“What is it?” Tris wanted to know. “What’s it for?”
Lark smiled. “It’s powdered flint, hematite, angelica, star anise, and lotus,” she replied. “When I need to see magic in my cloth, see it as Niko does, this is what I add to the fabric. It should help us sort out the map that Sandry has made.”
She knelt beside the weaving and motioned for Sandry to do the same. “Hold out your hands,” she instructed. When Sandry obeyed, Lark poured the powder into the girl’s cupped palms, asking, “Can you feel your power in the weaving?” Sandry nodded. “Call it into the dust,” Lark instructed. “Then sprinkle the dust on the cloth. Try to cover every speck of woven material. I’ll be inside the working with you, but just as your guide. All right?”
Sandry closed her eyes and nodded.
The powder blazed: Briar, Daja, and Tris covered their eyes. Little Bear fled into a bedchamber. It was impossible to see what Lark and Sandry did, but the others felt it. Tris’s teeth ached. Briar’s nose was running; he groped for a handkerchief. A fierce ache spread from Daja’s stomach to her bowels. She curled up, clutching her belly. They all heard Sandry cough thinly.
The pain and pressure stopped. The light faded.
“Ow,” Daja said weakly, straightening.
Briar lurched to his feet, blowing his nose.
“Excuse me,” Lark said weakly. She ran into their privy. From the sound, she made it just in time as her lunch came up.
Sandry tried to stand and fell against the table. She clung to it in a panic as she struggled to keep her knees from buckling and throwing her onto her work. Just then she would have been quite happy never to look at that weaving again. She was certain the warp threads had been replaced by her veins, the weft threads by every fiber in her muscles. She hazarded a look at Tris. The redhead had not taken her hands from her eyes.
“Tris,” she croaked. “It’s all right.”
“Tell me you didn’t know it would be that bad,” was the whispered reply.
“I had no idea it would—it would have so much kick.” That was Lark, using the door frame to brace herself. She finished wiping her face with a wet handkerchief. “It’s never been so violent before.” She cleared her throat. “The difference is you four. You were strong to begin with. Then you were spun together, and made stronger. Now you are all tangled, so the effect is—expanded.” She gestured weakly at the loom. “If we can untangle you, things should be more manageable.”
Sandry wiped her face on her sleeve and looked at the thing she’d made. Now the colors were so dark it was impossible to believe that she had used undyed thread. She could also see clearly what had become of their magic. For an inch or so her stripes were clear and even, as straight as if drawn with a ruler. Past that one-inch mark, hair-fine fibers strayed, first across the borders between stripes, then further. By the point where she had four or five inches of cloth, the colors were hopelessly scrambled as green, orange, white, and blue formed a satiny layer over the warp threads. Putting her nose to the cloth, she tried to pick through that smooth coat to see its underpinnings, without success. She would have to respin the silk to make it form individual threads again.
“This explains more than it doesn’t,” Lark commented. “And separating your powers after this will take days. You’ll start with your fresh silks. Each time a fiber splits off, you’ll have to stop and force it back into its proper thread.”
“We’d be like we were at the beginning of the summer?” Tris inquired. “Me all weather magic, Sandry all thread magic—”
“I don’t like having lightning pop out of me,” Briar said, “but this mix-up isn’t all bad. It’s fun seeing magic, like we caught from Tris—”
“I like weaving fire,” pointed out Daja. “I made a lamp for myself that way, when I was in Kahlib’s smithy, and the square I made yesterday turned out useful, too.”
“Would we stop talking mind-to-mind, like we do now?” Tris asked. “That started after Sandry spun our magics together in the quake.”
“I don’t know,” Lark admitted.
“And this living metal thing is useful,” argued Briar. “Look how much the Traders will pay for the iron vine. We found that copper because of it.”
“But something has to be done,” Lark reminded them. “There has to be some control of your power. You know there does.”
“What if I just separate this mess into stripes again, and keep the übers from escaping the threads?” inquired Sandry. “I could put a border on each stripe from here on. Our magic will still be mixed, but if each stripe is enclosed—”
“You’ll be able to grip your powers,” Lark murmured, running her fingers through her glossy curls as she paced. “They won’t stray from your control.” She looked at the weaving, and sighed. “I certainly can’t be sure that we’d succeed in pulling your magics apart, or that they would stay separate—not without the border you suggested. And why didn’t I think of a border for each stripe?” she asked her student, her eyes dancing. “Some master I am!”
“You would have thought of it,” Sandry protested. “Maybe I’m interwoven with you.” She grinned impishly at Lark.
“I’ll discuss this with your teachers,” Lark told the other three. “If they agree, Sandry could disentangle you tonight, before we go to bed. In fact, I think I’ll go down to the village and talk to Frostpine right now.”