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"How did you do that?" Evvy wanted to knoe in her wide brown eyes "Can you teach rin "Maybe us rock-killers are good for sorinned, and flapped a hand at hi, but she wouldn’t adht

"Hurry up with the stones," Briar ordered "I have to see Lady Zenadia to deliver her tree, don’t forget"

Evvy tied her rag bundle shut She had left only one stone in the wall, to light their way out of the roo like fingers through openings and holes "I’ll have to wash before we go" She tied the rock bundle to her waist and let Briar settle her rack on her shoulders

"You’re not co by myself"

Evvy scowled at him "Why can’t I?" she asked "She said I could I’d like to see a taka the bindings on his baskets "She ive you to the Vipers Better not to risk it" When she opened her ue further, he said, "You wanted me for a teacher That means you have to listen If you don’t like it, I’m sure Jebilu Stoneslicer would let his student visit any takaes and such-like"

"No he wouldn’t," grumbled Evvy "He’d put me under a bushel basket and send a cobra in to keep htstone fro the stone up like a la Tunnel and passed the luht ood yesterday"

Is this how parents live? Briar thought a bit wildly, as frustrated by his own lack of answers as he was her questions Do kids go on asking the sae? Do they question everything out of a person’s ed my mind," he retorted

"So you don’t want me to work for her And you don’t want ht," Briar said flatly "Exactly right" I think, he added to himself

It was close to midday by the tiht food and ate on horseback rather than loseto feel a little scraped and brittle It was time to work on his trees, to brew ot who he really was in all this running around

Before that, he had a larch to install It took five people to direct hih the maze of the city and into the less , web of streets that made up the monied parts of town At last he came to Attaneh Road in the part of Chammur called the Jeweled Crescent These hoardens, the wealthy flaunting their spacious residences The city’s oldest farabbed the best land between the heights and the river when they finally spilled out of their rocky fastnesses

He knew better than to enter through the front gate He’d learned early that the rich viewed uests but as very expensive servants Instead he rode to the tradesman’s entrance and told his business to a blank-faced ate, he was alleries, halls, and courtyards

Briar cast an expert’s eye over the gardens they passed through: like ardens within the larger one that wrapped around the house Each of the sardens was laid out to create certain ardeners knew the futility of trying to create too reen oases, miniature water falls and ponds, but they were carefully tucked into corners to shelter theardens held a rich variety of desert and hot country plants, showing the bountiful life that flourished in countrypart of the garden that encircled the house, Briar paused So with strength What would do that? Surely the gardeners didn’t fertilize with fish heads -- fresh fish was a costly delicacy in this water-poor country Offal, perhaps, or anis, chopped fine and mixed with norardeners, but the cha his ar you? he asked the fruit trees by the rear wall What have they put in your earth to make you so alive?

Good food, they chorused, leaves fluttering Rich food!

Briar sighed How could he expect trees to knoent into the dirt around their roots? He was trying to formulate another question when the larch coht and the miniature was already dry so it could be drawn easily from its present earth to be repotted The larch wanted Briar to stop talking to these great, overgrown plants and tend to it

Briar shook his head and followed the chamberlain Clad all in white -- white breeches, white shirt, white turban -- but for his green overrobe and sand-colored sash, the host Only near the end of their walk did he speak "Will you require anything of the house, pahan?"