Street Magic - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,53

blazed, then shattered. Evvy cried out and dropped the pieces on the floor. She was hurt: blood welled from a cut in her palm.

Briar ducked into his stall. He yanked a bandage and a bottle of cutbane from his kit. Grasping her bleeding hand by the wrist, Briar bit into the cork that sealed his lotion and yanked it free. He poured the liquid over her wound.

Though she was trembling, she still found the nerve to quip, "Don't you make anything that doesn't stink?" The flow of blood thinned, the slashed skin in her hand closing under the cutbane's influence.

"I like aloe, and I'll thank you not to insult my stuff." Briar wrapped the bandage firmly around her hand. When he felt he had enough layers of cloth around her palm, he ordered the linen to part, and the loose threads to weave themselves into the rest of the bandage. It wouldn't come off now unless cut.

Finishing, he saw Jebilu on his knees, holding the three diamond fragments up to the sun that streamed from a nearby window. One was smeared with blood. The other two glittered with fire like a faceted crystal, only more intensely. Jebilu's face was gray under its sallow tone. He wrapped the three pieces in a handkerchief, and stowed them in his purse.

She's stronger than he is, Briar realized, uneasy. And he knows it.

What would Rosethorn have done if he'd been stronger when he came to her? Briar double-checked the fastening of the bandage, stifling a snort. No one was stronger than Rosethorn. Even if Briar had been stronger than his teacher, he didn't have Rosethorn's years of study and practice.

Jebilu lurched to his feet. "Where are your things?" he demanded, sweat rolling down his cheeks. "I will house you with the chief palace scribe, since you refuse to live in the palace. His wife is a firm parent who knows to keep an eye on you. We have time to settle you among them – "

"No," Evvy said flatly. She ran her fingers over her freshly-bandaged hand, then looked at Jebilu and Briar. "I'm not going."

"I am the only one who can teach you, girl," Jebilu began, his face stained orange with anger. "Do not take that tone with me!"

"I don't like you and I'm not studying with you," Evvy retorted, glaring up into his face. "And nobody in the world can make me do it. I figured I'd look at you because Pahan Briar thought it was important. Now that I've seen you, though, I can tell it was just another of his strange notions, like belonging to a gang."

Jebilu glared at Briar. "This is what comes of dealing with guttersnipes," he snapped, trembling with fury. "They have no sense of the honor being done them, or of gratitude."

"Why should she feel grateful?" Briar inquired, curious. "You've treated her like a slave since you got here."

"I know your kind," Evvy told Jebilu. "You'll treat me like dirt and kiss the bum of anyone with money. I may be a guttersnipe, but you're a zernamus. Any learning you dish out will be as rancid as month-old butter."

Jebilu pointed a quivering finger at Briar. "This is not my fault!" he cried. "Tell that – female I was prepared to do my duty and was refused!" He crawled into his litter and yanked the curtains around him. The slaves picked the litter up with a grunt of effort and carried the stone mage out of Golden House.

Briar looked at Evvy with the same kind of awe as he gave to Rosethorn when the woman's temper got the better of her. If Evvy had planned every word, she could not have chosen a speech better calculated to burn Jebilu twelve ways from midday.

I'd say the guttersnipe won this game, he thought. And my problem is the same as it was before Rosethorn went to talk to old Jooba-hooba. Somebody has to teach this kid the basics, and I suppose that somebody is me. "So what's a zernamus!" he asked mildly.

Evvy had been watching him, one shoulder hitched up defensively, as if she expected him to hit her. Down came the shoulder; she grinned. "Someone who lives off the rich, like a tick that sucks money instead of blood."

Briar shook his head. "He would have been a rotten teacher anyway."

"I thought so. Can we eat?" asked Evvy cheerfully.

"You don't understand," Briar said, trying to make her see it as he did. "The only rocks I ever studied were