“Keep it together,” Iltani warned, casting one worried look at us both. Her false beard was peeling slightly from her cheek, the dark bitumen goo melting in the sweltering sun. “Ears open. Eyes aware. We need tonics and information about how we might get into the Palace. Don’t let it get to you.”

“I won’t. It’s just the heat.”

Tearing my gaze from the decaying flesh, I followed Iltani and Nanaea into the heart of the Libbu to find the booths with tinctures. Merchants stood stone-faced in front of their stalls, sickleswords in hand, daggers plunged into their belts to discourage theft. Guardsmen in their heavy maces and clanking armor filled the once-happy marketplace with unspoken threats.

“Over there.” I pointed to a couple of tents in a far corner with tiny bottles and casks arrayed haphazardly.

Sweating in our disguises, we walked past booths overflowing with grains likely taken from the farmers’ fields. Thick shanks of roasted goat and baskets of ripe eggplant, fresh onions, plump tomatoes, and mounds of other vegetables.

“All this food, yet people starve,” I murmured.

Her face hard, Iltani weaved around a man carrying two spears over one shoulder. “May the gods grant them ugly children and loose bowels.” She shook her head. “The prices are sickening.”

She was right. Sixty minas for a small basket of pomegranates! An entire talent for a measly cut of meat. Only the richest in the city could buy.

So we had two bits of information to note. First, the poor people were being starved, likely so they wouldn’t be strong enough to rise up against Uruku. Second, guardsmen were everywhere. It seemed as though Uruku had doubled the number, though some of them were boys called into service, armor too big for their shoulders, greaves hanging from bird legs. But their hands held sickleswords the same as the men. These boys—maybe a year or two older than Kasha—were called into the service of bloodshed.

This isn’t right.

Hopefully, with Uruku’s downfall, we could turn it into a city to be proud of.

Pressing my own beard to my cheeks with the back of my hand, I approached one of the booths arranged with potions and tinctures. My eyes roved hungrily over the pots, my needs almost on my tongue before I could silence them.

A robust woman with shrewd eyes, in enormous jade earrings, wrapped a length of thread around a small carafe, and set it aside.

“Here for trade, men? I have the best tonics in this Libbu. Do not venture past without securing the curatives you need to keep your young wives bearing you many children.”

The sun beat down on the tops of our heads mercilessly as I rifled through the tonics at her station. I needed tinctures so I could continue to tend to everyone in Laraak—and something a little more lethal for Uruku. A bottle slipped from my sweaty palm and the tradeswoman flashed me a warning look.

Dear Selu, don’t let the heat melt off my disguise before I’ve had a chance to buy what I need.