Love and Clockwork (Market Misadventures #5)

Prologue

Oleander

Two Decades Prior

It had been years since I’d left the small village where I was raised, and even then, it was only to take the hour’s journey to Emberleigh.

My father had taken me to trade for a present for my mother’s Naming Day.

It had been an important one. We’d bought seeds and starts for plants she’d dreamt of having in the small garden behind our home, and Father bought her a beautiful necklace made by the elves of Dun Steorra.

It looked as if it held the stars, and I smiled every time I saw it.

Mother and Father left every year. They traveled to Everend Market, selling their wares and making enough profit to keep us going through the light months and make repairs on our home.

Every year, I begged to come along, and every year, I was told no.

I was sent to stay with another family in our village.

This year was different. A month before the Everend Market was set to begin, I began my annual ritual of asking to come along.

I bargained and pleaded. It was the same song and dance, the same motions I went through every year.

Only this time, the audience had changed.

I saw the softening of Mother’s eyes and the way Father’s brow furrowed as if in thought.

Two weeks before they were set to leave, Mother and Father called me to the small table where we ate.

I sat across from them on the splintered wooden bench and leaned upon my elbows.

They agreed to let me come, to begin to learn how to work their apothecary booth, an outpost of the small building they kept in our village’s market.

It did a good business, though every time I tried to help, things tended to go wrong.

I did not have Mother’s knack for healing or Father’s ability to identify herbs from a glance and to mix them into salves that were just as strong as the magic of our people.

Perhaps they thought the energy of the market would awaken some latent talent.

I did not care, not if it meant that I would finally be able to leave my small village and see something larger.

I counted down the days. I packed and repacked my bags, wanting to bring my best garments.

I did not know what was fashionable at the Everend Market, and I doubted anything I had would pass muster.

Two days before we were meant to leave, Mother grew frustrated and shouted at me to stop.

We were not there simply to experience the market.

We were there for business. I agreed, but not before I sneaked my favorite purple tunic—dyed with berries traded from a local farming commune—into my pack.

The journey to the market was slow and tedious.

We passed through Emberleigh, and my parents loaded our cart with wares from a few other small markets that wished to trade in our stall.

Mother took detailed notes of what they provided, what it would cost, and how much of everything.

By the time we left Emberleigh, the cart was so packed that I could barely fit amongst the wooden crates and canvas totes.

We camped in a clearing on our first night, and on the second, we reached the Everend Market.

I had never seen anything so lovely. My parents took our cart to their designated stall.

They had worked hard to gain the reputation that allowed them to set up shop where they did, not amongst the gifts and clothing, but amongst the best apothecaries in the land.

They beamed with pride as they showed me their stall and put me to work.

The sun had set by the time our cart was unloaded, and then we ventured to the campgrounds.

Tomorrow, Everend Market would begin, and my dreams would come true.

I had been at the market for three days, and I’d seen little beyond my family’s stall.

Mother and Father did a steady business.

Father sold his salves, and Mother had elves from all over come for magical remedies for minor ailments.

I was set to stocking the shelves after Father caught me suggesting a potential cure for a customer’s bowel issues.

I thought the herbs I’d selected had been correct, but Father told me it would only make him worse.

It was a remedy for a different bowel issue, and the customer would not have been thankful for the recommendation.

Everend Market was not living up to my expectations.

I wanted to explore. I wanted to talk to elves about more than herbal remedies and salves and the soil quality required to best grow some healing herb or another.

I wanted to venture to the booths of technology and brightly colored clothing and jewels.

I wanted to see the romance of the marriage market.

I wanted to see more than just the walls of our vendor’s stall; I wanted to see everything.

I needed to make a move, to make an escape. What other time would I have to mingle with other elves from the other settlements? What if Mother and Father did not allow me to come back after the mess I’d made with that herbal remedy suggestion?

I waited until Mother was behind the curtain with a client, offering a magical remedy for their chronic case of foot fungus, and Father had a line of customers, each contending for his undivided attention.

The shelves were stocked, and there were enough people that I would not be missed.

I sneaked past the booth’s entrance, and I spared only a passing glance over my shoulder at Father and his furrowed brow before disappearing into the crowd.

The market was full of visitors from all over.

I looked at stalls of brightly colored fabric.

I visited the paddocks of animals. I pet a goat, marveling at the texture of its fur beneath my hands.

I listened to the strange accents of the elves from other settlements and smelled the food at the prepared food stalls, my mouth salivating at the offerings.

Maybe I should have asked Mother and Father for pocket money before we left.

Sadly, I was left wanting.

I wandered the market alone, drinking in the sights and sounds and smells. There was a nagging guilt that Mother and Father would realize I was gone, that they would be angry at my desertion, but I did not find any regret mingling with this guilt. How could I regret the best experience of my life?

If only I had someone to share the experience with.

I had never wished for a sibling until that moment.

Of course, if I knew my luck, they would have either stayed back in our village or refused to leave and explore without Mother and Father’s permission.

I sighed and stepped inside a booth full of cogs and timepieces.

There was a boy my age behind the counter. Dark hair fell into his eyes as he leaned over a leather-bound book. He looked up as I entered, and he smiled the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen in my life. “What is this?” I asked, picking up a small metal piece.

“It’s a cog,” he told me, his voice even. It was the voice of a boy changing to a man, deeper than mine. “I’m drawing it. It’s not for sale.”

“Why are you drawing it?”

“Because I want to learn,” he told me.

“Castien,” a great booming voice sounded from behind him.

I looked toward the voice, and my eyes widened.

I’d seen elves of larger builds before. The farmers in our village tended to be stockier, but they had nothing on the man in this stall.

I was shocked that it could hold him. “Why are you still here?”

“You told me to take leave of selling,” the boy corrected. “I am not selling.”

The man looked at me and then back at the boy, Castien. “Are you buying?”

I swallowed hard. Would he be angry that I did not have pocket money to buy anything? “N-no,” I stuttered out. “I’m—I was just looking. Exploring the market, sir.”

“Exploring, eh?” he asked. He stepped toward the light, and he was somehow even impossibly larger.

There was a scar across his face. Mother could have healed whatever caused that scar without it leaving a blemish.

She could erase the scar now if he ventured to our stall.

“You mind taking this one? Make him explore? Kid hasn’t left the shop since we got settled.

Wants to learn, he says, but won’t leave the safety of home to do his learning. ”

I watched color flush the boy’s cheeks. “Papa,” he groaned.

“No, Castien, you are going to explore.” He reached into a pouch and withdrew a few coins, plopping them down on the counter in front of the boy.

“You can draw your cogs later. Do not come back until that,” he motioned toward the coins, “has been spent, and you’ve seen at least four different sections of this market.

You ain’t gonna be able to know what others like if you don’t ever get yourself among them. ”

I envied Castien for his father. Mother and Father kept me close.

There was a reason I had left the village only twice in my life.

I did not think they trusted me to survive the world as they did, and I could not blame them.

I did not have the intelligence they had.

I did not have the intelligence most had.

“Papa…”

Castien’s father shot him a look, and the boy wrapped the leather-bound book in cord and stuck it in a pouch. He picked up the coins and hopped down from whatever he’d been perched on. “What’s your name?”

“Oleander,” I introduced myself, inclining my head toward him in a nod.

“Castien.” I had caught his name already. I may not have been the most intelligent elf in the land, but I did possess the powers of perception. “Papa, we will be back before the sun sets.”

“Only if you must,” his father grunted. “Stay out and learn something, kid.”