“All right,” he said when he got thoroughly bored with amethysts, “put the stone back and wipe the slate clean.” He looked at the paper Nahim Zineer had given to him. “Next pocket over. B is for bloodstone.” As Evvy drew out her bloodstone, Briar wrote the letter on the slate. “Big B, little b,” he said, making sure that she looked at the slate before he continued. “They’re supposed to help stop bleeding. Also good for physical strength …”
They got as far as G for garnet. Once Briar saw Evvy was struggling to concentrate, he ended the lesson and ordered her to bed. She replaced the garnet in its pocket and slowly, carefully rolled up the cloth kit. Once the ties were secured, she hugged it to her thin chest.
When she looked at Briar, there were tears in her almond-shaped eyes. “I never knew anyone with anything as fine as this,” she whispered. “You won’t be sorry you got me as a student, Pahan Briar. I promise you won’t. Good night.” She walked into her room. Her cats left their various watch-and-nap places in the dining room to follow her.
Briar closed and locked the doors, banked the kitchen fire, and blew out the few lamps burning downstairs. He stopped for one final look into Evvy’s room. She was already asleep, her cats distributed around her. She still clutched the roll of cloth with her stones to her chest.
The orange-patched blue-gray Mystery left the group of cats and trotted upstairs ahead of Briar, squeezing through Rosethorn’s barely open door. In his own room he found one of the cinnamon-masked golden cats, the one with a crooked tail. Apricot, Evvy had called her. Apricot had curled herself up on Briar’s pillow. Briar put on his nightshirt, cleaned his teeth, and got between the sheets.
“You’d better not snore,” he told Apricot. Just before he drifted off to dreams of stones of all colors, he heard her start to purr.
In the morning, Briar rose when Rosethorn did. Together they loaded her things onto the camels brought by the farmers she was helping: the sky was just barely pink over the cliffs of Chammur Oldtown. He watched her go, then went back inside to put on water for porridge and tea. There was no sense in returning to bed; better to tough out the day and return to normal sleeping hours that night. As he stirred porridge, he made lists in his head. He would start packing while Rosethorn was gone. If they were to leave in less than a week, they didn’t have much time.
While the porridge finished cooking, he brought his shakkan down from his room to the dining room table. It needed attention, and working with it soothed his last uneasiness over the sale of the larch. He always needed time with his shakkan after parting with another miniature. Reaching for the larch with his power, touching it on its ledge in the lady’s house, he could feel contentment. He knew he hadn’t given it to a bad home, at least not for trees. Still, the shakkan soothed him. It reminded him that the trees were not simple creatures, but as complex in their ways as the humans who shaped them. He wasn’t their creator, only their caretaker, one who was expected to pass them on in time.
He was sweeping dirt and trimmed branches from the table when Evvy emerged from her room, yawning. Under one arm she still carried her stone alphabet. Briar shook his head when he saw it. “Are you going to bathe with that?” he wanted to know, pointing at the roll of cloth.
Evvy smiled. “Probably. Look.” She got the slate and chalk and carefully wrote out each letter they had studied, both in capital and small form without mistakes. Watching her, Briar felt something warm and funny in his chest, something that made him want to clap her on the back and take her out for an expensive breakfast.
He was proud of her.
“Pretty good,” he said, not wanting to get all emotional. “Can you match them to the stones?”
Evvy undid the ties and rolled her cloth out flat. Starting with the top, left-hand pocket, she drew out the proper stone for each letter and recited its name. She even listed its uses, with only one or two small errors.
Briar corrected them, then ordered her to wash her face and hands and clean her teeth. She’s smart, he thought as he spooned porridge into bowls. Where would she be right now if someone had started her learning things years ago?
He didn’t know, but he would make up for that lost time. He could read ahead in the stone books at night to help her learn. It was worth an hour or two less of sleep, if he could teach her enough to keep that proud feeling inside. They’d show Jebilu what a fine student he’d missed.
They cleaned the dining room and kitchen together. “See, I think about my lessons when I do chores,” he explained as they scoured pots. “Practice them in my head, see if I have any questions about things. Be sure and ask questions. Your teacher doesn’t know if you’re learning right unless you do ask.”
Once her bed was made, Evvy went to the souk with a few coins for cat meat — some of the cats had already tried porridge, with mixed reactions. They went out to the rear yard as Briar fetched some traveling boxes from the storage shed. He would start packing in the workroom.
He walked into the barrier Rosethorn had laid on the room, forgetting she had put it there to keep Evvy out. It was one he could pass, once he remembered the right unlocking words. Rubbing his toes, he spoke them, and carried the boxes in.
On Evvy’s return, Briar let her feed the cats, then took her up to the roof. There he enclosed them in a protective circle of his own. “Show me what you learned from meditating yesterday,” he ordered.
With the same steady attention she brought to everything she wanted to learn, Evvy sat cross-legged and began the pattern of breathing. Immediately Briar could see the silvery glow that was her power, set loose from whatever bodily stronghold it was kept in. Today it stayed inside her skin, which impressed him. She learned so fast!
He talked her through drawing her power in, compressing it to make it stronger, then releasing it to fill her skin again. There were slips and escapes, but she seemed to understand better what he asked of her. At last Briar settled into his own meditation, coming out of it only when she stretched a cramped leg.
“More letters now,” he said as they clattered downstairs, cats all around them. Since she’d moved in, he felt as if he took every step in this house as part of a river of fur. “At least a couple of stones before midday, and then maybe a break for a time. You’re working harder than I did at my first lessons.”
“But didn’t you like it?” she asked, hugging the cloth roll to her chest. He’d made her leave it outside his protective circle when they’d meditated. The first thing she did when they got up was grab it, as if she’d thought it might run away. “Didn’t you like learning the magic?”
“I wasn’t sure why I was learning it, or what use all that sitting and thinking and breathing would be. And the first plant thing I did, the first thing I thought might be magic, was trim my shakkan. That hurt. It’s hard to think magic is fun when clipping bits off a tree hurts.” He smiled as they walked into the dining room. “But the gardening. I liked the gardening, even if it was mostly pulling weeds. Any garden that Rosethorn works in is happy. Well, except for the weeds. We try to make it quick for them.” He pointed to the chair. Evvy sat, undoing the ties to the cloth roll with eager fingers. Briar got his sheet of notes and the book, pushing the slate and chalk over so Evvy could reach it. “Hematite,” he read, and drew the large and small h on the slate. “Healing. It helps you concentrate on the real world,” he began.
They had gone as far as lapis lazuli, and Briar was planning lunch, when a flurry of knocks sounded at their door. It was Ayasha, the dimpled girl who’d been a Camelgut. She was flushed, tousled, and gasping for air, clutching her chest as she tried to slow her breathing. Briar hesitated, not sure he wanted anything more to do with the city’s gangs. She grabbed his arm, her brown eyes huge with fright. Her thick lashes fluttered like butterflies as she sagged against him. He could feel her trembling. Against his better judgment Briar let her into the dining room to sit, then fetched her a cup of water.
“We got caught by Gate Lords, Mai and me and some of the others,” s
he told Briar when she could speak clearly. “The Lords beat Mai bad, worse than the boys with us, because of their tesku talking with her. The boys went to tell Ikrum, but I stuck with Mai. She’s really hurt, and she doesn’t trust anyone but you now.” Ayasha grabbed Briar’s hand and kissed it. “Neither do I,” she whispered, looking at him with pleading in her face.
Briar ran upstairs to fetch his mage kit. “There’s meat and bread and cheese in the pantry,” he told Evvy when he returned. “I’ll put a warding on the windows and door so nobody comes in. That means stay put, understand?” He was fairly sure Lady Zenadia and the Vipers had given up on chasing Evvy, but there was no harm in taking precautions. Quickly he drew a protective line around the doors and windows. When he returned to the dining room he told Evvy, “Have the cats do their business in the back hall — they can’t go out. We’ll scrub it before Rosethorn comes home.”
Evvy nodded, eyes wide.
Briar tugged her nose gently. “Stay out of trouble,” he ordered. To Ayasha he said, “Let’s go.” Walking out with her, he stopped to put a final ward on the front door.
Ayasha took Briar’s hand and led him through the streets and up along roofs, into the middle- and lower-class neighborhoods south of the Street of Hares and east of the Hajra Gate. Briar was well and truly lost after the first three or four turnings. “No wonder you were breathless,” he told Ayasha as they climbed down to the street once again.
She glanced at him. “I needed to put her someplace safe,” she explained. “I know the lads had to tell Ikrum, so they could get back at the Gate Lords, but I wish they’d stayed until I fetched you. I couldn’t manage her alone. Here.” She walked through a narrow passageway that pierced yet another blank stucco wall. It led into a dead end courtyard between five houses. There a rickety wooden lean-to stood against the wall on one side of the entrance. Ayasha struggled with the door, finally getting it open.
“In here,” she whispered. Mai lay in the dark inside, on a pile of sacking.
When he got a clear look at Mai, for a moment Briar was speechless with rage. She’d been beaten hard, her nose broken, her arms and legs dappled with bruises.
He knelt beside her and gently felt her arms and legs. Her left leg was broken near the foot. Next he checked her ribs and collarbone. “You need a healer,” he told Mai softly. She shook her head, grunting. Did they break her jaw? He felt it, and the rest of her skull. As far as he could tell, they were whole. “Did you lose teeth?” he asked, gently prying her swollen lips open. Her teeth were coated with blood — he saw cuts in the flesh of her lips — but they didn’t seem broken. “Mai, why can’t you talk?” he asked, tugging on her lower jaw. “Lemme see your tongue.”
When she opened her teeth, he smelled cloves and lavender. That scent — he should know that scent. Her tongue was undamaged. He felt her voice box, but it too was normal. He extracted medicines from his kit to ease the pain of her broken nose and broken leg, and to reduce her lumpiest bruises. While he tended those, memory told him the source of that odd smell. He sat back on his heels.
“Numbtongue?” he whispered, baffled. Numbtongue was only barely legal: a substance that could stop people with broken jaws and teeth from talking could also keep people from shouting for help. “Why in Lakik Trickster’s name —?” He looked around for Ayasha.
She was gone.
Briar smelled something far worse than numbtongue — a trick. He looked at Mai for a moment, wiping his hand over his dry lips. She wrapped her hands around one of his wrists. Her eyes begged him for something; what, he didn’t know.
“Only one way to know,” he muttered grimly.
The back of his mage’s kit seemed to be of a piece with the front. Only someone familiar with it, or someone with sharp eyes, would guess that the apparent back on the inner compartments was secured by tiny buttons. Briar undid them and opened out the secret compartment, revealing a row of small vials, each carefully sealed and labeled. Everything here was hazardous; possession of these substances was limited to recognized mages and healers. With his mage’s credential he was allowed to carry these things, but he hid them from thieves.
He cracked the vial of Loosetongue syrup, and dabbed it on Mai’s tongue. It was good for several uses, including interrogations. Few people remained silent with Loosetongue in their mouths. It was also the antidote to Numbtongue.
Mai swallowed, once, twice, her eyes watering. She gasped and said, “The Vipers did this — not Gate Lords. It was to bring you. They went to take your Evvy!”
Briar straightened with a curse, and bumped his head on the shed’s low roof. He cursed again and lunged for the door. Mai’s yelp as she fought to sit up halted him.
He couldn’t leave her in this place with a broken leg. The Vipers might beat her again, to punish her for telling. If not, there were plenty of people who took advantage of girls who could not run.
But Evvy! his mind shouted. She’ll be scared! She’ll — wait. The cooler Briar took over, the one in control of his thinking, most days. I put wards on the doors and the windows. They won’t be able to get past those.
He’d splinted Mai’s leg with boards from the lean-to and was wrapping a length of bandage around the splits when he saw he’d forgotten something. It was stupid, in this city, and if anything proved he was truly an eknub it was this: he hadn’t warded the roof. Hadn’t even thought of it, not when he was at the house, not even as Ayasha led him across roofs to this place.
“I’ve got to get you to a healer,” he told Mai, helping her to stand on her good leg. “And then I’ve got to get home. Are there healers nearby?”
Mai shook her head. “I only know the ones around home, our old territory,” she said. “Besides, I haven’t any coin. Look, Pahan Briar, you’ve done enough. I don’t want you losing her because they used me. Go find her.”
Briar smiled crookedly. “If you knew what my teachers would do to me, if any of them heard I left you with no healer, you wouldn’t even suggest such a thing. I can find Evvy if need be. Let’s go.”
In the house on the Street of Hares, Evvy found plenty to do with Briar away. She practiced her letters until she got bored, then leafed through the book of stones they were using, gazing in wonder at the colored illustrations. She couldn’t wait to read what stone each beautiful picture represented, and tried to guess their names by using the letters she’d learned so far. When that grew tiresome, she tried to interest her cat Ball in playing with a round of hematite from her stone alphabet.
Was that a noise on the roof? She listened sharply, but heard nothing. Suddenly wary, she put the hematite piece back into its pocket, rolled up the stone alphabet, and took it into the pantry. Once it was hidden, she emerged from the pantry, walking straight into a hand covered with smelly cloth. It covered her face. She clawed at whoever held it, but the fumes burned through her nose into her head, pulling darkness into her.
It was a long, hard trip to the Water temple, with plenty of stops to rest. At last Briar was able to turn Mai over to the Water temple healers. They assured him they’d give her the best of care, and assured Mai that there was no charge. After she gave him directions to the Viper lair, Briar said his goodbyes to Mai. He was about to go when something made him ask, “What will you do after this? Go back to the Vipers?”
Mai, pale-faced and sweating, shook her head. “That’s a joke. I’m out of gangs, any gangs. Nobody knows how to act any more. My sister’s been after me to work in her cook-shop. I’ll try that instead.”
“If you don’t mind?” snapped the healer appointed to care for Mai. “The sooner I treat her, the better she’ll feel. You can talk later.”
Briar wasn’t sure they’d have a later to talk in. From the look on her face, Mai felt the same way. “Walk carefully with the Vipers,” she told him. “Keep an eye out for the lady’s mute and the swordsman. Especially the mute. He’s noiseless when he walks, and he likes to get behind people.”
Briar saluted her and strode out of the infi
rmary, his mage kit over his shoulder. Once outside, he sorted through his magical ties. Here were Tris, Daja, and Sandry, his connections to them stretched over so much distance that they were as fine as hairs to his magical vision. Here were his bonds to Rosethorn and to Dedicate Crane back at Winding Circle. Crane’s, too, was thinned by distance. And here was Evvy’s, strong and steady. Right now she was closer physically than even Rosethorn — but she was not in the north and east, where the house was. Her tie led south of his present position, in the direction of the Vipers’ den. The tie was also warm with Evvy’s rage. She wasn’t frightened or in pain, but she was definitely angry.
That makes two of us, Briar thought grimly as he set off down the Street of Wells.
Evvy woke, gasping for air, and panicked. Everything was black around her, black and lightless. Had she been caught in a cave-in? But she always knew when stone was about to give way …
She tried to feel in front of her with her hands, to find they were tied together behind her back. Her feet were tied as well. Vipers, she thought, panicky and livid at the same time. The pus-filled, leeching, dung-faced Vipers had caught her at last.
“She’s awake,” a female voice called. “I saw her thrash.”
“Good,” drawled another voice, male. “The little crawler needs her exercise.”
“Lemme give her water,” a second female said. “You know sleepy juice dries your mouth.”
“Females — so tender-hearted. Leave the blindfold on,” the male voice ordered. “Don’t let her see anything to work magic with.”
Hands helped Evvy to sit up. She felt a cup at her lips. Ignoring the pain in her hands and arms, which were trapped under her, Evvy gratefully slurped water until her belly was full. When she finished, hands lay her down on her side again.