Tamora Pierce - Street Magic

“That’s very nice,” Evvy agreed, “but I have to learn magic. My lady.”

Briar glanced at her again, startled. From Evvy’s tone, he might think she didn’t care about the money or a decent place to live. See that! he told his absent foster-sisters. She isn’t even looking at that coin!

He wished he could rub his temples—they had started to ache—but he didn’t want the lady to notice. Sometimes he wished he didn’t have to listen to all these people between his own ears, and think so many different things at once. It was tiring and confusing.

“Well.” The lady didn’t seem angry, only thoughtful. “I do not withdraw my offer—think it over. You may wish to ask Master Stoneslicer if he will teach you while you are under my roof. A stone mage in my household is no small thing, particularly not in Chammur. Pahan Moss, would you be so good as to show me the larch again?”

She purchased the larch after another half hour of inspection and chatter, always trying to draw Evvy into the conversation. Once she had bought the tree, and given Briar the instructions he would need to deliver it, she smiled at Evvy one last time. “When the pahan brings my tree, I hope you will come,” she said, cupping Evvy’s face in one hand. “You might feel differently once you see my home.” With another smile at Briar, she and her guards left.

The moment they were alone, Briar rounded on Evvy. “Are you daft?” he wanted to know. “You aren’t stupid, so why did I see you parade through Golden House with two Vipers? Did you forget they tried to kidnap you?”

“But they aren’t Vipers,” argued Evvy. “It was Mai and Douna from Camelgut.”

“Not anymore,” Briar said. “They’re Vipers now.”

“Mai and Douna are still the same as they ever were.” Evvy’s face was as stubborn as his. “Anyway, what difference does it make? You were talking with their takameri?

“Their takameri?” Briar felt confused, a normal state when he conversed with her. “What are you talking about?”

Evvy shook her head, saddened by his ignorance. “Their takameri. The rich woman who gives them weapons and things. That was her, the one that bought your tree.”

Briar looked at the tracery of vines under the skin of his left hand, following one stem with his right finger as he thought. Lady Zenadia was the woman who had bought the Vipers their blackjacks?

She tried to hire Evvy, he remembered. Maybe the Vipers still wanted Evvy, even though he’d told the girl yesterday that he would never let her join them. Maybe they—or their wealthy sponsor—had decided to try other ways to get her. Was that so bad, if Lady Zenadia wanted to educate her? A woman of money and power could protect Evvy if Jebilu Stoneslicer turned nasty.

No. If the Vipers didn’t know how to act like a proper gang, then the Money-Bag female who sponsored them knew even less. He couldn’t forget the feeling that she had tried to buy Evvy for her house, just as she had bought the miniature larch.

But she could give Evvy so many things he could not—if only she could be trusted to treat Evvy like a human being. “Do you want to live with her?” he asked, curious. “You’d eat well, get a proper education, living with someone like that.”

They were interrupted as six panting slaves carrying a litter came down the aisle to halt in front of Briar’s stall. The litter was elegant, every inch of wood beautifully carved. The curtains were brocade, the cushions silk. As the bearers waited, their muscles straining, Master Jebilu Stoneslicer climbed out. The stone mage wore brown satin today, a long, high-collared tunic coat crusted on every hem with gold embroidery. White lawn shirt cuffs showed under the coat sleeves. He wore black satin trousers and pointed slippers studded with jewels. All of those colors combined to make him look more sallow than ever. The bearers, relieved of their burden, sank to the ground with the litter.

Jebilu glared at Briar. “Well?” he demanded. “Where is she?”

Evvy had ducked behind Briar. Feeling like a traitor, he stepped aside. “Evvy, this is Master— Pahan —Jebilu Stoneslicer. The only trained stone mage in all Chammur, it so happens.” He challenged the older man with his eyes, daring him to admit he’d driven off the other stone mages.

Once more Briar locked his hands behind his back. He was very unhappy to realize he didn’t want to give Evvy up to this man. Jebilu didn’t know who Evvy was or where she’d come from. If he had a kinder side, Briar had yet to see it. While none of his or the girls’ teachers had ever laid a hand on them—Rosethorn’s threats to the contrary—Briar knew some teachers believed that beatings made lessons stick. Could he trust Jebilu not to hurt Evvy in body or spirit?

If he beats her, I’ll kill him, Briar promised himself, trying not to remember that in all likelihood he would be gone. And a real stone mage has to be a better teacher for her than a kid green mage. Doesn’t he?

Jebilu pressed the obsidian circle to Evvy’s forehead. For a moment nothing happened, then the stone blazed white. Its glare was as intense as the light Briar had seen Evvy give off the day before.

Jebilu muttered something and the light faded. He tucked the circle into his belt-purse and drew out an egg-shaped clear crystal. “Bring light to this,” he ordered, holding it out to Evvy.

She didn’t say “Oh, that”—she simply touched it. A seed of light appeared in the crystal’s depths, growing until the whole stone gave off a steady glow.

Jebilu closed his hand around the crystal. By the time he returned it to his belt-purse, it had gone dark again. He offered her a small brownish-gold globe stippled with black marks. “Bring heat to this,” he ordered.

Evvy took it, then handed it back. “That isn’t real stone,” she objected. “It’s hard, but it isn’t stone.”

Jebilu snorted. “Petrified wood,” he grumbled.

“May I see?” Briar asked. Coal, he knew, was made of plants, but he hadn’t realized that wood could be made stone.

Jebilu scowled at him. “This is a delicate magical tool, Pahan Moss,” he snapped. “Not a toy for curiosity seekers.”

Briar bit the inside of his cheek. He counted silently to fifty in Imperial, to keep from telling this man to put the jr1obe someplace uncomfortable.

Jebilu put the petrified wood in his purse and pulled out a dirty white stone. “Use this. What is your name?”

“Evumeimei,” the girl replied, taking the stone. “Evumeimei Dingzai, of Yanjing.” She turned the stone over in her fingers. “There’s cracks in this. I might break it.”

“No one can break diamond stones, Evumeimei Dingzai of Yanjing.” Jebilu made her name sound like an insult. “Heat it up. Pahan Moss told me you can do it.”

Evvy sighed, arid closed her eyes. Briar saw the pale brilliance of her magic appear at the center of her forehead, dancing into the diamond stone in a tight stream. She had I practiced last night, he realized. She went home and practiced, and got better. And she was still alive, so she had been able to keep her power under control. He felt an absurd sense of pride in her flower in his chest.

Her magic entered the stone. To Briar’s eyes the heart of the stone shimmered with it. The light began to ricochet inside the rock, bouncing through an internal network of cracks and faces. Slowly real, visible white light began to pour from it. “It’s not heating up,” Evvy said. Sweat gathered at her temples.

“Try harder,” ordered Jebilu crossly.

Scowling first at him, then at the stone in her hand, Evvy increased the flow of her power. Briar watched uneasily as her magic ricocheted faster through the stone’s heart. “Evvy, maybe you should let this go—” he began.