the end of the blowpipe, he backed away from the furnace. Tris moved until she stood in front of the gather. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Keth said. “Or weren’t you watching when the last two splattered?”
“Just breathe, and close your eyes, and blow, Keth.”
He hesitated. “I can’t shape it that way,” he warned.
“It shaped itself the first time. Stop talking and get to work.”
Counting, Keth twirled the pipe as Tris held her outstretched hands on either side of his gather. Closing his eyes, he exhaled into the blowpipe for the count, drew his mouth away without stopping the motion of the pipe, then blew again.
Tris kept the heat she had summoned just beyond the glass, watching sharply as the globe got bigger. Tiny lightnings, magic that Keth mixed with the air he breathed, darted along the glass surface like minnows in a pond. When the globe had reached the proper size, she grabbed a pair of cutting tongs and put them around the glass still attached to the pipe. “Keth,” she said quietly. He opened his eyes as she pinched with the tongs and twisted, freeing the globe.
Keth yanked the pipe back and caught the globe in one hand. It didn’t burn him. He stared at it, awestruck. As the lightnings in the glass played, they grew to fill the inside of the globe and to run amok across its surface. By the time Keth had got the composure to set his blowpipe aside and cup the globe in both hands, it was a ball of miniature lightnings.
“It’s pretty!” cried Glaki. She clapped her hands and reached up. Before Tris or Keth realized what was happening, the globe left his hands and flew towards her.
“It’ll burn,” Tris said quickly. “The glass is hot, Glaki. Only Keth can hold it.”
Glaki pouted and sent the ball soaring back to its creator. The child had just confirmed a suspicion that Tris had held since the child stopped the cyclone Tris had used to write Yali’s name in the courtyard dust.
Keth stared at Glaki. “I can’t deal with this now,” he said hurriedly. “Tris, don’t expect me to. I just can’t.”
“You won’t have to,” Tris replied with resignation. “The responsibility is mine. Find somewhere to put the globe.”
“Why?” asked Keth. “We have to make it clear up, don’t we?”
“First we stop. You need a walk, and a breather, and food,” Tris informed him.
“No! Let’s work on it now, get the lightning out. I can do it!”
Tris sighed. He was dead white and covered in sweat, shaking so hard he could barely hold on to the globe. “When did you last eat?” she asked.
Keth had to think. “Breakfast.”
“And drink? And visit the privy? And sit down?” she demanded.
Keth glared at her, his blue eyes reflecting the lightning on his globe. “I don’t need any of that,” he said, and swayed.
Tris propped her hands on her hips and glared back. “You’ve been working all morning and part of the afternoon in this hotbox. If you don’t eat, you’ll collapse, and if you collapse with this thing, you might break it, so stop arguing with me!”
Chime swooped over to land on Tris’s shoulder. She chinked worriedly at Keth, who wiped his forehead on his sleeve.
“Just for a moment, perhaps,” he admitted. He swayed again. Quickly he placed the ball on his workbench.
Tris began to say something rude but decided to hold her tongue. Keth needed to rest before he fainted, now that his excitement and the strength he had built up by repeated use of his newly gripped power had drained away. Rather than speak hastily, she first took down her magical barrier on the shop.
“Sit,” she ordered. “I’m going to the skodi across the street for some food. Glaki, why don’t you tell Uncle Keth what your doll did this morning?”
As the child walked Keth to the bench by the well, Tris left Touchstone Glass. Only when she was three doors down did she stop to sag against a shop’s wall in relief. She hadn’t been sure that her help would work.
They were almost done with their belated midday when Keth looked up to see Dema in the workshop door. “Sit,” he offered through a mouthful of flatbread and chickpea spread. “Eat something.”
Glaki towed Dema over to the bench, where he sat abruptly and took the food Tris offered. A handful of olives and a wedge of cheese revived him a bit, as did the ladle of cold water Glaki fetched for him.