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Closer to Labrykas Square the shops had ordinary, shuttered ith the wares arranged on shelves to te the curve of a bowl or the blue-green hue of a cosmetics bottle, but she always made herself walk on after a molass order

As Tris approached Labrykas Square, the first public square beyond the Piraki Gate, her bree zes carried a conversation to her; a disgrace!someone cried of the riff-raff, murdered and left in the Labrykas Square fountain like, like soto purify the fountain again,a wo God will take offence against the district for the defilement

District? I think not!retorted the first

speaker s obviously the work of so knows that no Tharian would commit so foul an act

Keepers of the Public Good will put a stop to it, the woman said with the firht the rest of the discussion Tris shook her head as she walked on Someone is murdered, and all these people care about is the purity of Asseht, baffled

Thats pretty heartless

She also wasnt incl ined to believe these Keepers would be able to doHow effective could they be? They were elected to serve a three-year term each by the Assembly, a body of the oldest citizens and the wealthiest landholders They would not have the experience or cunning of a proper ruler whod been raised for the position, like Duke Vedris of E and queen, or Eot anything done, if their entire political syste council could quibble, fuss, debate, argue and fight, with nothing to show for it - and Winding Circles governing council was only twenty people She d heard there were over three hundred in the Assembly

s different when one man or woman is responsible for a country, she told Little Bear as they passed through Labrykas Square The

Fountain, which she had seen on her arrival in the city, was shrouded in a kind of white, roofless tent h ave to juht away, or everyone knows theyre to blame Here, all the rulers have to do is point to the other Keeper, or someone froe of thatDisgusted, Tris shook her head and thrust all such dissatisfactions froe ways in which other people governed theet on her nerves

At last she reached the part of the Street of Glass that she meant to explore first, the part that stretched between Labrykas Square and the pleasure district known as Khapik She took ashe would say in favour of the Tharians, they looked after the -ends of old char silver on walls or around s and doors Spells there were in plenty, the usual creations for protection, health and prosperity that anyone who could afford it paid to have laid on their ho that Tris adot rid of what remained of older spells, or wrote the saic in theht silver layers, an indication that differences in the s pells did not conflict and cause thethe lace-like patterns of spells on the shop walls, tracing a

curve here, a letter there, with her finger She knewthee who added the

Suddenly she felt a twist in the air Most of her breezes, all of the ones she had acquired in recentCircle stayed, though she felt the breezes whipped around the corner of a nearby workshop:

Touchstone Glass, according to the sign

The breezes werent the only things on the move Power from every charm and spell within twenty metres of the shop streamed past Tris to round the corner in silvery ribbons: protection ic, wards for luck and prosperity, it didn t see flexed in the air a second ti, she pelted around the corner into the rear yard of Touchstone Glass

She plunged into a streah the open doors of a workshop set apart fro It swirled around ato the door, a glassive for the pipe with one hand, he shaped the base of his creation with a ht all ell Then

she realized that despite the glassblowers twirling of the pipe and the steady streaed, then sank like a burlap sack with a cat inside She had never seen glass do that before Magic flooded into theinto short blond hair cropped close to his blocky head, tugging at his sleeves, then ic strealass

The lass back into the open furnace, waited a ht the pipe back to his lips He cupped the base of the glass with his ed, twisted, and thrust about even harder, plainly fighting hi lulass were shot through with silver threads as it stretched away from the pipe As it pulled free, its connection to the blowpipe stretched thinner and thinner Only a thread connected it to the pipe