Another Price
The Apothecary looks at you for a long moment over the half-moons — at the set of your jaw, at the star-charm bracelet you've put a protective hand over without noticing.
“There is,” he says at last, “one other price I'd take, and money isn't it and memories aren't it. It's a errand. Sit down.” You sit. Badgers have that effect.
“Forty years I've kept this tent, and rung every sale on my grandmother's moon-bell — a little silver bell, rings only for honest bargains, goes flat for cheats. It's how the Market trusts me. Three stops ago, it was stolen.” His striped face darkens. “I know exactly who has it. Everyone knows. He's four rows down, at the stall nothing leaves: the Grabby Man. Everything he touches sticks to him, and he touches everything, and no one trades with him anymore, and no one can take a thing back from him, because whatever you grab out of his stall, his stall grabs you back.”
He slides the moonsilver jar to the middle of the counter, halfway between you. “Bring me my grandmother's bell before moonset, honey-child, and the salve is yours with my blessing — and the Midnight Market's apothecary is your friend on every road it travels, which is more roads than you'd think.”