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Frostpine caught her “You two load the pieces of net we’ve found, and bring them inside the walls,” he ordered Kirel “Don’t dawdle I’ates”

Daja grabbed Frostpine’s aro “It’s just one ship—”

He patted her cheek gently “If his business were honest, youngster, he wouldn’t be hidden, would he? That’s a pirate’s scout vessel, or I’irl Help Kirel, and come in with him”

“Even if it’s a scout, theup a stack of net-pieces, she loaded them into one of the mule’s baskets

“Not yet,” Kirel replied, filling the other basket “Theyfor dark”

“How long have you been sensing this azigazi?” Frostpine asked

“Since—I don’t know,” Daja said, genuinely scared Pirate tales had given her night baby, too little to sail in the family ships “It was at least an hour before midday”

“I’ll wager they don’t knoe’ve spotted therin “You’ve given us warning, that’s all And next tiazis!”

5

Once they’d eatenss with blends of dried herbs While he got to work, Rosethorn showed Tris how toyolks Briar had carried up fro the paste into tiny balls, Tris fed the at the end of a thin bit of wood The bird would get those, and a few drops of water, alternately with the milk-and-honey mixture The dedicate also helped Tris set up a special burner, a oat’s milk and honey as they were needed Once the rest period was over, Rosethorn decided that the nestling could be fed every half hour, instead of every fifteen s that Briar had filled, she told him to prepare a bushel basket ofbark strips for tea, and left

Once she was gone, Tris went upstairs for so She bundled her hair under a kerchief, shed her shoes and stockings, and returned to the workshop, prepared for a long afternoon Rosethorn had set her up in front of athat gave a good view of the Hub clock Briar, tearing sh to be co Tris feel crowded She felt relaxed for the first time in hours

“She’s not so bad, is she?” Briar asked when they’d been silent for a while “I ood side”

“YouCircle ould say that,” re off her spectacles, she leaned her hand on her chin, gazing out thethrough half-lidded eyes It was a relief not to have light flickering on the edges of her vision

Did Niko see this way all the tiic everywhere in Winding Circle, she’d found—in the south gate where it pierced the eight-foot-thick wall, in the stones of the spiral road through the te the entire length of the Hub, and froes and their students she had passed Most interesting, to her point of view, it gleahout Discipline and blazed in this workshop—she wondered what she ht Lark and Rosethorn were as powerful as Niko, an acknowledged great ics were ss

Maybe she needed to think again

Soft cheeps cairl realized that it was tie She placed her spectacles on her nose and took the cover from the nest

“Ugly little peep,” Briar re over her shoulder as she dripped liquid into the gaping beak “What’re those spiky things?”

“Rosethorn says they’re pinfeathers Once he fledges—once he gets real feathers—he’ll grow up pretty fast” Turning to find a wet cloth to ht that flared out fro her eyes

Hands steadied her on the stool “Careful—you alot into you, anyway? You’ve been a-flinch and a-twitch since you got back”

Tris sighed Finding the cloth, she wiped away herto my specs,” she told hiic “It takes getting used to I suppose I will, eventually Niko doesn’t twitch all the time”

“So—if you see this—light, is it?”

“Mostly it’s like there’s a silver veil over things, or they have silverones Like the Hub—and not just the seeing and hearing places The whole tower, clock to kitchens”

“And all of that light’s ic”

“That’s what Niko told me”

Briar thought about this, tapping the countertop with a reed

“You’ll wake my bird” Tris took the reed away

“We heard what you heard last night,” Briar remarked abruptly

“Yes” She looked up at hihts took him in

“So ether, we pick up each other’s ether for it to spread”

“Maybe” Tris realized what he was getting at “You’re seeing the lights, too? And you think it’sover?”

“I see glitter all over the house, and so like it is for you But—” He hesitated, scratching his head

“Will youto do”

He shrugged and told her about the figure in the Hub stairwell “I figured it was just one of the students, trying out a new spell I’d want to play with an invisibility spell, if I had one”

Tris’s smile was only a bit sour “Even you couldn’t eat all the food you’d steal from Gorse with a spell like that”

“I don’t think I’d get aith it Gorse knohenever anybody’s in that kitchen, no ets in there Still, it’d be worth a try” After athat kind of spell at all At least now I knohat I saw”

“Sorry,” replied Tris “Hoas I to know Niko’s spell was catching? Listen—you want to work on reading while you shred that bark?” She had begun to teach him how to read a few days before and was surprised to find how much she liked it

Briar’s response was good for her vanity He proed his stool and hisbark over, then fetched a big slate and a piece of chalk “First letter,” he said, perching on his stool

She wrote A on the black slate

“A Air, all-heal, Astrel, alder, animal Followed by B”

Tris chalked the letter in

He grinned “Briar! Also Bit, berry, balm, bayberry, basil Next letter’s C—”

“Sandry” A cup touched her lips; she drank, tasting water flavored with le a breath, she tried to blink away the spell-pattern, feeling giddy She and Lark had eaten at ht back to work

The cup pressed against her lips again This time she took it in her hands and drank the water in quick sips When it was e heaped billows of thin cloth

Looking at her work, Sandry frowned She could see what LarkIt was too loose in soaps She thrust her fingers through two of thehed

“It won’t irl It had been she who had

called Sandry fro trance “There’s always a layer on top or under, to catch leaks You need to rest now, though You’re scaring our helpers” Sandry looked around, but the novices were“They just took a load to the storerooms”

Sandry’s blue eyesbrown ones “Do I scare them?” she whispered, rusty-voiced

“A little It’s not that i up before they take their vows They have to get used to powerful workings sometime And you have company” She pointed to the open door

A man in a so off riding gloves The sun glea his fleshy face partly into shadow His brown eyes were set deep over a hawklike nose and wide, firm mouth Broad-shouldered, heavilySandry’s eyes, he one; froed into a pleasant, ed man

Half stu?—she curtsied and sreeted Duke Vedris, ruler of Emelan “I didn’t know you were here”

He walked over and kissed her cheeks, as she kissed his “A brief visit only, to meet with Honored Moonstream about the watchtowers that exploded” His voice was soft and elegant, the kind that people would strain to hear He nodded toward the heaps of linen “You’ve been very busy”