“When so important a person is concerned, any attempt to discover the truth of ugly rumors must be handled with care,” the mutabir said, choosing his words slowly. “Any great family would be sure to renounce one of their own as criminal, should rumors be proved. Alas, a noble family would be quicker still to attack the Watch if it were to learn that the Watch is investigating one of them.”
“What rumors?” Briar asked, his voice sharp. “If you mean her taking up with a gang, I bet everyone from the Street of Wells to Triumph Road knows that.”
Turaba was shaking her head. “Deaths have been rumored, over the last ten years,” she replied. “Deaths and disappearances.”
“Our last four Watchers in that house have vanished,” the mutabir informed him. “We can find no trace of them.”
That was why Briar had noticed the spies reporting to the Watch when they picked him up — the house was being watched from the outside, if not from within. “So,” Briar said, inspecting the vines on his scarred hand, “would you have grabbed me at all if it hadn’t been four of your own gone missing? You haven’t exactly stopped her from giving weapons to a gang, have you?”
The mutabir raised his eyebrows. “Gangs have been at war since Mohun crafted the dark spaces within stone,” he told Briar. “If they kill one another, it is hardly of concern to me or mine.”
“She wants that street girl you found,” Turaba added as Briar thought longingly of punching the mutabir. “She offered the girl employment, suitable teachers, a place in her home. Why do you refuse such an opportunity for the child?”
Briar scowled. How close had some informer been to his booth yesterday, if they knew so much? “Do you also know how many times I get up in the night to make water?” he demanded crossly.
“Information is the key to order,” the mutabir replied, his mellow voice amused. “My people gather as much as they can. We would like some from you, pahan. Why does she want that girl?”
“Scry your own answers,” retorted Briar. “You must have seers in the Watch.”
Turaba shook her head. “House Attaneh has owned land in that part of the city for over six hundred years,” she informed Briar. “The outer walls and the houses themselves are protected with old and new spells from common nuisances like burglars and seers. Forgive me if I am the first to explain,” she added with mocking kindness, “but the wealthy like to keep their secrets. Will you please tell us why the girl is important to her?”
Briar shrugged. Of course he knew the wealthy bought magic to protect their homes: he’d dealt with plenty of it. There were always counter-magics available to negate such spells. On the other hand, layers of spells, laid down over centuries, could be much harder to beat.
“Lady Zenadia says she wants Evvy to run errands and keep her company, but really it’s for her toy gang, the Vipers,” Briar told them. “They’ll do better at thieving if they have a stone mage, and Evvy’s the only other stone mage in Chammur. The Vipers tried to get Evvy and failed, so Lady Zenadia tried going through me. I’m Evvy’s teacher for now.” Inspiration struck. “You could lock her up for criminal business,” he offered. “If she runs a gang, she benefits from the fights and the stealing, right?”
“One doesn’t bother the amir’s aunt with petty charges,” Turaba replied. To the mutabir she said, “The rumors weren’t so persistent until she met their tesku, Ikrum. He’s been a bad influence. So has the gang.”
What about the influence she’s been on them? wondered Briar.
The mutabir looked at Briar. “What did you see in her house?”
Briar grimaced. “A chamberlain. A lot of rooms. Gardens — nice ones. A few servants. What did you expect me to see, dead Watchmen hanging from the rafters? Loot the Vipers turned over to her?”
“I do not appreciate impertinence, even from a pahan,” the mutabir informed him. “We desire you to allow the girl to go to Lady Zenadia. She will then report to us. She is clever in the way of street people, and, better still, too young to be suspected as a Watch informer —”
Briar backed up a step, angry again. “No,” he snapped. “Send a kid to spy in a house where four of your own grown Watchmen have gone missing? Not while I’m her teacher, and not while Dedicate Rosethorn is my teacher. I don’t care if it makes your life easier.” They blinked at the mention of Rosethorn’s name. He’d risked their not knowing who she was, but it seemed like a small risk. If they knew his conversation with Lady Zenadia in the souk, they had to know Rosethorn had talked to Jebilu, and that she’d forced their wonderful stone mage to bow down. He continued, “If you meddle with Evvy, you won’t like what happens. Rosethorn will back me up. Evvy stays with us.”
The mutabir glared at Briar. “I do not like threats.”
“Briar Moss,” Turaba remarked. “I have heard stories of four young pahans in Emelan, one of them named Briar Moss. The stories are — astonishing.”
Briar shrugged. “Stories get stretched when they travel.”
“But you are that pahan, are you not?” Turaba pursued.
“Maybe,” Briar said with another shrug. “Me and the girls always get talked about.”
Turaba looked at her master and made a flickering signal with her hand. Tentatively she asked Briar, “Can we not reach an accommodation?”
“I don’t appreciate people using street kids as pawns,” Briar told them. “Evvy’s scraped to live in this wonderful city for years. You owe her better than sending her into that house, if there’s a chance she’ll be risking her life.”
The mutabir sighed. “There have been poor since the birth of humankind, young pahan. It speaks to the generosity of your heart that you have taken this girl in, but know this: for every girl lifted from poverty, there are twenty more to take her place. No one could save them all.”
Not that you ever bothered, Briar thought, but he kept it to himself. He’d already pushed this man as far as was safe.
The mage inspected the crystal globe she still held. “Will you at least keep your ears open for more information? You have been seen with members of the gangs involved — you may hear something. You may be invited to the lady’s house again.”
“Why bother?” asked Briar. “Her kinfolk will hush it up, no matter what.”
“If she has committed truly serious crimes, her own kin will want an end to her activities,” the mutabir replied. “Even nobles answer to the law. She cannot murder without consequences.”
“I’ll think about it,” Briar said flatly. “Can I go now?”
The mutabir drummed his fingers on a tabletop, then nodded. Briar turned and walked out, the skin on the back of his neck prickling. He was surprised at their restraint. Most law officials he’d known would bruise people first for defying them, then apologize later. He knew that law-keepers tended to walk softly around mages — why risk creating problems they might not be able to fix? — but this was the first time he’d experienced it personally. Which stories about him and the girls had filtered to this far place?
13
The house on the Street of Hares was quiet when he arrived late that afternoon. A lone cat — Briar thought it was the brown tortoiseshell Asa — napped in the middle of the dining room table. Looking at her in decent light, Briar realized she was pregnant.
“Wonderful,” he muttered, dumping his packs and parcels on the table. “Rosethorn?” he called. Asa looked at him, meowed a complaint, then went back to sleep.
“Workroom,” shouted Rosethorn.
“Evvy?” He walked toward the kitchen.
“In my room,” Evvy called. She sounded cross.
Briar reversed course and went to the door of Evvy’s new room. An invisible force halted him at the threshold. He looked down. A thin line of green powder lay across the sill. Touching it with his magic, he found it was the Holdall mixture Rosethorn kept in her stores. There were also lines of it across the windowsills.
Evvy sat against the far wall in the middle of a nest of cats. She was toying with the ston
es she had brought from home and pouting.
“What did you do?” asked Briar. He fought to keep a grin off his face.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Evvy whined.
“She had her nose in the mouth of a jar of Must-Sleep powder and was about to inhale,” Rosethorn said tartly from the top of the stair. She stood with a jar braced on one hip. “I told her not to go poking in the workroom.”
“I wanted to know how it smelled,” grumbled Evvy.
Briar shook his head. “And if you’d taken a big whiff, you’d be asleep for months,” he informed her as sternly as he could. “You have to obey Rosethorn. She mostly doesn’t give orders without good reason.”
“Mostly?” Rosethorn murmured, coming down the stair. Briar stepped aside to let her pass. “Just mostly?”
“Sometimes you give orders to be crotchety,” Briar whispered as she went by. He watched as she put the jar by the front door. “What’s that?”
Rosethorn stretched, hands pressed against the small of her back. “I’m about set for those farmers,” she explained. “I’ve packed every last seed for the fields. You can help me bring it down here. Her, too.” Bending down, she dragged a finger through the line of powdered herbs across Evvy’s door. “Come make yourself useful,” she told the girl as the freed cats raced out. “And don’t get into anything.”
“I just wanted to see how it smelled,” Evvy grumbled as she followed Briar and Rosethorn upstairs.
The fruit of Rosethorn’s rooftop endeavors, the clover, bean, and corn seed harvested and mage-dried to keep them from rotting, had been packed into jars and sealed with wax. They had to be carried downstairs. So did a dozen sacks of grain. Rosethorn had poured her magic into them, giving them the strength to become a fast-growing winter crop, hardy enough to survive the rainy season. Last of all were small kegs of a growth potion, a small drop of which could fertilize an acre of land for years.
As soon as everything was clustered before the front door, they set about preparing supper. Briar had bought his cooked chicken on the way home; Rosethorn had made lentils and noodles during the day. Once the food was served, Rosethorn worked a protective circle to keep the mewing and yowling cats from climbing on the table.
“They’ll get fed,” she told Evvy, who seemed much chastened. “But we work hard for our food here, so we get to eat first.”
Once he’d devoured a bowl of noodles and lentils and a chicken leg, Briar asked, “Won’t you need me to help you in the fields?”
Rosethorn shook her head. “Most of the work’s done. I’ll be gone three or four days. You two will have to manage without me.” She glared at Evvy. “I’m putting wards on the workroom to keep you out. You don’t go in until you learn to read.”
Evvy nodded, eyes wide.
“Aww, you’re getting soft,” Briar teased Rosethorn. “Time was you’d have skinned anyone who fooled with your pots.”
“I may do that yet,” Rosethorn replied, with an extra glare for Evvy. “A mage’s workroom is not a spice merchant’s shop. Our brews can kill people, or worse. When do you start teaching her to read?” she asked Briar.
“Tonight,” he replied, carving more chicken. “I got her a surprise at the market.”
“Just make sure it isn’t a surprise for me, too,” Rosethorn said, wiping her lips. “Will you two be all right the time I’m gone? Earth temple would probably let you move into the guest house —”
Briar shook his head. “We’ll be fine.”
“Did the lady ask about me?” Evvy asked Briar. “What was her house like?”
Rosethorn propped her head on her hands. “Yes — what was it like?”
“The gardens are … very healthy,” answered Briar. “Especially the biggest one. And it’s fancy inside, all marble and stone inlays, expensive wood, silk, velvet, gilding. She asked about Evvy again, but I think she listened this time, when I told her no.” He added more details about the art he had glimpsed and what the lady wore, used to such descriptions after four years of living among females who wanted to know how others lived. He didn’t mention his conversation with the mutabir and his mage. The more he thought about it, the more it troubled him. Rosethorn would need a clear mind to do the work she intended to in Chammur’s fields. It could wait until she returned.
“I’ve been thinking,” Rosethorn drawled, when Briar finished. “It might be possible to reach Laenpa, across the border in Vauri, before the rains. An old friend of mine from Lightsbridge settled there — she’s written she has plenty of room for us, and that she’d like the company.”
“I won’t leave my cats,” Evvy announced nervously.
“I’m not asking you to,” Rosethorn informed the girl. “They’ll have to go in baskets, and we’ll need two camels, I suppose, for all our gear, but that can be done.”
“What about at night?” Briar asked. “And won’t the cats fight, or get sick, being in baskets all the time?”
Rosethorn looked at him as if she wanted to ask if he’d been drinking stupid tea. “We draw a circle around them at night,” she explained patiently. “They don’t go out, only Evvy goes in. They’ll be safer than we will. And it’s not a long haul, only about a week. I spoke to the man who runs the last eastern caravan of the season. They leave in six days. He must have some weather magic, because market gossip is that he’s never been caught on the road by the rains.”
“You mean it?” Evvy asked, her chin and voice wobbly. “You won’t leave me and the cats here?”
Rosethorn took the napkin from her lap and folded it precisely. “I won’t leave the scrawniest, most vicious of those troublemakers in this bloodless, dying place, let alone you,” she said quietly without looking at Briar or Evvy. “I can’t wait until I can scrub the dust of Chammur from my skin.” She rose and broke the circle on the table. The cats remained where they were, keeping an eye on her. “I’m off. Keep things quiet down here — I need to be up well before dawn, so I’m going to bed soon.” She walked out of the room and climbed the stairs.
Briar scrubbed his tired face with his hands. This was the second time that she had anticipated a problem he wanted to discuss and settled it before he could speak. Relief flooded his mind. Laenpa was further east, another land entirely. They would all be safe from the lady, the Vipers, and perhaps even the mutabir. When he looked at it that way, even the fun of carting seven cats in wicker baskets for a week didn’t seem too high a price to pay.
After he and Evvy cleaned up and washed dishes, Briar settled her at the table once more. After some thought he’d decided to teach her to read and write in Imperial. The books that Rosethorn had borrowed from the Earth temple were in that language, since the Pebbled Sea and the lands around it were the center of the Living Circle faith. Evvy already knew a number of words in Imperial, as she did in a handful of other languages, to get along in Chammur’s marketplaces. Moreover, the three of them wouldn’t be staying so long that a knowledge of how to read and write Chammuri would do Evvy any good.
On the way to the lady’s house, wondering how he could teach Evvy in a way she would like, Briar had been struck with inspiration. Now he put out a slate and chalk, a dampened cloth, and one of the books of stones and crystals Rosethorn had brought. He added a sheet of notes he’d made during a long visit with the crystal merchant Nahim Zineer. Last of all he put down the heavy roll of cloth he’d purchased, undid the ties, and opened it until it lay flat on the table. Its white inner surface was covered with a number of small pockets. He’d put a stone or crystal in each as he bought them from Nahim.
“This is yours,” Briar told Evvy as she bounced in her chair, staring at the cloth with bright eyes. “None of these stones have any magic. I made sure of that. You want to start with something that’s never known magic, so any changes or spells you put in will be yours, and nobody else’s. Don’t let anyone else handle these, either. And you’re not to do any magic with these stones at first. Keep your magic in your skin, understand?”
 
; “All right, all right,” Evvy said impatiently. “But what are they? What will we do with them? Are they really mine?”
Suddenly it was worth the time he’d taken after his meeting with the mutabir to purchase all of this at Golden House. “They’re really yours, but they’re for you to learn with. And the first thing you’ll learn with them is how to read and write. You —”
Evvy threw herself across the gap between her chair and his and hugged him fiercely. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she cried. “Nobody ever bought me anything so nice!”
“Stop that,” Briar protested, untangling her arms from around his neck. From the heat in his face he knew he was blushing. “Girls. Always wanting to hug somebody.” He gently thrust Evvy back toward her chair and picked up the slate and chalk. “Here we go. Reading and writing in Imperial, and some thoughts for stone magic.” Carefully he drew the big and small versions of the letter A on the slate. Pointing to the first pocket in the cloth, he said, “Take that one out.”
Getting up on her knees on the seat of the chair, Evvy reached out and slowly, carefully, drew a purple crystal from the cloth. She put it on top of its rightful pocket. “This is amethyst,” she breathed.
“Yes. A — see here, that’s this letter, big A and little a — A is for amethyst.” Briar opened the book and leafed through to the proper entry. “According to this, it’s good to ward off nightmares and calm people down. Seers use it because it makes visions clearer. Now, take the chalk, and draw both A’s.”
As Evvy slowly copied the letters on the slate, Briar read on. “It gives folk courage and keeps travelers safe on the road. Guess we’ll need that soon, eh? Now, tell me the uses for amethysts.”
Evvy recited them solemnly. Briar inspected her A’s and asked her to draw them several more times. He read out even more uses for the stone and had her repeat them. Rosethorn had done this same kind of teaching with plants during formal lessons in the first winter they’d spent as teacher and student. That was purely magical learning: Tris had already taught Briar how to read.