At last Tris left her table and walked into the maze of the district, asking shopkeepers for directions to Chamberpot Alley. It was one of the twisty back streets close to the shadow of the Khapik wall, in an area where the locals dwelled and shady business was done. When she asked the yaskedasi for directions to Ferouze’s, they gave her and Little Bear strange looks, then reluctantly showed her the way. Tris, they made it clear, was not at all the sort of person they were used to seeing. Chime at least was spared the looks. She was tucked away in her sling on Tris’s back.
Ferouze’s lodging-house was stucco over crushed stone, three stories high. The street windows were small and barred; the wooden gate that led to the courtyard was open. Tris hesitated by the door inside the courtyard passage, wondering if she ought to knock and ask for Keth, but then she heard voices. Following them seemed more appealing than knocking on an unknown, very dirty, door. She walked out into the open air.
At the heart of the courtyard was a well, one that had been in use so long that the broad stones that formed its rim — and provided a place to sit — dipped at the center from generations of use. Three yaskedasi sat there, watching a dark-haired child as she played with a pair of dolls. Tris recognized two of them, Keth’s friend Yali and the tumbler Xantha. The third, a curvaceous brunette with a lush mouth and green hazel eyes, was someone Tris hadn’t seen.
The child saw Tris first. She gasped, stretched out her arms and cried, “Doggie!”
Little Bear looked at Tris. “Go,” she said, “be careful.” One of the hardest things to teach Little Bear was that “be careful” meant he was to approach, then hold still. He trotted over to the child, wagging his tail and panting cheerfully. With no qualms at all the girl stood and wrapped her arms around the dog’s neck.
The curvy brunette looked at Tris and grimaced. “Who let Koria Respectability in?” she asked, getting to her feet. “Isn’t anyplace safe from that sort?”
“Leave her alone, Poppy,” Yali said with a sigh. “She’s a friend of Keth’s.”
“Well, he’s not here,” said Poppy. “He’s off studying magic somewhere.”
“Actually, he isn’t,” Tris said mildly. “He finished a couple of hours ago. I hoped he’d be home by now.”
“You can wait, if you like,” Yali said. “He usually comes home before we leave for work.”
Tris looked up at the sky. High clouds scudded overhead, the leading edge of her storm. “Will you work? There’s rain coming,” she told them.
Poppy scowled. “How do you know?”
Tris shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
Poppy and Xantha traded glances. “Grab what trade we can, then,” Xantha said. She and Poppy raced upstairs.
Tris looked at Yali. “I don’t understand,” she said hesitantly. “What’s the rush?”
“We’re street yaskedasi, not house ones,” Yali replied, watching the little girl pet the dog. “We lose money on rainy nights. Even if it only rains for a short time, guests are afraid it will start again, so they find other things to do.”
“I’m sorry,” Tris apologized. “But the city really needs the water. The wells are down everywhere, and the gardens are drying up.” She nodded toward a small patch of green: Ferouze’s herbs and vegetables hung limp.
Yali blinked at her. “Why are you sorry?”
Tris opened her mouth to reply, and thought better of it. Confessing that she would cause the yaskedasi to lose a night’s income seemed like a bad idea.
“Never mind. May I sit?” she asked Yali.
The woman nodded. “Glaki, don’t pull the dog’s ears,” she warned. “He won’t like it.”
“Sorry, doggie,” the child said. She looked at Tris. “What’s his name?”
“Little Bear,” Tris replied, easing Chime’s sling into her lap.
This made Glaki chuckle. “He’s not a bear!”
“He’s big enough to be one,” Yali remarked drily.
“Is she yours?” Tris asked Yali as she let Chime climb out of her sling. When the glass dragon unfurled her wings, the child gasped in awe.
“What?” asked Yali as Chime flew over to land on Little Bear’s back. “Glaki, mine? No. She was Iralima’s.” She lowered her voice so Glaki wouldn’t hear. “Our friend who was murdered.”
Tris watched Glaki run a careful hand over the edge of Chime’s left wing. Chime sang a low, soft note, stretching out her long neck to look directly into the little girl’s face.
“What will happen to her?” Tris wanted to know. “Her father —?”
Yali shook her head. “As far as we know, Iralima was alone in the world. No family — if she had a man, she never mentioned it.”
Tris frowned. For ten years her relatives had hammered into her mind how their generosity saved her from the fate that waited for a little girl cast onto the street. They had included details about just what that fate might be. “She has no one?”
Yali shrugged. “She’s got us. We’re keeping her — I am, mostly. Poppy and Xantha mean well, but they tend to get caught up in things. They forget that children must eat and go to bed at regular hours. But they chip in, and the men do, so there’s coin enough to provide.”
“And when you work?” Tris asked.
“Ferouze or Keth watches her,” Yali smiled. “Keth’s cheaper — I have to pay Ferouze to do it. But at least she hasn’t kicked Glaki out, or me for keeping her.” Yali propped her chin on her hands. “I can’t believe that Keth made that dragon without knowing about his magic.”
“It was a mad occurrence,” replied Tris. “The kind that doesn’t happen often. He accidentally called a lot of stray magics while he tried to make the glass do what he wanted. With those and his own power mixing, he got Chime.”
“And then he tried to break her, he told me,” Yali commented, and shook her head. “Men. They’re so excitable. Usually over things they can’t help.”
“I can’t exactly blame him for being upset,” Tris said. “From what he’s said, Chime was the first real clue to what had changed in him since he got hit by lightning. My experience is that adults don’t like surprises.”
“Oh, it is?” Yali asked, chuckling. “And you with vast experience, I take it?”
Tris smiled. She liked this woman. It also couldn’t hurt Keth if Yali understood a bit more about his new life. “Vast enough. Our kind of magic — Keth’s, mine, what my brother and sisters have — it’s tricky until you get to know it. And it’s different for everyone, because we’re all different inside. It helps if you’re younger when you start. You’re more used to being surprised as a kid.”
“But Keth’s going to be all right now?” asked Yali, worried. “He was so haunted when he first came here.”
“With a bit of work, he’ll be all right,” Tris assured the woman. “Right now he’s still getting used to the idea that he’s a mage.”
Chime took off, gliding here and there as Glaki and Little Bear chased her around the courtyard. Glaki was laughing so hard she nearly tripped. Both Tris and Yali started to their feet, then sat again as Chime turned to land on the little girl’s shoulder. Glaki carried the dragon over to them.
“Yes, she’s very pretty,” Yali told the child as she held Chime up for her to inspect. She glanced at Tris. “So yours is with the weather?”
Tris grinned. “The rain prediction gave me away, I take it.”
“Well, Keth said. And that’s how you became his teacher, because he’s got lightning.” Yali sighed. “Let’s hope he doesn’t try to work with it here, or Ferouze will pitch a fit. She doesn’t even like it if we hang curtains at the windows.” She stared into the distance for a moment, then asked shyly. “Is there anything magic you could do? Just a little thing? I love magic.”
Tris hesitated, then pointed to a dusty patch of courtyard and twirled a finger. The dust began to rise and spin, until she had a miniature cyclone no bigger than her hand. Moving her index finger, she guided the cyclone through the dust, until she had written Y
ali’s name in the packed earth at their feet.
The yaskedasu laughed and clapped her hands, then looked at the gateway to the street. “And here’s Keth, before I impose on you anymore. Thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome,” Tris said, ushering the cyclone over toward Glaki. Little Bear backed away, growling — he didn’t care for Tris’s displays. Chime showed no interest whatsoever. Glaki waited until the cyclone was within reach, then set her palm on it and pressed the cyclone flat against the ground. When she raised her hand, it was gone.
Keth walked over to them with a smile for Yali and a frown for Tris. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be home?”
“I have to change,” Yali said, getting to her feet.
“But the rain,” Tris protested.
“There are covered walkways where I can sing,” Yah told her. “And Glaki needs shoes for winter. Ferouze says she’ll watch her,” she added, looking at Keth. “Make sure she feeds her more than dates and stale cheese. I paid her five biks.”
“I’ll keep an eye on Ferouze,” Keth promised. When Yali passed him, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Be watchful,” he told her, blue eyes serious. “Stay off of Falsedice Way, even if you do get customers that pay well there. It’s too far back from the traveled streets.”
“I’ve been taking care of myself for years,” replied Yali. She kissed him on the cheek. “But you’re sweet to worry.”
Tris pretended not to watch this exchange. Instead she showed Glaki the spot behind the dog’s ears where he most liked to be scratched. Only when Yali had vanished into her upstairs room and Keth had turned to Tris did she say, “Perhaps I should have mentioned your lessons aren’t done for today.”
Xantha and Poppy ran down the steps, both in their gaudiest clothes, Poppy carrying a cape painted with peacock feathers. They waved good-bye to Keth and blew kisses to Glaki, who blew them back. For Tris, Poppy had a scowl. Xantha only fluttered her fingers in a wave and called, “So long, Koria Respectability.”
Tris watched them run out to the street. “She says that like it’s an insult,” she commented.
“From her, it is. What lessons haven’t we done?” demanded Keth.
Tris looked up at the sky. “I thought we might talk about lightning a bit.”
Keth, too, looked up. The clouds were lower, fatter, and the dark gray of thunderheads.
“Oh, no,” said Keth, turning pale. “Oh, no. No, no, no, no.”
“No?” asked Glaki.
“Suppertime,” Keth told her. He gently removed Chime from the girl’s fingers, setting the dragon on the lip of the well. Then he swung Glaki up onto his shoulders as the child whooped with glee. To Tris he said again, “No.” To Glaki he said, “Let’s see Aunt Ferouze and find out what’s for supper.” He trotted Glaki to the door in the passageway to the street. Opening it, he called, “Ferouze, I’ve got Glaki.” He looked at Tris, repeated, “No”, and disappeared inside.
9
By the time Keth left Ferouze, the sky was covered with heavy masses of fast-moving gray clouds. He had delayed going to his room as long as he could, first by helping the old woman to feed Glaki, then by telling the girl a story until she fell asleep. Only after that did he gather his courage and go out into the courtyard. There was no sign of Tris, Little Bear, or Chime. Keth knew he should be relieved that she was gone; instead he was puzzled. He was starting to get some idea of what she was like. She wasn’t the sort to just go away.
He was also dissatisfied with himself. Why hadn’t she made him face the storm? He thrust that idea clean out of his mind. It was just another of the bits of folly that had entered his thoughts after he’d been struck by lightning. Instead he told himself that Tris had finally seen it was futile to argue with him.
With another wary look at the sky, Keth climbed the stair. It would pour at any time. Probably Tris had returned to Jumshida’s to dance in it, or something. He hoped that the yaskedasi had found indoor work. This storm felt like a big one.
He slid his key into the lock on his door, and turned it. The door locked. Frowning, Keth turned the key in the opposite direction. The door opened. He didn’t like that. Had he left the room unlocked all day? Yali would never steal from him, but he didn’t trust Poppy or the male yaskedasi who lived at Ferouze’s. How could he be so stupid as to forget to lock up?
When he entered the room he found that he’d also left the shutters open. He swore: if it had rained in the day, his sketches for designs would have gotten soaked. Then he registered movement beside his door. It was the dog. Tris sat on his stool. A flash at the corner of his other eye drew his gaze to Chime who sat atop the pile of his sketches.
“You found it open and you just walked in?” he demanded. Somehow he was not as surprised to find her there as he should have been.
“No,” said Tris, smoothing her skirts. “My breezes found the one with your magic in it, and I picked the lock.” She held up a pair of hairpins.
Whatever he had expected her to say, that was not it. “You picked a lock.”
Tris tucked the pins back into her braids. “Briar taught me. He said I had a gift for locks. It’s high praise, coming from him. Not that your lock was much of a challenge.”
Little Bear came over, wagging his tail. Keth scratched his ears. “Hello, Bear. Good boy.” To Tris, in a less affectionate tone, he said, “You let yourself in, let yourself out.”
“No,” she replied as a gust rammed through the open window. “Come on. We’re going up to the roof.” Chime gave off a high, singing note that rose and fell as sparks popped in her eyes.
Keth shivered. He could smell rain on the wind. “I told you, no. Just because there’s a storm coming doesn’t mean I’m going to play in it.”
Tris removed her spectacles and rubbed her nose. “Keth, I’m not asking you to play.” Her voice was surprisingly gentle and reasonable. “But I need to show you something.”
“I don’t need to be shown anything.” Keth folded his arms over his chest. He hoped she couldn’t see that he was shaking. “Not in a storm, anyway.”
“But you do.” This time her voice was even gentler; that same kindness was in her level gray eyes. Now she scared him. She wasn’t kind. “Keth, as long as you fear lightning, you’ll fear your power. It doesn’t have to be that way. You’re not the same fellow who got struck beside the Syth. I can prove it to you.”
He shook his head stubbornly, though he couldn’t have said what he was denying or refusing. Outside, the tiniest growl of thunder rolled through the greenish air. His skin rippled with gooseflesh.
Tris took a deep breath and tried again. “So, you’ll learn magic, but only to the point where it starts to scare you. Is that it? How far will that get you? Magic doesn’t respond to orders like ‘this far and no further.’ The more you do, the better you get, so the more power you have. If you don’t keep ahead of it — if you don’t learn how to release it safely — it will find its own ways to come out. You really don’t want that to happen.”
Keth shook his head again, his heart thudding in his chest. What she said had the unpleasant feel of truth. For all her fiery temperament, she wasn’t the dramatic sort who liked to exaggerate. She was irritating, but she was also forthright. And when she spoke of magic, somehow the things she said carried more weight than the pronouncements of his mage uncles. She was fourteen and difficult, but when it came to magic, she seemed as much a master of her craft as Niko or Jumshida, and even more than Dema.
Tris went to the window, turning her face up to the blast of the rising wind. The two thin braids she wore loose on either side of her head fluttered wildly.
Chime flew over to hover in front of Keth as she made a chinking sound. Once she got his attention, she flew to the door and back, as if in invitation. She wanted Keth to go outside.
Tris faced him, the wind turning her braids as they reached toward Keth like yearning hands. Quietly she said, “I don’t believe lightning has the power to hurt yo
u anymore.
I think it would recognize you as a kindred spirit. But in case I’m wrong, and I suppose I could be, I can protect you from it. I can keep it off of you. But Keth, for that to happen, you have to trust me.”
For a long moment he said nothing, his mind in an uproar. It did come to trust, didn’t it? She was his teacher. Until now she’d been a good one. “You threw lightning at me,” he reminded her. “That hurt.”
“Because you’d put all of yours into Chime.” Quick as a flash her hand whipped forward. A thin stream of lightning — where had she gotten it with her braids all done up? — shot between them to strike Keth’s crossed arms. His muscles twitched, then stilled. Nothing else happened.
“You did it again!” he yelled, outraged.
“That’s right.” Her eyes were cold and steady. “Just a bit I yanked from the air, with the storm almost on us. Did it hurt?”
“That’s beside the point!” he cried. “You threw —”
“Did it hurt?” she interrupted, steely-voiced.
Keth struggled, trying to think of something cutting to say. Finally he snapped, “You tell me trust you, then you throw lightning at me.”
It was her turn to cross her arms over her chest. “Show some sense, Keth. How else am I going to get you to listen to me, if you won’t take my word for it?”
Suddenly the wind went out of his sails. She was right. She was right, and he, a grown man, was wrong. “You won’t let it hurt me?” His voice emerged far smaller, and far more trembly, than he liked. “You said you’d protect me.”
“I will.”
Keth sighed and wiped his sweaty face with a hand that shook. “Let’s go, then.”
They climbed to the third floor gallery, then up to the roof. Ferouze had already taken the wash down from the lines strung up here, leaving a few buckets and a rough bench to endure the storm.
Keth looked up. Rough black clouds billowed overhead. The wind rose, whistling through the streets and over the rooftops. In a lodging-house across the way someone had not closed his shutters completely: they slammed in the wind until one ripped free of its hinges. The air had taken on the green hue of olive oil. Thunder rolled in the distance. Keth shivered, and huddled in a corner of the rooftop wall, Little Bear on his left, Chime tucked securely in his lap. He had thought he would be safe in this low part of Tharios that would not draw lightning. That no longer mattered with Tris here. With Tris for company, no place was safe.