“I’m not speaking with them,” Briar muttered, avoiding her gaze. “Not in my mind. I didn’t tell them we’re coming, or we’re here.”
Rosethorn’s eyebrows snapped together. “You haven’t linked back up with the girls? In Mila’s name, why not? They could help you so much better than I can!”
Briar stared at her. Had Rosethorn run mad? “Help me? Boo-hoo and wail and drape themselves all over me and treat me as if I was a refugee, more like!” he said tartly. “Want me to talk about it, like talking pays for anything, and cuddle me, and cosset me!”
Rosethorn’s delicate mouth curled in her familiar sarcastic curve. “Did some imperial Yanjing brute knock you on the head ten or twelve times?” she wanted to know. “That doesn’t sound like our girls. If you’ve shut them out for that reason, boy, you took more of a beating than I guessed.”
Briar hung his head and ground his teeth. Why does Rosethorn always have to cut through any smoke screen I put up? he asked himself. It’s unnatural, the way she knows my mind. He steeled himself to say the truth: “I don’t want them in my mind, seeing what I saw. Hearing what I heard, smelling ... I don’t want them knowing the things I did.” Sure of Rosethorn’s next objection, he quickly added, “And I don’t know if I can hide that away from them once they get in. It’s everywhere, Rosethorn. All that mess. My head’s a charnel house. I have no way of cleaning it up yet.”
To his surprise, Rosethorn had no answer to that but to hug him tight, blankets and all. After a moment’s hesitation, he hugged her back. With Rosethorn, hugging was all right. She had been in Gyongxe, too.
As a way to build up her defenses against being overwhelmed by sights on the wind, Tris had begun to journey farther afield in her marketing, controlling the drafts that touched her face and the images she chose to inspect. On this day she had offered to go to Rainen Alley to buy Daja’s metal polish. It meant she would take Market Street on the way home, spending three blocks on a direct line with the East Gate, able to catch whatever wind came through.
She had barely stepped into that wind when it showered her with pictures. She walked along, discarding or ignoring most as useless, dull, or meaningless, until a solid one gleaming with the silver fire of pure magic brought her to a complete halt.
A young man five feet nine inches tall walked through the slums beyond the East Gate, leading a pack-laden donkey. Atop its more usual burdens the donkey carried boxes with an assortment of shakkans, or miniature trees. The young man was a handsome fellow with bronze skin, broad shoulders, and glossy black hair that he wore cropped an inch long. His eyes were gray-green, turning darker green as he returned the admiring glances of the women who passed him by. Those eyes were set over a thin blade of a nose, a sensitive mouth, and a firm chin. He wore a Yanjing-style round-collared coat and leggings in tree green, and rough leather boots with fleece linings. A closer examination revealed what looked like flower tattoos covering his hands. Very close examination showed that the flowers lay under the young man’s skin and nails. They also moved, grew, put out leaves, and blossomed.
Tris immediately changed course. If she hurried, she could have a batch of Briar’s favorite spice cookies in the oven when he reached the house.
That night Tris set the dining room table for four. Daja walked in as Tris laid out plates of olives and warm, fresh bread.
“What, no wine?” asked Daja. She was still wet from scrubbing her face and hands after a day at the forge. She carried the tang of hot metal around her like perfume.
Tris raised nearly invisible eyebrows. In here, with more control and fewer drafts, she wore her clear spectacles. “You drink it?” she asked, skeptical. “You never did before.”
Daja shrugged. “I just thought, you being all fancy with fresh bread ...” She peered inside one pitcher, nodded, and poured out cider for herself. “No, you know wine meddles with my magic. But maybe Briar can drink it.”
“Maybe time runs backwards,” Tris called over her shoulder as she went back into the kitchen. With practiced skill she collected the roasted chicken stuffed with dried fruits, a plate of cheese pastries shaped like small pots, and a bowl of leeks cooked with eggs. The foods had all been among Briar’s favorites when the four had lived at Discipline.
It seemed Daja had remembered Briar’s fondness for pomegranate juice, since she had filled his cup with that. “Hakkoi pound it, do you want us to roll away from the table?” she asked, amused, as Tris set down the food.
Tris scowled at her. “He’s too skinny, if you didn’t notice,” she said tartly. “What was he eating all this time, leaves?”
“No, there were some grubs, too.” Briar leaned against the door, watching Tris. “Daj’, what, you’re too cheap to hire a cook?”
Tris stuck her tongue out at him—as if she would let a hired cook fix his favorite dishes!—and returned to the kitchen. Going to answer a knock on the door she heard Daja say, “My cook left three days after Tris moved in. I have a kitchen maid who helps during the day, and I’ll need to hire a second housemaid. Whom you’re under strict orders not to frighten,” she called after Tris.
“Not if she does the work right,” muttered Tris. She opened the kitchen door to find Sandry, wrapped in an oiled cloak against icy rain. “Why couldn’t you come in the front like a civilized person?” Tris asked as she let the other girl in. “And wipe your feet. Don’t tell me you walked from Duke’s Citadel.”
“No, but your manservant’s showing my guards where to stable the horses, and this was easier,” Sandry replied quietly. She let Tris take her cloak and hat. “Is he here? I thought so, but he’s closing me out, just like you and Daja.”
“And you’re wide open, are you?” Tris asked, hanging the dripping clothes on pegs. “Yes, he’s here. And my supper is getting cold.”
Sandry turned up her small nose and sniffed the air. “I smell fresh bread,” she said happily. “Have you headache tea? I’ve been reading dull old reports from Namorn all day.”
“I’ll make you a cup. Go say hello to him,” Tris urged.
“How could you be doing reports? No mail comes from Namorn this time of year.”
“Uncle suggested it. He thinks it’s wise to do a review of the last three or four years all at once, to see what’s changed. I know he’s right, it’s just so tedious.”
“I thought it was you,” said Daja from the doorway. “Didn’t you come here to say hello to our boy, not talk about reports?”
Sandry looked past her and saw Briar. “Oh, you’re so thin,” she said mournfully, and walked past Daja with her arms held out.
Tris poured the tea water, noticing that her hand on the grip of the pot trembled. It’s all wrong, she told herself. We should be in Discipline, with the kitchen and the table all in one room, and Lark and Rosethorn ... Stop it! she ordered herself tartly. She put down the teapot and slid her fingers behind her spectacles to wipe away tears. When she could see again, Daja had taken charge of the teapot.
“Things change,” Daja said softly. “We change with them. We sail before the wind. We become adults. As adults, we keep our minds and our secrets hidden, and our wounds. It’s safer.”
2
Duke Vedris, riding into the courtyard followed by his guards, was dismounting when he heard Daja’s familiar voice raised in a bellow. “Tris! That little flying glass monster of yours just stole fish roe pearls!”