Street Magic - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,2

colors. He wasn't surprised to find more than one gang here – souks were traditionally grounds where gangs roamed under truce.

He came to a long aisle where those who peddled semiprecious stones sold their wares. Here the crowd was thicker: more people could afford carnelian and amethysts than pearls. That was particularly true of the local mages, hedgewitches, and healers. Only rich mages could afford to use pearls and rubies in their work, but even students could find moonstones or mother-of-pearl discs that would be acceptable substitutes in their spells.

Briar was looking at a basket of malachite pieces, wondering if they might anchor the magic in his miniature trees, when a nicker of light caught his eye. He turned, scanning the aisle. This time the light came as a dart of silver in a stall across from him. Briar knew that particular fire well. Few mages could actually see magic as he did; no one who was not a mage would even notice it. Curious, he sauntered over for a look.

Now, here's something, he thought as he drew near. The stall's owner, a barrel-chested man, perched on a stool among his baskets and bowls of stones. Beside him a scruffy-looking girl picked through a bowl of tiger-eye pieces, polishing selected ones with a cloth and setting them aside in a round basket. As she rubbed, silver light flowered, then faded to ember-strength, in the pieces she handled. Briar also saw that the guard who stood watch between this stall and its neighbor kept his eyes on the traffic, not on the girl, though the owner never took his eyes off her. She was known, then, or she wouldn't have been allowed to stop for half a breath within reaching distance of the stall.

This man sold a bit of everything. Briar identified jade, amber, moonstone, onyx, lapis lazuli, jet, malachite, and carnelian before his knowledge of stones ran out. Now that he was looking closely at the wares, he could see a row of small baskets like the one in which the girl put her polished stones on a shelf beside the stall's owner. Those stones all showed a seed of silver to Briar's magical vision.

"Say, kid, how do you do it?" Briar asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Make their magic light up like that?"

The girl spun to face him, as wary as a wild animal. She was a foot shorter than Briar's five feet seven inches, and she looked to be nine or ten. A skinny waif, she had the bronze-colored skin and almond-shaped brown eyes of a Yanjing native. Wisps of black hair stuck out from under the dirty scarf wrapped around her head. She wore a long tunic and trousers of unguessable color, aged and speckled with holes. Even though it was autumn, she was barefoot.

"It's all right," Briar assured her cheerfully. "I'm a mage myself. Are you calling to magic already in them, or are you just laying a charm on them?"

The girl put down her basket and cloth. She smiled just as cheerfully as Briar had – and ran.

He stared after her, baffled. "What did I say?" he asked the stall's guard. The man ignored him still, watching passersby in the aisle.

The stall's owner left his stool to walk over to Briar. He was short, his body powerfully muscled under his rich silk tunic and draped satin trousers. His skin was a little darker than Briar's, his hair and eyes black. Briar figured him for a westerner, since he didn't wear the turban preferred by eastern men. "What did you run her off for?" the man demanded sharply. "Evvy's no thief."

"You said something" argued the stall's owner. "Now look. She'd barely started."

"What's she do here?" Briar asked, curious. "What's her name? 'Evvy,' you said?"

The owner shrugged, not quite meeting Briar's eyes. "She's just a street kid," he replied. The word for baby goat was slang for a child in Briar's native Imperial as well as in Chammuri. "She polishes some of my pieces, and I throw her a few coppers."

"Then he triples the price and sells them to the mage trade," the shopkeeper across the aisle called, his voice waspish. He was seated at a bench as he worked on jewelry. "Just because he realized the ones she handles sell quicker."

"He spoke of magic, Nahim Zineer," the sharp-voiced man retorted, pointing at Briar. The boy glanced at the awning overhead: gold embroidered letters read NAHIM ZINEER: CRYSTALS, PRECIOUS, AND SEMIPRECIOUS STONES.

"If she's a