the stair. It would pour at any time. Probably Tris had returned to Jumshida’s to dance in it, or something. He hoped that the yaskedasi had found indoor work. This storm felt like a big one.
He slid his key into the lock on his door and turned it. The door was locked. Frowning, Keth turned the key in the opposite direction. The door opened. He didn’t like that. Had he left the room unlocked all day? Yali would never steal from him, but he didn’t trust Poppy or the male yaskedasi who lived at Ferouze’s. How could he be so stupid as to forget to lock up?
When he entered the room he found that he’d also left the shutters open. He swore: if it had rained in the day, his sketches for designs would have got soaked. Then he registered movement beside his door. It was the dog. Tris sat on his stool. A flash at the corner of his other eye drew his gaze to Chime, who sat atop the pile of his sketches.
“You found it open and you just walked in?” he demanded. Somehow he was not as surprised to find her there as he should have been.
“No,” said Tris, smoothing out her skirts. “My breezes found the one with your magic in it, and I picked the lock.” She held up a pair of hairpins.
Whatever he had expected her to say, that was not it. “You picked a lock.”
Tris tucked the pins back into her braids. “Briar taught me. He said I had a gift for locks. It’s high praise, coming from him. Not that your lock was much of a challenge.”
Little Bear came over, wagging his tail. Keth scratched his ears. “Hello, Bear. Good boy.” To Tris, in a less affectionate tone, he said, “You let yourself in, let yourself out.”
“No,” she replied as a gust rammed through the open window. “Come on. We’re going up to the roof.” Chime gave off a high, singing note that rose and fell as sparks popped in her eyes.
Keth shivered. He could smell rain on the wind. “I told you, no. Just because there’s a storm coming doesn’t mean I’m going to play in it.”
Tris removed her spectacles and rubbed her nose. “Keth, I’m not asking you to play.” Her voice was surprisingly gentle and reasonable. “But I need to show you something.”
“I don’t need to be shown anything.” Keth folded his arms over his chest. He hoped she couldn’t see that he was shaking. “Not in a storm, anyway.”
“But you do.” This time her voice was even gentler; that same kindness was in her level grey eyes. Now she scared him. She wasn’t kind. “Keth, as long as you fear lightning, you’ll fear your power. It doesn’t have to be that way. You’re not the same fellow who got struck beside the Syth. I can prove it to you.”
He shook his head stubbornly, though he couldn’t have said what he was denying or refusing. Outside, the tiniest growl of thunder rolled through the greenish air. His skin rippled with gooseflesh.
Tris took a deep breath and tried again. “So, you’ll learn magic, but only to the point where it starts to scare you. Is that it? How far will that get you? Magic doesn’t respond to orders like ‘this far and no further’. The more you do, the better you get, so the more power you have. If you don’t keep ahead of it — if you don’t learn how to release it safely — it will find its own ways to come out. You really don’t want that to happen.”
Keth shook his head again, his heart thudding in his chest. What she said had the unpleasant feel of truth. For all her fiery temperament, she wasn’t the dramatic sort who liked to exaggerate. She was irritating, but she was also forthright. And when she spoke of magic, somehow the things she said carried more weight than the pronouncements of his mage uncles. She was fourteen and difficult, but when it came to magic, she seemed as much a master of her craft as Niko or Jumshida, and even more than Dema.
Tris went to the window, turning her face up to the blast of the rising wind. The two thin braids she wore loose on either side of her head fluttered wildly.
Chime flew over to hover in front of Keth as she made a chinking sound. Once she got his attention, she flew to the door and back, as