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She grinned at him. “Don’t worry—I won’t.”
“Last piece of the day,” Frostpine grunted, hammering a hot bar of iron. “Kirel, I need that strip now.”
Daja watched as the apprentice put on heavy leather gloves, picked up the tongs, and drew the iron from the fire. She could see that his grip on the cherry-red metal was awkward as he turned from the forge, and nearly said so. Instead she bit her tongue. Most people Kirel’s age would not like advice from an eleven-year-old girl.
The novice caught his foot and stumbled. His tongs dropped from his grip.
She didn’t think; she grabbed the hot iron before it struck the ground. Lifting it with a relieved sigh, she offered it to Kirel.
The novice backed up, eyes wide in horror. The forge stopped his retreat.
“Kirel? Daja?” asked Frostpine. “What’s wrong?”
Daja still held the red metal out to the novice, though she had begun to shake. Just so her own kin would look at her, for handling the work of lugsha—for spending a whole afternoon in a lugsha’s shop.
Gently Frostpine reached over her shoulder and took the hot bar from her grip. Kirel ran outside.
Frostpine placed the iron on the rim of the forge. “Show me your hands.”
Daja obeyed. He turned them palm up in his own—they were unmarked. “Will you get the iron from my anvil?” he asked, folding her fingers over her palms and giving them a squeeze. “Put it beside this piece—don’t stick them back in the fire. Get two fresh iron bars from that box, and put them in till a third of the bar is on the coals.”
“Frostpine—” she whispered, not sure of what she wanted to say.
“He’ll be all right,” the smith told her. “These big northern lads are just a bit high-strung.” He went outside.
Daja put the iron on the fire, then stood in the doorway to cool herself off. She heard Frostpine, whispering, say, “I warned you when you came to me that you would see odd things.”
“A girl who holds red-hot metal in her hands? That’s more than just odd!”
“I don’t understand why you’re upset. I do the same thing, all the time.”
“You’re a great mage, perhaps the greatest smith-mage in the world. I always assumed you’d—you’d learned it, after years of study.”
Daja stepped away, not wanting to eavesdrop anymore. Once out of hearing, she regarded her hands: dark brown with tan-and-brown palms. They were striped with heavy calluses from the hard labor that went with being part of Third Ship Kisubo.
Going to the forge, she hesitated, then wrapped her hands around the red tip of the iron bar she had caught. It felt warm, but pleasantly so.
“Now,” Frostpine said, coming back inside. She looked at his hands—he’d taken the hot iron from her. He wore no gloves; now that she thought of it, he hadn’t worn them all afternoon. “Where were we?”
Supper was a quiet meal: only Niko, Lark, and Rosethorn talked. The four children were exhausted after their day, half-asleep before sunset.
“We’ll visit the baths now. Lark and I will clean up after we return,” Rosethorn said when they had finished. “You children go to bed early—you look done up.”
“Why the change?” asked Sandry, yawning.
“Once a month we go to the Summersea market,” explained Lark. “We sell goods from Winding Circle’s booth.”
Sandry clapped her hands, Tris sat up straight, and Daja smiled. Summersea was one of the Pebbled Sea’s great ports: the market would have all sorts of interesting things.
“It’s too soon for me to leave my shakkan,” protested Briar. “I should stay with it. What if that Dedicate Crane steals it back?”
“He wouldn’t dare,” Rosethorn replied. “And it’s no good hovering over a shakkan. They take their time.”
Lark stood. “Everyone, collect your bathing gear. From the look of things, we’ll have to make sure you don’t fall asleep and drown.”
The children raced to obey.
10
Up an hour before dawn the next day, they slept through most of the ride, cushioned in the cart by cloth, yarn, and bottles and crocks of liquids and ointments. By the time the sun was fully above the horizon, they were rolling through the Mire, the city’s slum, part of a line of wagons, people, horses, and flocks on their way to market. When they passed through the city wall between the Mire and Summersea proper, Briar sighed with relief. He was not sure how he felt, looking at a slum that was so much like the one where he grew up.
The immense market square was jammed with merchants and shoppers. When they reached their booth, Rosethorn wasted no time in putting everyone to work setting their wares on the shelves and table. Once the cart was empty but for a canvas-wrapped bolt of cloth, Lark drove off. Niko, who had accompanied them on horseback, followed her.
Briar and Daja—who had brought her staff—guarded the booth. Sandry and Tris showed goods, looked up prices, and wrapped the items that were sold. Rosethorn talked to favored customers while handling the cash box. It was a busy morning, with hardly a moment of quiet. All of them ate their midday standing up.
Soon after that, Lark returned. “We can let the children go, can’t we, Rosie? You and I will mind things.”
Rosethorn eyed the youngsters. “Promise to stay together? And out of trouble?” They nodded.
She pointed to the Guildhall clock. “Return by three.” Taking coins from her belt-purse, she handed them out. “Here’s five copper crescents each. Don’t buy anything illegal. Now, scat!”
“Come on,” said Briar when Sandry hesitated.
“Before she changes her mind,” Daja added. She grabbed one of Sandry’s arms, Briar the other, and they dragged her away. Tris brought up the rear.
Their first stop was a sweetshop, where they spent a crescent apiece; their second was at the market fountain, to wash their sticky hands. After that they wandered among the stalls. Sandry found a wooden drop spindle painted dark green and bought it. Tris located a seller of used books and dived into his crates, examining each volume. The others drifted away. Finding a copper-monger’s stall on the outer rim of the square, Daja stopped to admire his finely worked serving dishes. Briar struck up a conversation with two ragged boys.
Finding a spot where people wouldn’t bump her, Sandry eyed the buildings around the square nearby: Summersea Guildhall, Provost’s Hall, Traders’ Hall. The Guildhall in particular was very fine, with statues of craftsmen tucked in niches around the first story. She was about to go have a closer look when a dog’s yelp, followed by human laughter, got her attention. Looking around, she saw an alley where six boys, fairly well dressed, were bent over something.
“Stop that!” she cried. Running over, she seized a boy. “How dare you!”
Her captive—a big youth in a green tunic—slammed her, knocking her onto a pile of refuse. Scrambling to her feet, Sandry hit another lad. He tried to kick her, but managed somehow to tangle his foot in her skirt. Grabbing his ankle, she twisted, dumping him onto his back. She seized his neighbor, trying to drag him away from the others. That boy caught one of her braids and yanked hard. With a scream that was as much rage as pain, Sandry bit his arm. He yelled and punched her in the stomach.
Hearing a commotion, Daja looked around. Briar was still talking to the ragged boys; Tris was bargaining for a book. Where was Sandry?
“Bullies!” she heard a familiar voice cry. “Oafs! Torturing an animal—”
“Get out of here!” yelled someone at the square’s edge. A small figure went flying away from a group of boys, to hit a wall.
Daja gripped her staff tightly and ran to Sandry’s aid.
The boy who had thrown Sandry against the wall wasn’t done. As he raised a fist to her, something hard walloped him across the shoulders. He spun around to face a black girl nearly his own height, equipped with a Trader’s staff.
He swung at her. From the ground, Sandry kicked at the backs of his knees, while Daja rammed the head of the staff into his midriff. H
e went down hard, rolling into a clump of horse manure.
“Behind you!” Sandry cried to her friend.
Daja thanked the luck-gods that her uncles insisted she learn a few staff tricks very well. Putting the weapon between arm and side, she drove the smooth wood back until it hit someone hard. He yelped. She turned and banged him on the side of the neck, making him retreat. Three more town boys waded in.
“Ho, it’s a tumble,” one of Briar’s new acquaintances remarked. “Town girls, too. Not bad, for town girls.”
“Th’ one’s Trader,” noted the other street rat. “Trader staff, anyways.”
Briar turned to look: the “town girl” was Sandry. What was he supposed to do, rescue her and Daja? Because they lived together, did that make them his gang?
He sighed. He did owe Sandry for yesterday, and in Deadman’s District, debts always had to be paid sooner before later. Besides, it looked like a good fight, against plump merchant boys. With a nod to the street rats, he ran to help the girls.
He took the enemy by surprise, kicking Green Tunic between the legs from behind. As another boy swung on him, Briar ducked. Gripping the enemy’s arm, he twisted it up behind him and shoved him into a boy who was trying to rise from a manure pile.
Daja whacked a boy with her staff. Sandry, on the ground, yanked at the breeches of a boy who waited to get at Briar, pulling them around his knees. When he stumbled and fell, she wriggled by. There, at the mouth of the alley, was the shivering, blood-streaked ball of fur that had cried in pain. Grabbing the puppy, she hugged it to her.
“Town-lads!” cried Green Tunic, who seemed to be the leader. “Town-lads, to me!”
“None of that!” Briar rammed him in the stomach, knocking the air from the larger boy’s lungs. “You do your own fighting!”
At the bookseller’s, Tris tucked her purchase into a pocket and looked for the others. When she spotted them, she began to tremble. Fights meant pain and getting in trouble. She hated getting hurt.
Daja was in the thick of it, laying about her with her staff like a woman beating carpets she didn’t like. Briar darted from one enemy to the next, doing quick things that made them bellow and curse. There was Sandry, lobbing a brown mass that she’d scooped from the gutter into one boy’s face.
More youths ran by, intent on the fight. They outnumbered Tris’s housemates, and most of them were bigger as well. She suddenly had an image of the embroidered wall hanging that Sandry had given her so casually. It was a beautiful thing. In twilight, she’d found, the needlework birds almost seemed alive.
If she helped, the boys would hurt her; that had happened to her before. Frantic, she looked around for a constable or any other adult who might break things up. Instead, the alley where the fight was drew her eyes. At its far end she could see the blue-gray waters of Summersea harbor.
She wasn’t sure what happened next. Her mind broke free of panic, like a kite that had just caught the wind. Air bore her up, as it had the first time that she had tried meditation, and carried her to the harbor. Drawing her mind close, concentrating on a small patch of water, she drew it up with an invisible bucket. She would bring it to the town boys, to cool them off.
A rude hand grabbed her shoulder and whipped her around, breaking her concentration. “Out of my way!” snapped a youth as he shoved her aside.
Confused, Tris shook her head and turned until she could see harbor and alley again. On the docks, in full view, a waterspout—a water cyclone—twirled like a very thin top. The boy had spun her, and she had spun her seawater. “Uh-oh,” she whispered.
When it was ten feet tall, the waterspout jumped free of the dock. Wobbling, it advanced down the alley, pulling crates, garbage, and gutter-muck into itself as it came.
“Excuse me?” Tris ran toward the fight. “I think you should stop—”
No one heard. The waterspout caught up with a pair of boys. Grabbing them, it spat them against the alley walls. A third boy turned and was seized headfirst. He rose nearly seven feet before the spout dumped him.
Daja, Briar, and Sandry couldn’t see the alley—they were around the corner, in the main square. There a youth raised his hands to block Daja’s staff. She switched its angle and knocked his feet from under him. Briar twisted a boy’s nose, then joined Daja to guard Sandry and the pup. Carefully, the three of them backed up. Three town youths followed.
A watery cyclone sprang from the alley. The town boys, not knowing what came at them from the rear, saw shock in their foe’s eyes. “That’s the oldest trick there is!” Green Tunic jeered. He sported the beginning of a black eye. His partner, with two swollen lips, laughed harshly. Only the third youth turned to look—then ran. The spout gulped the other two, spun them rapidly a few times, then spat them onto the cobbles of the square.
Watching all this, Tris shook with terror. She was in real trouble this time. This was no bolt of lightning, to strike and vanish. Already it had pummeled some boys; now it advanced on her housemates. She ought to start running and not stop until she reached Namorn.
The puppy escaped Sandry’s hold and ran at the waterspout, yapping and snarling. Sandry dived for him and missed.
Until now, Tris’s only friends were animals. “No, no!” Running up, she thrust herself in front of her creation, before it could seize the dog. “Stop right now! I—I command it! Please?”
The spout halted, pulling in on itself. Tris stared at it, forbidding it to move. Sweat rolled down her cheeks and back. Now what could she do?
The spout shifted to her right. The moment she saw the scoured-white cobbles where it had been she said grimly, “Oh no you don’t.” Inhaling, she reached toward her creation with her mind. She instantly felt invisible ties that stretched between her and this water-and-garbage monster. Wrapping her mind around those ties, Tris gripped them hard, like reins, and tugged the waterspout until it returned to its original position.
“I’ll get Lark or Rosethorn.” Daja thrust her staff into Briar’s hands. “Here—in case someone else gets ideas.” She backed up, then ran around the waterspout, giving it a wide berth. Its upper half bent out of line, trying to follow her.
“Stop it!” cried Tris. This was starting to hurt; she could feel needles of pain in her head and neck. What would happen when she lost control?
Sandry drew close. Scooping up the dog, she wrapped her free, mucky hand around Tris’s. Briar gripped the redhead’s shoulder. Tris felt the stronger for their nearness. Taking a breath, she let it out and forbade the waterspout to go anywhere.
It shrank, then lengthened, fighting. Tris held firm. The spout whirled faster—then spat out the trash that it had collected in the alley. A slab of wood banged Tris on the forehead. She yowled and clapped a hand to the gash, feeling blood spill over her fingers. Briar and Sandry braced her.
“You gotta hold it!” Briar cried as the spout muttered to itself. “C’mon, merchant girl, this’s no time to worry about an ouch!”
Hissing, the spout tore at the cobbles, throwing rock splinters into the air. Tris’s hold on it broke as all three of them covered their eyes. With a roar of triumph, the waterspout turned on the market.
“Enough,” a familiar voice said. Daja, Lark, and Rosethorn had arrived to block the spout’s path. Lark held up a drop spindle, one that already carried blue yarn. Her fingers twitched; the spindle whirled left, against the proper twist. She let it slip down, her eyes fixed on the waterspout as the thread opened up. The water cyclone’s motion slowed, then reversed. It stretched, and stretched, and collapsed, dropping into a puddle that washed away from Lark. Halting the spindle, Lark wound her unspun wool around one hand.
With the fall of her creation, Tris felt the ground lurch. Her bones felt like water, trickling into her shoes. She sagged, and Briar caught her.
Rosethorn glared at them. “You were told to stay out of trouble.”
“It wasn’t so bad.” Briar put a hand over an eye that was rapidly going black. “Nobody was killed.”
&nbs
p; “They were torturing this dog!” Sandry was still red with fury. “It’s just a puppy, and they were hurting it!”
“Come on.” Rosethorn grabbed Daja and Sandry and headed back into the market, towing them with her. Lark and Briar supported the wobbly Tris. “If we hurry,” Rosethorn explained, “we might get out of the city with no one the wiser.”
The cart, with the placid cob that drew it, stood beside the booth. “I can’t believe no one nicked it,” Briar said, awed.
“Never mind that. Start packing,” Rosethorn ordered.
Lark and Briar put Tris in the cart first, then their goods. That was a fast job—almost everything had been sold. The other children clambered into the cart after that. Daja, holding the dog as Sandry got settled, heard a roar, and looked around. A crowd was approaching. “Rosethorn—trouble.”
Both dedicates turned and saw what she meant. “So much for leaving before someone makes a fuss,” Lark murmured.
“You’ll answer for what you’ve done!” cried a wealthy-looking man.
A woman called, “You half-killed my boy!”
Sandry rose, twitching her skirt away as Briar tried to pull her back down. “Your boy hurt a helpless animal!” she cried, eyes blazing. “Shame to him!”
“Quiet,” Rosethorn said out of the corner of her mouth.
“The square’s torn up. Who’s to pay for that?” The speaker, a man in the knee-length tunic worn by Hatarans, halted before them. “And there’s penalty taxes for brawling in the marketplace.”
“There was no warning posted for a big magical working!” A woman drew close, a battered Green Tunic under her arm. “Plus there’s healer’s fees for my son. A fine thing, when children can’t play while their folks are at market!”
“He deserved a worse thrashing than he got!” Sandry snatched the puppy from Daja and held it up. “Here’s what he and his friends were playing at. I’d be ashamed to own up to such a son!”
Now both Daja and Briar were trying to make her sit.
Sandry yanked free. “Only a brute has fun by hurting animals! To—”
“Shut up, Sandry, please!” Everyone stared at the cart, startled by the agonized cry. Tris fought to sit up. Her voice as harsh as a raven’s, she croaked, “Isn’t it bad enough? Leave it!”
