I glanced worriedly at Iltani’s glistening face under her brownish-gray beard as the woman rattled off incorrect names of herbs and the wrong ingredients for ailments from headaches to incontinence. Sorting through her mixes, I put my senses to work, smelling and dabbing my fingers into them to check for grittiness or solvency, laying some of them on my tongue when I knew they were safe. Here was hemp. There, a smear of aloe in the bottom of a jar. But I couldn’t find a poison, or anything more dangerous than blue cohosh.

The merchant studied me as I poked and prodded.

“You’re a real A-zu, aren’t you.”

She reached across the booth to grab my hand. Roughly, I tugged it away, panic winding through me.

Iltani laughed politely, smacking me on the back hard enough to jostle my front teeth loose. “This one has many ailments and needs a lot of help from your wide assortment here.”

Nanaea picked up a small, red glass bottle sitting in the back corner of her booth and held it up to the light. “Can you tell me about this one?” she asked gruffly.

Iltani nudged me as I picked up some myrrh, poppy, fennel, chamomile, arnica, and cinnamon. The tradeswoman took the little bottle from Nanaea and launched into a description. My ears perked up when she said the word “nerium.”

Nerium was often mixed with aloe to smooth the skin, but if ingested in large enough quantities, it could put someone to sleep for hours with their eyes wide open, giving them the appearance of being dead. My abum had once told me a horror story of a woman who’d been buried alive because of it.

My scalp prickled. What if we knocked Uruku out with it somehow and then just entombed him? Or killed him when he was being prepared for burial and wasn’t being guarded? My throat constricted at the thought of what that might entail, but I held my hand out for it.

With a calculating gaze, the woman set it back on the table. “It’s too expensive for the likes of you.”

I met her stare. Nudged Iltani.

“How much?” Iltani crossed her arms over her chest like Dagan did when bartering.

“A hundred and sixty minas for half,” the woman challenged, raising a bushy eyebrow.

I blanched inside my makeshift beard.

It’s way too much! But we need it!

“You’ll never convince anyone to pay that amount.” Iltani spat on the ground. Her direct approach was the opposite of how she usually bartered with flattery and trickery.

I tugged Iltani’s sleeve and nodded at the bottle.

The tradeswoman narrowed her eyes. “Why does your mute want it so desperately?”

Iltani lifted her chin. “We need to put down a dog that’s got the mange.”

She chuckled. “Perhaps you need something else that will suit your purposes and costs next to nothing.”

I gritted my teeth. I wanted the nerium. It was a good option! But I didn’t have nearly enough coins on my person.