“With the next customer.” I turned my eyes to the crowd, willing someone to come and purchase a wish. Why couldn’t Oma have told me before the snarky man? We encountered the most customers the first week of markt—customers who had been waiting all through winter to finally seek out the Wishtress. But sometimes we went weeks without a wish seeker.

I couldn’t bear to wait weeks.

So I kept busy. I measured flour, wrapped loaves of bread, weighed grain. And morning turned to afternoon. I scanned the skies out of habit, reading them for a whisper of snow before I remembered the budding branches, warm breeze, and barefooted canal rats.

My gaze dropped to accept a man’s coin as he hefted a bag of flour from my stall. He moved aside and the next customer stumbled into the counter with a ragged gasp.

The woman, tall and skeletal, was draped in shredded black-and-purple cloths that might have been a dress once. She bent over the counter as though to hold herself up. Wild eyes darted in sunken sockets, and long ribbons of crusted brownish-red scrapes interrupted thick smears of mud on her face where she’d seemingly dragged her nails down her skin.

A madwoman.

“Please,” she gasped, settling her rolling eyes on me. “A wish. I heard . . .”

I stumbled back, ensuring Anouk was safe at the other stall. “I can’t help you. Take what bread or flour you need.”

The woman shot out a hand and wrapped spindly fingers around my wrist. “Please.” She took several deep breaths as though to compose herself. With visible effort she straightened, closed her eyes, and tried again. “I . . . I heard there might be someone here who could help.”

Perhaps it was the woman’s agony etched in the creases of her face, her trembling lips, or maybe the fact that she was so different from the pompous man who had purchased a wish in the morn, but my heart went out to her.

“Come.” I took her trembling hand and led her toward the tent.

This was what I wanted to do as Wishtress—help those in distress, not sell wishes to cocky customers with deep pockets.

I held the tent flap open for the broken woman. “What’s your name?”

“Co-Coralythe,” the woman croaked, ducking into the tent.

Oma looked up from the table of scrolls and candles in the center of the tent. Prior to today, this would be when I stepped out and allowed her to get to business. This time, I stayed.

She stared at Coralythe. Though less than half the woman’s height, Oma merely seemed annoyed. Coralythe didn’t seem like the deep-pocket type. I doubted she could afford a wish if she couldn’t even afford decent clothing.

“Sit.” Oma slapped a hand on the back of a wooden chair near the table.