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Once they were gone, the lady considered her nextconfidence: the Gate Lords, who controlled the territory she and Ikrum wanted the Vipers to control, were too ang ht serve her very well Why had she not considered so like this before?

The city would learn respect for her gang, and learn it well After all, disrespect to a Viper was disrespect to her, and that she would never permit

2

The house where Briar and Rosethorn currently lived was clean and bright, with potted plants everywhere They set up a welco for him As alhen he ca each in the front rooot any one of them, the plants would droop until reassured of his affection

Once they were calh the house Rosethorn wasn’t on the second floor, where their workrooic embedded in the tools, plants, andblazes that marked his miniature trees Briar quested past that and found the banked, steady fire that was Rosethorn on the roof

Like most Chammuri houses, this one had a staircase that led to the roof from the second floor The other houses Briar had visited in Chammur were the same: it was as if the roofs were ashe found odd He cliht with the voiceless song of happy plants vibrating in his skull

Their roof was alreen: tubs and pots filled with the plants Rosethorn thought would help local fares of growth regardless of the season, ed to sprout, flower, and fade over a matter of days while Rosethorn harvested seed for the locals to use

Rosethorn herself sat on a bench, carefully writing on a slate She was a broad-shouldered woreen habit, the ee brown eyes were fixed on her slate Briar saw she had already been to the Earth temple baths: her chestnut hair, worn ainst her skull, the strict part white against her wet hair Her creailt from a summer’s work and travel -- she was vain of her ivory cooing to leather as farh she was noo inches shorter than he was, Briar always thought of her as towering over hi and power

"Tell these weeds to calm dohy don’t you?" Briar asked Rosethorn in their native language, I his ears "You think they’d be used to us by now"

"They can’t help it," Rosethorn infor her notes Her speech was a little slurred, one result of her illness four years before She had died of it, but Briar and his foster-sisters had called her back to life The precious ue, and a slight tremor in her hands "And e pu, it ic like a calreenery around them until it quieted

"Hoere those western farh wall that fenced the roof "Weren’t you going out there today?" Word that a fae had come to Chammur had spread like wildfire in the days after their arrival, bringing group after group of farmers to see Rosethorn They needed serious help: their harvests had been shrinking every year Rosethorn had gone out every day to inspect different fields

"Desperate," she told Briar now, her red mouth twisted wryly "As desperate as the eastern and southern ones Everyone says I needn’t bother with the northerners -- they’ve been growing rocks for three generations" She rubbed a note out with her sleeve and carefully chalked so else in its place "Hoas the Water temple?"

"Finished Stocked up for a year at least, with plenty extra All their th I told you I could do it in a es are co the fleshy leaves of an aloe vera plant beside his"

"Stone es deal with spells for stones at soes like we’re plant es?"

Briar nodded

Rosethorn considered "Yes, there are more whose power coe"

Briar scratched his head He knew that word "aic that’s already in things"

Rosethorn looked up at hie, dark brown eyes sharp, herthe country bumpkin, my buck You know very hat ‘a like a street rat, after talking to the Vipers and Caular meals, affection, and education, he soic and the Living Circle temples didn’t exactly mesh with a life in whichand death