2.
I set the ginseng carefully to one side, my hands never stopping their work on the weeds.
By the time the last of them was cleared, a pleased little laugh drifted past my ear.
"That feels good. Next time there's a chance like this to strike it rich, maybe I'll let him in on a bit more."
I could hardly contain my joy. I scooped up my treasure of a ginseng, carried it home, and locked it away in the cabinet.
Ever since last year, when I'd been pulling weeds around my family's fruit trees, I'd made an accidental discovery: I could hear the voices of the fruit.
And whenever they spoke, they let slip the hiding place of some rare, valuable herb.
Worth tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and now into the millions.
I had never breathed a word of it to anyone, and I'd never dared use the money for anything.
My family had raised me from childhood to be honest and to keep to my place.
So I only locked the herbs away at home, saving them for a rainy day.
But now, with Moira's mocking words circling in my head, I understood something.
Being honest and knowing your place got you nowhere.
In this world, money was the only thing that counted.
That night I sat clutching the cabinet where the herbs were hidden, and it was a long time before I could close my eyes.
Early the next morning, I took one of the herbs, one worth tens of thousands, to the pawnshop.
The owner took one glance and snatched it up in a rush.
"Where did you get this? I'll give you a hundred thousand. Will you sell it to me?"
My eyes narrowed.
A hundred thousand.
More than I'd expected.
I nodded on the spot.
Once the money was counted out, I wrapped it up carefully in a cloth, tucked it into the bag I carried, and turned to leave. Then a shrill voice cut in behind me.
"Lucius? What are you doing here?"
I turned around.
Moira had her arm hooked through Phineas Gilbert's, the two of them pressed close together.
The moment she noticed me looking, she gripped him tighter.
Her eyes raked over me, suspicious, up and down.
"This is a shop for expensive medicine. What could you possibly be doing here?"
The owner had been listening, and, afraid of a scene, he hurried over.
"This gentleman came to sell something."
"I just came to look. Is that a problem?"
I cut him off and shot him a warning look.
Moira couldn't find out yet that the herbs were worth anything.
The owner was a shrewd man.
He caught my meaning and said nothing more.
Moira let out a scornful laugh.
"You? Sell something?"
"Do you have any idea how much the things in this shop cost? Can you not stand here embarrassing yourself?"
My face went cold.
Ever since we'd gotten together, it seemed I'd never been anything but an embarrassment in Moira's mouth.
I didn't understand it.
If she really found me so shameful, why had she agreed to be with me in the first place?
"We've already broken up. Wherever I want to go is none of your business."
Moira's face flushed a deep red.
She stared at me in disbelief, her voice climbing higher.
"Lucius, how dare you talk back to me!"
The other customers in the shop turned their eyes on the two of us.
I looked at her and felt, for the first time, plain disgust.
Not wanting to stand there making a spectacle any longer, I tucked the money away carefully, brushed past her, and headed straight for the door.
Moira had never been treated like that by me.
She threw out a hand, her long nails digging straight into my flesh, sharp enough that I sucked in a breath.
She didn't seem to feel a thing. If anything, she pressed harder.
"I'm not finished talking, so where do you think you're going!"
I couldn't take it. I wrenched her hand off me.
In the struggle, the cloth wrapped around the money slipped from my pocket.
A hundred thousand in bills went scattering across the floor.
I froze for a second, then dropped into a crouch to gather it up.
Moira stepped closer and stamped her foot down on my hand.
"Lucius. That's a lot of money. Where did you get it?"
