1.15

The door to the shop slammed shut, and the two were wreathed in sum­mer heat once more. Doro spun on Car­nelia with an incred­u­lous expres­sion. The girl’s arms were crossed, and her lips scrunched up in a tight frown.

“What in the name of clear skies was that for?”

“I could ask the same thing, mis­ter! You ruined every­thing!”

“Ruin? He wasn’t even a real for­tune-teller! What could I have pos­si­bly--?”

“I already knew that!”

The dec­la­ra­tion sent Doro for a loop. He stared at the girl.

“…what?”

The girl rolled her eyes.

“I’m not dumb. Real for­tune-tellers go around in ram­shackle car­a­vans, get­ting chased away with rocks for telling for­tunes that are too true and cru­el to sil­ly kids that don’t know any bet­ter than to trust them. They’re not gonna have a nice and cozy store in the mar­ket­place.”

The girl waved her hand at the store­front like this log­ic of fairy­tales and folk sto­ries, fly­ing miles above real­i­ty, was the most obvi­ous and ratio­nal thing. Doro’s scoff was so thick with dis­be­lief he almost choked on it. There were a mil­lion and one things he want­ed to say in con­tra­dic­tion, but some­how her claim had crossed so far past the line of absur­di­ty that it had become inar­guable. A defense with a mil­lion holes, so you did not know where to attack.

It did­n’t need to make real-world sense, a talk­ing head inside him said. All that was nec­es­sary was that the girl believed in it. Plen­ty of peo­ple move through the world based on non­sense. Him too, prob­a­bly, if he ever gave him­self a moment to real­ize it.

Doro ignored his worth­less philo­soph­i­cal impuls­es. He had emp­ty pock­ets. He was here to get mon­ey from a girl.

“If you thought that,” he pressed on, exas­per­at­ed at both her and him­self. “Then why the hell did you go in? To get a fake for­tune from a fake war­lock? Tell me how that makes sense.”

The girl bit her lip and her eyes danced for an answer. “It’s like… princess­es at a theme park. Every­one knows they’re not real, but it’s fun to pre­tend they are. Right?”

That was a sur­pris­ing­ly good answer. Doro set­tled back. Maybe this kid was smarter than he gave her cred­it for--

“No, way! I ain’t buy­ing it. That means you were about to pay a small for­tune for a trin­ket that you knew was use­less. Explain that.”

He’d almost for­got­ten where that fake ‘djinn dust’ charm had gone in all this mess. On the floor some­where in the store, no doubt. Carnelia’s cheeks flushed, and she scratched the back of her head sheep­ish­ly.

“…was it real­ly that over­priced?”

“Talk about an under­state­ment. You were about to pay a hun­dred times what that charm is actu­al­ly worth.”

“A hun­dred--?” Embar­rass­ment turned to shock on Carnelia’s face. “That can’t be right!”

“I don’t know what to tell you. If the char­m’s actu­al­ly mys­ti­cal, then it’s way too cheap. And if it’s not, then it’s way too expen­sive. Him lying is the only way that price makes sense.”

“B-but that’s cheat­ing! He wouldn’t!”

The sto­ry­book inno­cence with which she said that almost made Doro bust­ed out laugh­ing. What an absurd state­ment. If his expe­ri­ence was any­thing to rely on, half the stores in a place like this were going to have some incon­spic­u­ous­ly mis­la­beled draw­er filled with illic­it goods. You just need­ed to know the right com­bi­na­tion of words and cash for them to open it up.

…as much as Doro want­ed to rag on the girl for her naïveté, his pock­ets were still total­ly emp­ty and noth­ing he was doing was get­ting him clos­er to solv­ing that prob­lem. He grinned all friend­ly-like and tapped the side of his nose.

“Oh, kid. That fel­la Arghus absolute­ly would. Peo­ple can get real under­hand­ed when it comes to mon­ey. Here. Let me show you.”

With a ges­ture, Doro head­ed back into stalls of the busy mar­ket. The girl hes­is­tat­ed, but when he stopped by the juice ven­dor she had bought pome­gran­ate juice from dur­ing her eat­ing spree, an idle step for­ward betrayed that she was being swayed by her own mem­o­ries. She caved when the man caught her eye, wav­ing at her with his thick, red-stained hands, a sparkle of a good cus­tomer in his eyes.

“Wel­come back, lit­tle lady! Did you want anoth­er cup of juice?”

As the girl stepped over, still cau­tious, Doro raised his hand to make him­self known. He leaned in con­spir­a­to­ri­al­ly, tucked in a spot that was close, but did­n’t inter­fere with the man’s busi­ness.

“Sor­ry, friend. We’re not here to buy. We just want to ask you some ques­tions about your busi­ness. Today was her first day in the mar­ket, you see, and I’m try­ing to show her how things real­ly work around here.”

“Ah…”

The ven­dor nod­ded know­ing­ly even as he waved for­ward the next cus­tomer. His brute hands were ever in motion, con­stant­ly crush­ing and squelch­ing pome­gran­ates, with cracks that cut through the dull chat­ter that filled the mar­ket­place. Doro not­ed that the juice being sold was only par­tial­ly fresh squeezed. Half machine-press, half-hand. He sup­posed it was a brand­ing thing.

“You’re fam­i­ly?” the ven­dor asked.

“Cousin. Through mar­riage.”

“Good, good. Not enough men­tor­ship­pin’ hap­pen­ing these days.”

Doro added that last part because as Car­nelia final­ly approached close enough to par­tic­i­pate with the con­ver­sa­tion, he knew any­one with eyes could tell there was­n’t a sin­gle drop of blood in com­mon between the two of them. The ven­dor slapped anoth­er full cup of juice on the counter and wiped his hands with a rag. He took and exchanged change, hard­ly look­ing at his cur­rent cus­tomer. When they left mut­ter­ing com­plaints, he shout­ed after them.

“Well, then go buy from some­where else, Parvett! Oh wait, that’s right. You won’t! Because I’ve got the best damn fla­vor in town, and you know it!”

The cus­tomer flipped him good-natured­ly before dip­ping to the left and get­ting lost to them in the crowd. The ven­dor dabbed his fore­head with his shirt and waved the next cus­tomer for­ward. He kept talk­ing the whole time.

“Young man. You must know that I can’t just give away trade secrets. Not for free. I am run­ning a busi­ness here.”

Doro sighed. Like dogs, these bas­tard ven­dors were. No mat­ter what part of the world, they could sniff a loose piece of change on you, even if it was the last thing you had. Even if you had lied to your­self that your pock­ets were emp­ty. He glanced back at Car­nelia one more time, and pulled out a crum­pled five-cterl bill from his pock­et. His last bet. All or noth­ing, then.

The ven­dor picked the bill from his fin­gers with an appre­cia­tive nod. Doro sup­posed that was pret­ty cheap, all things con­sid­ered.

“Ask away. What do you want to know?”

“I’ll start with the obvi­ous.” Doro nod­ded at the large sign hang­ing behind the ven­dor. An array of prices was list­ed on it in chalk, unmarred by smears. “Do those prices ever change?”

The vendor’s eyes flit­ted around for any eaves­drop­pers, then he leaned in.

“No.”

“No?” Doro raised an eye­brow. That was unheard of in a mar­ket like this. From this spot, he could spot four places that had scratched out and changed prices since the last time he’d walked through here.

The ven­dor grinned and kept his voice low. “Nope. Same prices as when my pops set up shop. Some even call me the most rep­utable cap­i­tal­ist this side of the riv­er!”

He shout­ed that last part loud, elic­it­ing a smat­ter­ing of jeers and boos from near­by stalls and their reg­u­lars. The ven­dor pound­ed his chest, flick­ing lit­tle flecks of juice astray, and laughed.

“Naw! That I haven’t had to change prices since my pops set up shop just shows you how greedy that old man Pomme was. I mean, two cterls for a juice back in those days? You could prac­ti­cal­ly buy a ringer­less shack for that kind of cash, phah!”

Doro guessed that ‘ringer­less shack’ must be slang for a slum­house around these parts. The city of Bells; was it a sign of wealth to own one of those bells he’d seen adorn­ing build­ings all around town?”

“So your prices aren’t flex­i­ble, at all?” he con­tin­ued.

The ven­dor slid a juice to the next cus­tomer in line, wip­ing his hand and plac­ing it on his chest like he was being accused of the gravest of crimes.

“What, are you call­ing me a bad busi­ness­man? Of course, my prices are accu­rate! Two cterls for a juice, it’s been for forty years, and it’ll be that for anoth­er forty! Of course… there have been times when I’ve been con­vinced oth­er­wise. When the moon is in the right phase, the stars align, and so on.”

Yes, this was what he was try­ing to get at. Doro glanced back at Car­nelia to make sure she was pay­ing atten­tion. She looked wary, which was good.

“Mean­ing?” Doro con­tin­ued.

With a light grunt from the ven­dor, a pome­gran­ate cracked between his hands and with spilled a stream of flu­id into a cup. He looked up thought­ful­ly as he reached for anoth­er.

“Take today. It’s the end of the week and new ship­ments of stock are rolling in, so I want to use up all of my old inven­to­ry before the end of the day. That makes me more amenable to hag­gling.”

“How amenable?”

The ven­dor shrugged. “Hon­est­ly, if I knew it would win me a reg­u­lar, I might give it away. As it is… half a cterl would be enough for the books.”

Carnelia’s mouth dropped, and she final­ly spoke up. “But that’s four times what I paid for my cup! Why did­n’t you say any­thing?”

The accusato­ry look in her eyes was exact­ly what Doro had been hop­ing for. Wher­ev­er this girl had grown up, she was clear­ly used to play­ing in a ‘fair­er’ mar­ket. One where it was­n’t assumed that every­one was try­ing to cheat you. How nice.

Real­iz­ing that the rules of the game were not what you thought was a pow­er­ful thing, though, and he need­ed that ener­gy turned on the right thing. Cer­tain­ly not some juice ven­dor that had nicked a cterl and a half from her. He nudged her to keep her from blam­ing all her anger on that man.

“Hey,” he said, shrug­ging. “It’s not his job to save you mon­ey.”

“No it isn’t,” the ven­dor chimed in. “And you should be thank­ful to your cousin. My uncles let me pay label price for years because they thought it was fun­ny. To be fair, I prob­a­bly should’ve noticed that oth­er cus­tomers weren’t always pay­ing the same amount as I was. Nev­er was the sharpest tool in the shed, hah!”

With a grunt and a crack, the ven­dor filled up yet anoth­er cup of pome­gran­ate juice. Wip­ing his hands with a rag on his waist, he care­ful­ly hand­ed out the drib­bling cup to the next cus­tomer in line. The exchange of mon­ey hap­pened in a flash, and Doro watched Car­nelia real­ize the oth­er cus­tomers were in fact pay­ing less than she had. Reg­u­lars who knew the deal, and had come at the right time of the month, it looked like.

As her face twist­ed from con­fused to angry, then thought­ful, Doro nod­ded. That’s right, he thought at her. The evi­dence was right in your face, kid. If you had been pay­ing atten­tion.

Doro gave the ven­dor a grate­ful dip of his head. “Thanks, friend. I think this’ll do.”

The ven­dor grinned. “No prob­lem. Just tell your friends where to go for the best pome­gran­ate juice in Cam­mec City! Pomme Jr.‘s! And don’t tell them what I told you!”

“You got it.”

As Doro grasped Car­nelia by the arm and led her away from the juice stall, she turned to him. Both her wari­ness and indig­na­tion were gone, now.

“So… mon­ey isn’t fair?”

He shrugged. “Only because you’re not play­ing your part. And this guy’s prices are actu­al­ly rea­son­able, and he sells some­thing you can actu­al­ly put in your mouth. Imag­ine how far a per­son who makes a liv­ing ped­dling lies might go.”

He stopped in the mid­dle of the bustling street and nod­ded his head in the direc­tion of Arghus’s all-to-qui­et store­front. “How do you think he affords that nice and cozy store?”

The girl’s face dark­ened. “Now I’m actu­al­ly get­ting mad.”

“You should be. He was screw­ing you over. Way beyond what’s social­ly accept­able.”

“…so then what? What do you want?”

Car­neli­a’s ques­tion came back at him with unex­pect­ed swift­ness and shrewd­ness. Good. She was start­ing to get it. He bared his teeth.

“You should let me help you get back at him. For a mod­est fee, of course. One hun­dred and fifty cterls--one tenth of what that guy was about to charge you for that charm.”

It was a risky ask, now that she saw the rules of the game. She could just walk away right now, smarter and bet­ter off, and he’d be out his last five cterls with noth­ing to show for it. Doro held his breath as the girl crossed her arms and thought about it.

After a moment, she nod­ded.

“Okay. On one con­di­tion. I want that frick­ing charm.”

Sweet, sweet relief swept up his back like a dead friend pat­ting him on his back. It inspired him to wrap his arm around her shoul­der. Grin­ning, he walked her back to Arghus’s shop, swag­ger­ing each step.

“Of course, kid,” he said, with the kind of loud, brav­ery that only showed its face when a bet went well…

“…how could we pos­si­bly leave with­out it?”