I thought of the money I’d tied into my sash that evening; I’d never had extra coins of my own and a place to spend them before. I’d been too young when my parents were alive, and until recently I’d been afraid to use my Market money for anything but supplies. But I had everything I needed now. . . .

Caro and I could both use a treat,
I thought. I approached the vendor, and the spicy sweetness in the air around her stall filled my mouth and nose. I sucked my lips in hunger, forgetting even to smile or say hello.

“Two of those,” I muttered, only just barely remembering to add “please” as I reached for my sash.

Caro yanked me away. “What d’you think you’re doing?” she demanded, her face flushed, her curls starting to frizz in the hot, dark air.

“I—what?” I blinked, the enticing cakes still pulling at my senses, demanding their attention. “Are they poisonous?” There was a tale about poisoned sweets in Caro’s book; I tried to remember the details. But it had been humans who’d poisoned the Fey in that story . . .

“No, no, Fin and I have had Puff’s cakes a hundred times—they’re the grandest things. But Lord, Nick, what do you mean going for your money in full view of everyone like that? You’ll have your pockets picked before you can reach them, and Puff’s as likely a thief as any. Don’t think she doesn’t know what she’s doing, spreading that scent around the place, turning everyone addlepated and drooly. It’s the same as the day Market. Everyone’s after the same thing, and that’s your purse. Keep your wits about yourself.”

It was only the pennies I’d reached for, not the whole crowns tied deeper inside my sash, but I still knew Caro was right. I went with her into a quiet corner between stalls, and Caro stood in front of me to block the view as I pulled out two brass coins. I tied it extra tightly, too, though this small amount of money—strange thought!—wouldn’t be catastrophic to lose, with my Exposition supplies all bought and paid for already. But I had worked too hard, for too long, to be careless of even a single coin.

Money in hand, I returned to the booth, Caro glancing around me protectively. Puff had already speared each bun on a wooden stick, and she held them out to me, smirking. I thought I saw her wink at Caro.

“Thank you,” I said quickly, depositing the coins in her blue-freckled hand. I gave one cake to Caro and brought the other to my lips, taking a last breath of that heavenly smell before my first huge bite.

The top of the bun had crystallized in the hot light of Puff’s display, and it crackled pleasantly; the rest of the glaze was still sticky, and it oozed as I bit down. The dough was light, pillowy, and tender, flecked with bits of sinnum that tingled on my lips and tongue.

I sighed with delight. “Thank you,” I said again, smiling stickily at Puff, whose golden eyes crinkled with amusement.

The sinnum’s heat spread through my whole body. I felt revived, alert, awake. Beside me, Caro had a similar spark in her eye.

“Let’s find that lovesbane,” I said, and she nodded.

We progressed down the seemingly endless row of stalls lining the passageway, pausing now and then to examine a shelf of leather-bound Faerie books or a collection of self-inking quill pens, with the Fey scribehawk they came from sitting morosely in a pewter cage, indigo dripping from its beak and the points of its claws.

I didn’t see Ashes anywhere.

Finally we came upon a stall covered with medicinal Fey flora: silver orchid, cap-o’-rushes, and rhodopis berries covered most of the table. I had assumed that lovesbane, the most infamous Fey import, would not be on display, and it seemed that Caro had thought the same: she approached the old man behind the stall with a knowing look and lowered voice.

She said only two words: “Fey’s croup.” The man nodded and raised his eyebrows. “One course,” Caro added, “please.”

He shot her a quizzical look, then ducked down and rummaged under the table for a moment. He stood again, his two hands clasped together like a seashell, and cocked his head to tell us to move closer.

We bent over his hands, and he opened them slowly, carefully. A single, three-petaled flower rested in his palm, the size of a small butterfly. Its petals were jet-black, but just at the center, one of them was starting to blush red. “In a few days,” he said, “the whole flower’ll be the color of blood, and in another week, it’ll turn white as bones.” He chuckled. “White as snow.”

The life cycle of the lovesbane bloom. I’d never seen one before, only read about them. It hurt to look at the flower now, remembering Father’s prejudice, remembering Mother’s preventable death. If I’d known about the Night Market back then, I would have gone, even as a child. I was glad that, at least, I could be with Caro now.

“Pluck one petal when it’s black, one red, and one white. Brew them up strong in a cup of boiling water. They’ll drink a mouthful, and no more. No more, you hear?” The man’s voice was gravelly, and his expression fierce. “I know who you’ll blame if they drink it all.” He paused. “Of course, if you’re after a poison, there are easier options.” He smiled unpleasantly and his hand wandered back to the storage under his table.

“A mouthful, no more.” Caro said quickly. “I’ll remember.” She looked up, into the man’s eyes, and I could hear how hard she was trying to sound indifferent when she said, “How much?”

I bristled at once, waiting for this man to dare to cheat my friend. I glared hot pokers into his head, but he wasn’t looking at me. He squinted at Caro as if he was trying to read her mind, and then, slowly, he nodded.

“Two hundred crowns,” he said.

I realized I didn’t know if this was a fair price. I looked at Caro to see if I needed to defend her. I thought I saw tears start in her eyes, but in the next moment, they were gone.

“I have a hundred,” she said. “That’s my offer.”

He scoffed. “Hardly an offer, my girl.”

She drew herself up to make the most of her small height and looked the older, taller man square in the eye. “I can’t afford to bargain with you, sir,” she said, and only someone who knew her could have noticed the tremor in her voice. “My mother is ill, and this is what we can scrape, my whole family.”

I thought of her legions of cousins.

“We need it now,” Caro said. From nowhere, it seemed, she produced a heavy-looking sack of coins the size of my two fists. She placed the bag on the table, and I saw the man’s hand twitch. “There’s no more time. I can give you a hundred.”

I saw compassion flicker in the man’s eyes, but then it left, and he shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he said. “Got my own to think of. Would be a loss, and Lord knows this stuff’s hard to come by nowadays. Would be a loss.”

I looked from Caro to the merchant. “A hundred and twenty,” I said. I didn’t know much about bargaining, but I could sense that I shouldn’t offer everything on the first try.

“Nick . . .” Caro’s voice was a warning.

“No. No, Caro.” I found myself growing angry. “I’m doing this.”

We stared each other down. “I never let Fin . . .” she said, but her voice trailed away.

“I’m not Fin,” I said gently. “And you said there’s no time.” I cast around for a way to explain what I was feeling, this hot anger and protectiveness. “You said your family was helping. Can’t you see—don’t you—” I wanted to say,
Can’t you see that’s what I am, what I’m doing?
But as I said it I thought she might push me away even so, push away that idea that I was part of her family. I thought I couldn’t bear it if she did.

Caro looked hard at me, and just as my fear of refusal was starting to sink into my bones she said, “You’re right, Nick.” She took a breath. “Thank you.”

The thank-you made me nervous; that wasn’t what this was about. I shook my head briskly and turned to the merchant.

“So, then?” I asked. “A hundred and twenty?”

He frowned. “Anything less than one fifty would be shockin’,” he said.

“So be shocked,” I replied. “I don’t mind.”

He snorted, but said nothing. Silence tightened the air between us.

“One thirty.” I tried to stare pokers at him again. “That’s all.”

I had only thirty with me; as the merchant frowned and thought, I wondered desperately whether I’d have time to get back to the workshop to get the rest of my money if he said no.

Finally, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. “Go on, so,” he said.

I undid my sash; I was taking all my money out, so I didn’t mind if anyone knew where I’d kept it. I removed the purse with my thirty crowns inside and started to lay it on the table, among the weeds and flowers, but the merchant scooped it up in one broad hand and hefted it, along with Caro’s larger purse, onto a rusty-looking pair of scales behind him. It swung for a long moment, balancing. I looked back at Caro; she wore a shaky smile. I smiled back, and we waited.

“Grand,” the merchant finally announced. He placed the small black flower into a tiny glass vial filled with something smooth and dark that didn’t quite look like soil, wrapped it in a white tissue, and gently pushed the package into a tiny red velvet pouch. Caro held out her hands for it eagerly, and once more, I couldn’t see where she hid the pouch before her hands were free again.

“You’re a good girl,” said the merchant, still eyeing her speculatively. “Be careful what you do with that bloom, now. Let no one know you have it.”

Caro nodded solemnly, and if the look he was giving her made her uncomfortable, she showed no outward sign. “Thank you,” she said. She took in a deep, steadying breath, and then turned to me. “Come on, Nick, it’s getting late.”

I took a step away from the booth with her, but the temptation was too great. I turned back. “Um, pardon me, sir,” I said to the merchant, who had busied himself with rearranging a spray of luminous silver orchid leaves. “There’s something . . . something else I was looking for . . .”

He swept the same piercing, appraising look over me that he’d given Caro. “A sleeping draft, perhaps, my dear? Or a poisoned apple?” He gestured over his crowded display. “A potion for undying love; surely that’s the one. Your lover will never know what hit him—or her.” He nodded furtively in Caro’s direction. “What’ll it be, princess?”

“No.” It took me a moment to pluck up the courage to ask; I couldn’t figure out why I felt so nervous. “It’s . . . it’s Ashes I’m looking for. Do you know what they are?”

Before I finished speaking, his face had gone as gray as the Ashes themselves. “Don’t know anything about them,” he managed to say, his gravelly voice a croak. “Don’t know what a young one like yourself would want to do with them either. Nobody wants that cursed stuff around here.”

“What do you mean?”

He glanced from side to side, refusing to meet my eyes.

“No one’ll sell you them here. There aren’t many as know what they are in the first place, and those that do would hurt you for asking.” He glared at me for a brief moment, accusingly, before breaking his gaze again. “Don’t mention them again, if you know what’s good for you.”

I felt a tug at my wrist; Caro had come back from petting the scribehawk. Blue ink dripped from her fingers. “Come now, Nick. Remember, it’s getting late,” she said.

“Right,” I muttered, “we should go.” I turned back to thank the merchant, even though he’d more frightened than helped me; but he’d rolled down cotton blinds all around his booth, closing him in and me out.

I followed Caro back through the passageway lined with booths, and I remembered to hold my breath against the dust and mold as we crossed through the door. My mind, though, was still on the merchant, how drawn and frightened he’d become just because I’d spoken of the thing most of Mother’s inventions relied on. My mind was spinning, unable to rest.

Cursed?

In the hushed darkness of the forest, snow whispering beneath our feet, I tried to let go of my worries about the Ashes. There were other things I wanted to talk about with Caro, other things that were pressing on my heart.

The whole time we’d walked toward the Night Market together, I’d wanted to tell her about Fin’s and my kiss—our two kisses. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even bring up his name, only hope that Caro would do it for me.

She didn’t. On our way there, she had been quieter than I’d ever known her to be, though she’d seemed cheerful enough once we arrived. Now, while we trekked back to the Forest Queen’s ruins, whenever I glanced at her, she wasn’t even looking at the path ahead, but at the small velvet pouch in her mittened hands.

I felt practically evil for begrudging her her silence. If I’d had the cure for my own mother in my hands, I wouldn’t have been able to tear my eyes from it either.

But then, finally, she spoke. “I’ve been thinking about charity,” she said.

I knew this was dangerous ground. “Caro, I—”

“No, don’t.” She looked up, reluctantly, from the lovesbane she held, and her eyes were bright. “I’ve been thinking I was wrong. All these years I wouldn’t take anything from Fin that wasn’t . . . wasn’t my due. I kept such careful track of everything my friends did for me, so that I could do for them in return, so that the scales could be balanced.” She shook her head slowly, and I heard her take in a shallow breath. “But then, all of my cousins coming together to save Mum, and you, too . . . it’s not about balance, I know that now.” She closed her eyes briefly and nodded to herself. “It’s about taking care of each other.”

I wished I could hug her, but she seemed just a little defensive, a little shaken, and I thought I should let her be. “I knew what you meant, though,” I said quietly, “at Market, the day we met. There’s a kind of pity that makes you feel less than human. But you and Fin never treated me that way.” I laughed. “Not at all.”

“Exactly.” We had reached the ruins now, and we stopped walking. Caro smiled up at me. I could see months of fear for her mother, and years of frightened pride, sluicing off her like water. She smiled as if she’d been carrying a weight for years, and had finally set it down.