Street Magic - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,59

corner seemed to be her bed. Directly under a hole in the ceiling was a rough fire pit, with a bucket and a battered pot beside it. A collection of cracked and chipped pottery was stacked by the wall. In a niche he saw a much-battered god figure: a smiling fat man with shriveled flowers at his feet. A thick coat of cat hair covered everything. A ripe drift of scent from the other room told him it served Evvy and her cats as a privy.

The most remarkable thing about the place was the walls. In some areas the rock had been planed smooth, though enough chunks had fallen out that the effect was irregular. That he expected. What he hadn't expected was the stones embedded everywhere, small ones the size of a dav, others the size of his palm, even some polished rounds and eggs that were probably stolen. Their color and texture varied. One thing was the same for all: They had been pressed into the wall as if it were soft butter, not stone. Briar tried to pry one out, and couldn't.

"You put these in?" he asked Evvy as the chorus of yowls quieted and the cats ate.

She nodded. "Ria, let Mystery have that. You have your own," she chided the black-and-white cat. "I thought maybe it's just dirt, the walls, and that's why I could push them in."

Briar rapped the wall around one stone and grimaced. "It's rock, Evvy. You made the rock act squishy."

She shrugged. "I didn't think it was anything special when I did it." She ducked her head suddenly. When she spoke, her voice was wry. "Though I stopped after I kept getting headaches. I think the Heights were telling me, enough, please."

Briar surveyed the room again, hands in his pockets. "Can we take some of these back with us?" he asked. "Including your light-stones. We'll look them up in the books, find out what they are and what-all you can do with them."

Evvy scratched her head. "Right." She scrabbled in the rags of her bed, drawing out a large section of cloth. Once she had laid it flat, she began to pry various stones from the walls. They came easily for her. When Briar tried it, they remained stuck fast.

"What I don't see is how we're taking the cats," Evvy commented as she placed stones on her cloth. "There's ways out of here they can use once we start try loading them, you know."

"Don't you get rats through those ways?" Briar asked. He placed Evvy's basket and the two that he had fetched on the floor and opened the lids.

"No rats," Evvy said firmly. "The cats gang up on them. They let the rats get in and then jump 'em." She bent to scratch the nearest cat's chin. "They're good friends to me." Her lower lip trembled. "I don't want to leave them."

"Girls. Always fussing," Briar said. "Leave it to me."

The cats finished devouring their food and started a post-feeding wash. Briar slid an oilcloth packet from his shirt pocket and opened it to reveal three catnip leaves. He placed one leaf in each open basket, then woke the power in them. To feline noses it was as if a huge bed of fresh catnip had sprouted in the baskets. They scrambled to get at it.

The moment two cats were in each of the small baskets and three in the largest, Briar closed the lids and fastened them. He lashed one to the rack Evvy would carry, then put the remaining two on his. Once they were set, he changed the power of the leaves to make the cats sleepy. The baskets rocked as the occupants curled up for naps.

"How did you do that?" Evvy wanted to know, awe in her wide brown eyes. "Can you teach me?"

"Not with catnip," Briar replied with a grin. "Maybe us rock-killers are good for something after all."

Evvy blushed, grinned, and flapped a hand at him. She wouldn't say he was wrong, but she wouldn't admit he might be right.

"Hurry up with the stones," Briar ordered. "I have to see Lady Zenadia to deliver her tree, don't forget."

Evvy tied her rag bundle shut. She had left only one stone in the wall, to light their way out of the room. The others shone through her cloth, rays of light poking like fingers through openings and holes. "I'll have to wash before we go." She tied the rock bundle to her waist and let Briar settle her