Street Magic - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,35

look at Evvy. "So you won't visit the palace, eh?" she asked. She spoke more slowly than she did to Briar. Some people found her speech, with its hint of a slur, hard to follow. "I can't say that I blame you. Palaces are cold and unfriendly, as a whole." Evvy nodded vigorously. Rosethorn looked at Briar. "Well, you'd better ride up there and talk to him. If she's already experimenting, we can't get her a teacher quickly enough." She looked at the western sky. "It's too late now. That's for tomorrow, then, first thing. And when are you supposed to sell trees in Golden House?"

Briar grimaced. "Day after tomorrow. And I have work to do yet. That one fig tree keeps arguing with me."

"Well, go argue back," Rosethorn ordered him with a smile. "You're welcome to stay for supper," she told Evvy.

The girl shook her head. "I have cats," she explained.

Rosethorn smiled. "And they must be fed. But you'll come here tomorrow – around noon, perhaps? We'll know when you can meet with your teacher by then."

Evvy nodded rapidly, making Briar wonder if she would come back. He hoped that she would, after today, but he could tell she wasn't resigned to an unknown teacher. If she didn't come, he would simply have to collect her from her warren in Princes' Heights.

The girl started to climb over the wall, then she stopped, and turned back. "I better get my old things," she told Briar, smoothing a wrinkle from her tunic. "If I go back to Lambing Tunnel like this, they'll think I have money."

"Should have thought of that myself," said Briar, leading the way into the house. Rosethorn had folded Evvy's grayish tunic and trousers and placed them on a stool in the workroom, under a note on a slate: Shake out fleabane before wearing. Briar diplomatically lifted first the tunic and then the trousers, stirring the folds until the herbs dropped to the floor. He left Evvy there to change. When he returned she was gone, her new clothes folded almost neatly and left on the stool. Her sandals lay on top of the pile.

Kid's got pluck, Briar thought, remembering how he'd hated wearing any kind of shoe at first. Not one complaint out of her, and I bet they rubbed her feet.

He went up to the roof. "She left," Rosethorn said absently as she trimmed the lively jasmine back. "Over the roofs." Eyeing the jasmine to make sure she'd cut all she needed to, the woman said, "I'd forgotten."

When she didn't continue, Briar nudged, "Forgotten what?"

"Hm?" Rosethorn asked, startled out of her reverie. "Oh, I'd forgotten what stone mages are like. Stubborn doesn't begin to describe them. I should have warned you."

Briar smiled thinly. "That's all right," he told her. "I found out myself already."

Rosethorn snorted. "I suppose you did."

Evvy trotted along the rooftop roads, bound for home. From top to toe she was trembling from the strangeness of it all. It had been such a treat to sit in hot water at the hammam twice that day, scrubbing until she glowed a golden peach color, feeling her hair really clean. If she had just used common sense and gone home after that… But she'd had to see what the jade-eyed –

Briar, whispered a part of herself. He has a name. A plant-name. Calling him something else is silly.

Of course she knew people with names: Sulya, old Qinling, who spoke the language of home, blind Ladu, who warned the street people when the slaving gangs came through. But names seemed more important with – Briar, and Rosethorn. As if the words could change her life.

I don't want my life changed, Evvy thought rebelliously as she crossed a bridge over the Street of Wrens. For a moment she stopped to look down at the passageway that led to the Camelgut den. She would have liked to know how they did, if they had gone ahead and joined the Vipers. She had the feeling that Pahan Briar had disliked their choice, but she applauded their common sense. You didn't survive in Chammur's slums unless you learned to bend before you broke. Strange that a plant wizard wouldn't know that. But that was plants, tricky, rock-cracking parasites that would break apart any stone they got their roots into. They never seemed to realize that sometimes quiet was better. As long as you were alive, fresh chances to fight would come.

Seeing no signs of Camelguts or Vipers, Evvy moved on. She