Wiping a hand over her watering eyes—“So much dust up here,” she muttered—she stripped off her black cambric overgown. The rose muslin went on in its place, and she sighed with relief. Light as the cambric had been, this was much more comfortable.
Once she was finished with her things, she looked around. The doors to Tris’s and Daja’s rooms were open—where had they gone? She didn’t think they’d left the cottage.
Turning, she saw a ladder that led through an open trapdoor in the roof. She climbed it and found the other two girls seated on the thatch. “It’s still wet from the storm, isn’t it?” she inquired.
Tris patted the canvas that she had brought to sit on. “Though if it keeps this hot, it’ll be dry by tomorrow.” Lying back, she linked her hands behind her neck.
Daja stood by the chimney, one arm around it as if it were a mast. Shading her eyes, she inspected Winding Circle. “Actually, this is a nice view,” she remarked. “This whole place is built like a bowl. It’s almost the same as the Amphitheater of Heroes in—”
“Zakdin, Hatar.” Sandry made a face.
Tris moved over, offering her a place on the canvas. The noble took it.
“Only there’s no buildings or trees there,” Daja went on.
Quietly Sandry told her, “There isn’t an amphitheater anymore, either. After the smallpox epidemic, they took all the bodies into it, then burned the whole thing. It was only made of wood.”
Hurriedly Tris drew a gods-circle on her chest. “That’s horrible,” she remarked with a shudder.
Sandry tugged a straw out of the thatch. “When Niko and I left, the King was saying he’d rebuild it in marble.”
“It should look nice,” Daja said with approval. “White or black marble, did he say?”
Sandry’s gloom lifted. “I forgot to ask,” she replied with a tiny smile. “I still wasn’t talking very much then.”
“Speaking of you talking—” Daja came to share the canvas with them. “That novice won’t forget you pulled rank on him in front of Crane and everyone. Just like the girls from your old dormitory won’t forget.”
Tris opened a sleepy gray eye. “She did odd things in her old dormitory too?”
“She took up for me,” explained the Trader.
“Remind me to write them a note saying that I apologize,” Sandry replied, tossing her braids back over her shoulders.
Daja shook her head. “Why get in the middle? Briar stole that tree, and it was costly. Minimum I ever saw a shakkan priced for was ten silver astrels.”
Tris clicked her tongue against her teeth, impressed.
“I had to help,” Sandry replied flatly. “He’s one of us.”
Daja blinked. “Is there an ‘us’?”
Sandry looked surprised. “Certainly! Didn’t that thing this morning convince you?”
“I try not to let fights convince me of anything.” Daja lay back.
“And I wasn’t in it, not really,” objected Tris.
“Oh, stop.” Sandry gave her a friendly push. “Why did you go to help, if you didn’t care if they got him?”
Tris blushed scarlet and held her tongue, not wanting to say that she’d half-hoped to see him in real trouble. Should she tell the others that he was at the foot of the ladder now, listening? The warm air that rose through the trapdoor from the house below carried the sound of his breathing to her sensitive ears.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Daja said, yawning. “I don’t want to be an ‘us’ with a bunch of kaqs.”
“Or I with a Trader and a noble and a thief,” remarked Tris sleepily.
“You’ll see,” retorted Sandry. “I know what I’m talking about.”
From atop the Hub, the bell tolled the end of the rest period. Tris heard Briar tiptoe out of the attic as the girls got to their feet. Folding her canvas, she thought, At least he’ll have the decency to pretend he didn’t hear any of that.
“What are you and Niko doing today?” asked Sandry, descending the ladder. “Pass the cloth to me.”
Tris obeyed. “We’re going down to the cove,” she explained, climbing into the attic once Sandry had gotten off the ladder. “He mentioned something about learning tides. And I get to practice my meditation some more.”
“Good luck,” Sandry replied.
“Thanks,” Tris said, her voice very dry. “I’ll probably need it.”
Fretting, Briar watched as Rosethorn lifted his tree from the counter in her workroom. She cupped its small, round pot in her hands, dirt-stained fingers probing the openings in the bottom and testing each bump in the glaze.
“Why are there holes?” he asked, unable to keep still. “Won’t the dirt fall out?”
“They let water drain through as it does in the ground. You put screens over the holes to keep dirt in. Now hush.” Closing her eyes, Rosethorn ran her fingers over the earth in the pot, then over the surface twists that were part of the shakkan’s roots.
Briar’s nose itched. The scent in that room, of black earth, herbs, and flowers, of rain on hot stones, filled his ears and nose, tickling his eyes, pressing on his skin. Opening his mouth, he breathed deep to taste it. Something within him replied to its call, adding moss, briars, and young, twining plants to the feeling in the air.
Fingers tweaked his nose. “Ow!” He rubbed the abused spot.