Tris lurched out the door and headed for the stair. Banging her ankle on a crate, she yelped.
Daja opened her door, yawning. “I didn’t hear Lark call. What are you doing?”
“Collecting bruises,” Tris muttered, and limped down the stair.
Sandry too was up and dressed, clumsily slicing bread at the table. “What is it?”
Tris ran out the front door. Once she was in the open, the clamor of distant voices reached her ears clearly.
“Will you please tell me what it is?” Sandry had followed her.
Looking for the sources, Tris pointed them out. Dedicates in yellow and novices in white approached at the run, along the spiral road and between the loomhouses across from the cottage. Racing toward Discipline, something cradled against his chest, was Briar.
Sandry ran to the low gate and opened it. Waving frantically, she beckoned to him.
“Stop, thief!” A lean dedicate, his yellow habit hemmed in black, led the group on the spiral road. “You, girl,” he cried, panting and red-faced from the effort of running, “don’t you dare help him!”
“Why are we helping you?” Tris inquired as Briar stumbled past her.
“Stuff yourself,” he snapped. “I never asked for help!”
Sandry closed the gate and latched it firmly. It wasn’t much of a barrier, but it was better than nothing. Deliberately she stepped into the middle of the path, putting herself squarely between hunters and prey. A breeze caught her black gown and veil, making them wave like banners.
“Admit me instantly!” cried the dedicate who appeared to be the leader, when he reached the gate. The order lost its force as he braced his hands on his knees and gasped for breath.
A novice reached over the gate to feel for the latch. He jumped back when the girl slapped his hand. “I did not give you permission to come onto my home ground,” Sandry cried, eyes blazing. “I forbid you to enter!”
Tris’s jaw dropped as she thought, She is either crazy, or the bravest person I’ve ever met.
“Little girl, rank means nothing here!” snapped the novice. He tried to reach the latch again. Sandry doubled her fists and stepped up to the gate.
“What is going on?”
Tris hadn’t thought a time might come when she would be glad to see Rosethorn, but she was now. The dedicate had clearly been at work in the gardens. Her green, dew-soaked habit was kilted up, showing legs streaked with dirt; a broad-brimmed straw hat sat on her cropped auburn hair. She kept Briar at her side with an arm wrapped firmly around his shoulders. Daja and Lark brought up the rear, Daja carrying her staff.
“Don’t play innocent,” snapped the dedicate who had bent over. He straightened, his long face the color of a ripe plum. “Since you are barred from my greenhouse, you sent this young rodent—”
“Roach,” muttered Briar.
“Shut up, boy,” Rosethorn said through clenched teeth.
Briar’s accuser crossed his arms. “Your spy stole a one-hundred-and-thirty-year-old shakkan tree, and I demand its return!”
“I do not have spies, Crane, you idiot. And you couldn’t tend a shakkan properly if your life depended on it. You set plants in that glass monstrosity of yours and expect them to skip the pattern of seasons because you ask it—”
“Please, everyone, disharmony upsets the balance of the Circle.” Lark came forward, dark eyes grave. “Dedicate Crane, Rosethorn would no more steal a plant from you than you would steal one of hers. I know that, if you do not.”
Tris noticed Crane’s instant blush and wondered if he hadn’t tried to take something of Rosethorn’s once or twice.
Lark continued, “If she did want to steal anything of yours, we also know that she would take it herself, not send a deputy.”
“Thanks, Lark,” Rosethorn said with a one-sided grin.
Crane was not to be silenced. “He is a thief! He stole from a lad at the boys’ dormitory—”
“I never!” cried Briar. “That brooch was junk—”
“Hush,” Lark ordered.
“Anybody could see that!” finished Briar. To Lark he whispered, “I got my pride.”
“He was found innocent by the Air temple’s own truthsayer,” Rosethorn snapped. “In the presence of Moonstream herself.”
“Is he innocent now?” demanded Crane. More dedicates and novices who should have been at the dining hall joined the group behind him, listening with interest. “Tell me he didn’t steal my shakkan!”
“It’s sick,” Briar told Lark and Rosethorn. “Whatever he’s doing, it’s not helping!”
“I want my shakkan, and I want that thief cast out!” snapped Crane. “He doesn’t belong here! As soon you return my property, Moonstream will hear my complaint!”
“Shame on you!” cried Lark, gold-brown cheeks flushed. “Who are you to judge who is fit to stay or go? This lad is here for a reason!”
Briar rubbed the bowl in which the tree was planted with shaky fingers. If they threw him out, he would go dry and dead himself.
Rosethorn tapped his shoulder. Looking up, he met her brown eyes squarely. Please, he thought, praying that she could read his mind. Please.
Rosethorn faced her rival. “A tomato plant,” she said abruptly. “Let the boy—and the shakkan—go, and you can have one of my tomato plants.”
“With a few words on it so it will die once I transplant it?” Dedicate Crane flapped a scornful hand. “Thank you, no!”