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CHAPTER FIVE

Tessa

Ishouldn’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.

Idon’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.