Street Magic - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,27

do. Her head was aching by the time she was done.

Briar was sewing a deep gash in a boy's forearm when Evvy reached him. When he finished bandaging the work, he inspected Evvy's creations.

She watched him anxiously. "It's not like light," she grumbled, hunching one shoulder in case he decided to hit her. "I can't do it so good. They'll stop being warm after a while, and they aren't at all steady."

"But these are lots better than gourds filled with hot water," Briar said absently, turning the stone over in his hand. "This helps, Evvy. Thanks."

A knot formed in her throat as he took the bucket from her. She watched him, blinking eyes that burned and trying to swallow that knot, as he tucked her stones into the blankets of those who needed to be warm. He'd said she helped. He'd thanked her.

As he placed the last of the stones he glanced at her slyly. "They don't work steadily because you don't have your power under control all the way. Jebilu Stoneslicer will teach you to get rocks to hold warmth longer, and steadier."

"He can teach, but I won't learn, not up at the palace," Evvy retorted.

Briar stood and faced her, hands on hips. "What is it with you?" he demanded. He kept his voice low, but he leaned in so Evvy heard every word. "Even you know you have to be taught now! He's the only stone mage in this whole, imp-blest, festering city!"

Evvy shrank away from him. Even if he hit her, she was going to speak her mind. "If I show myself at the palace, they'll, they'll toss me in the cells of Justice Rock for not knowing my place," she stammered. She went giddy with horror as her traitor mouth ran on. "Or they'd sell me. I've been sold once already – I won't be sold again!" She dropped the bucket and covered her face. How could she have said that? She'd told no one that before!

When he said nothing, she peeped at him through her fingers. Whatever she'd expected him to do or feel, it wasn't what she saw on his face now. What she saw looked like sorrow. Not pity – sorrow. "You're a slave?" he asked softly.

"I ran away," she mumbled. She didn't want the Camelguts to hear this. The reward for an escaped slave would tempt them; she knew that it would.

"And the collar?" he inquired, his voice softer yet. "How'd you get rid of it?"

Evvy lowered her hands. "I broke it with a rock."

Briar smiled thinly.

She guessed what he was thinking: more rock magic. "I thought it was a cheap collar," she explained, almost smiling. "You don't need a lot of iron to hold a scrawny piece of crowbait like me." It was her old master's favorite term for her. "You mean I had it" – she touched the corner of her eye in a sign that meant "magic" in Chammur – "even then?"

He walked over to a Camelgut girl who'd been seated, waiting for him. "You're born with magic," he explained. "It just gets frustrated if you get older and you don't do anything real with it, so it breaks out."

"Why can't you teach me?" she asked as he began to wash the sores on the girl's leg. "I already know you, and you know the rules and things." What she didn't, couldn't, say was that she was comfortable around him. For all his pushiness and foreignness, she still felt as if she'd known him all her life. He was quick and inventive, as she'd learned to be, living on her own. She might vex and puzzle him, but never once had she seen pity in his eyes, even when she'd let slip that she'd been a slave. Never once had he treated her as a child, a female, or even a thukdak.

"I'm not a stone mage," he said wearily. "It's important that you get someone to teach you stone magic." To the girl whose leg he cleaned he said, "You can't scratch fleabites open like this – they get infected. Or if you do, wash the scratches out right off, with clean water – that means it's been boiled. And soap if you have it."

"Oh, sure, pahan" she retorted with a quick smile. "I left some under my pillow just the other day."

Briar returned her smile, looking the rest of her over while he held onto her foot. Evvy smiled crookedly. So even pahans weren't immune to the hug-and-kiss