Street Magic - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,71

in Chammur's fields. It could wait until she returned.

"I've been thinking," Rosethorn drawled, when Briar finished. "It might be possible to reach Laenpa, across the border in Vauri, before the rains. An old friend of mine from Lightsbridge settled there – she's written she has plenty of room for us, and that she'd like the company."

"I won't leave my cats," Evvy announced nervously.

"I'm not asking you to," Rosethorn informed the girl. "They'll have to go in baskets, and we'll need two camels, I suppose, for all our gear, but that can be done."

"What about at night?" Briar asked. "And won't the cats fight, or get sick, being in baskets all the time?"

Rosethorn looked at him as if she wanted to ask if he'd been drinking stupid tea. "We draw a circle around them at night," she explained patiently. "They don't go out, only Evvy goes in. They'll be safer than we will. And it's not a long haul, only about a week. I spoke to the man who runs the last eastern caravan of the season. They leave in six days. He must have some weather magic, because market gossip is that he's never been caught on the road by the rains."

"You mean it?" Evvy asked, her chin and voice wobbly. "You won't leave me and the cats here?"

Rosethorn took the napkin from her lap and folded it precisely. "I won't leave the scrawniest, most vicious of those troublemakers in this bloodless, dying place, let alone you," she said quietly without looking at Briar or Evvy. "I can't wait until I can scrub the dust of Chammur from my skin." She rose and broke the circle on the table. The cats remained where they were, keeping an eye on her. "I'm off. Keep things quiet down here – I need to be up well before dawn, so I'm going to bed soon." She walked out of the room and climbed the stairs.

Briar scrubbed his tired face with his hands. This was the second time that she had anticipated a problem he wanted to discuss and settled it before he could speak. Relief flooded his mind. Laenpa was further east, another land entirely. They would all be safe from the lady, the Vipers, and perhaps even the mutabir. When he looked at it that way, even the fun of carting seven cats in wicker baskets for a week didn't seem too high a price to pay.

After he and Evvy cleaned up and washed dishes, Briar settled her at the table once more. After some thought he'd decided to teach her to read and write in Imperial. The books that Rosethorn had borrowed from the Earth temple were in that language, since the Pebbled Sea and the lands around it were the center of the Living Circle faith. Evvy already knew a number of words in Imperial, as she did in a handful of other languages, to get along in Chammur's marketplaces. Moreover, the three of them wouldn't be staying so long that a knowledge of how to read and write Chammuri would do Evvy any good.

On the way to the lady's house, wondering how he could teach Evvy in a way she would like, Briar had been struck with inspiration. Now he put out a slate and chalk, a dampened cloth, and one of the books of stones and crystals Rosethorn had brought. He added a sheet of notes he'd made during a long visit with the crystal merchant Nahim Zineer. Last of all he put down the heavy roll of cloth he'd purchased, undid the ties, and opened it until it lay flat on the table. Its white inner surface was covered with a number of small pockets. He'd put a stone or crystal in each as he bought them from Nahim.

"This is yours," Briar told Evvy as she bounced in her chair, staring at the cloth with bright eyes. "None of these stones have any magic. I made sure of that. You want to start with something that's never known magic, so any changes or spells you put in will be yours, and nobody else's. Don't let anyone else handle these, either. And you're not to do any magic with these stones at first. Keep your magic in your skin, understand?"

"All right, all right" Evvy said impatiently. "But what are they? What will we do with them? Are they really mine?"

Suddenly it was worth the time he'd taken after his meeting with the mutabir to purchase all of this