“But I did the magic once before!” cried the girl.
“When you had nothing else to think about. The hammering we heard earlier didn’t help my concentration, either. You’ve been at this too long, anyway. It’s important to rest.” Lark smiled. “Go out, Sandry. The wool can’t run away.”
The girl obeyed, walking onto the slab of rock that served the cottage as a doorstep. Her ears rang; her muscles felt weak and unused. Glumly she looked for the source of all the hammering so close to Lark’s workroom. She didn’t have to look far. There was a shelf of bright, new wood on Briar’s windowsill.
Briar himself walked around the corner of the house, his stolen tree in his hands. Carefully, lovingly, he placed it on the shelf.
Somehow, the shakkan seemed different from the plant he’d stolen earlier. Curious, Sandry got to her feet. Briar flinched—he hadn’t seen her there—and turned his face away when she came over to look at his prize.
“Hello,” Sandry told him. The shakkan sported a new pot, a wide, shallow tray with a cool green finish. There were fresh cuts where branches had been clipped off and painted over with tan liquid. The twigs all looked too short, and it took a minute for her to see why: the buds had been removed.
“What did you do to it?” When he turned, she saw tear-tracks on his gold-brown cheeks. “Why were you crying?” Digging in her pocket, she produced one of her black-bordered handkerchiefs.
“I’m not crying,” he growled, and swiped the back of his hand under one eye. Startled, he realized wetness was there. “Pruning hurt us,” he muttered.
“Take it.” Sandry thrust the handkerchief under his nose, thinking, At least it doesn’t pain me when the thread goes to pieces. “Was it a bad hurt, like when someone kicks you, or a good one, like when a healer sets a broken bone?”
He shifted the tree slightly, wanting it to receive a perfect mix of sun and shade. “Never had a healer.” He scoured his cheeks with the fine white cloth. “I guess it was a good hurt, like when I lost my baby teeth.” He offered the handkerchief back to her, and saw the stains and dirt his fingers had left. “It’s a mess. I’m sorry.”
“Keep it,” Sandry replied. “The Hataran lady who bought my mourning clothes got so many handkerchiefs, I think she expected me to cry for years. Can I touch the tree?”
He glanced at her, then at his shakkan. “Don’t hurt it or scare it.”
Gently, she ran a finger along the trunk. Two of the larger branches were loosely wrapped in metal spirals. “What’s this wire for?”
“It helps the tree grow in the shape you want, Rosethorn said.” He scuffed a bare foot—he’d misplaced his uncomfortable new shoes somewhere—on the ground. “Listen, um, thank you for—earlier.” The words were hard to say. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course I did. Maybe you’ll do something for me one day.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” he advised, sounding more like his normal self.
She grinned at him. “Don’t worry—I won’t.”
“Last piece of the day,” Frostpine grunted, hammering a hot bar of iron. “Kirel, I need that strip now.”
Daja watched as the apprentice put on heavy leather gloves, picked up the tongs, and drew the iron from the fire. She could see that his grip on the cherry-red metal was awkward as he turned from the forge, and nearly said so. Instead she bit her tongue. Most people Kirel’s age would not like advice from an eleven-year-old girl.
The novice caught his foot and stumbled. His tongs dropped from his grip.
She didn’t think; she grabbed the hot iron before it struck the ground. Lifting it with a relieved sigh, she offered it to Kirel.
The novice backed up, eyes wide in horror. The forge stopped his retreat.
“Kirel? Daja?” asked Frostpine. “What’s wrong?”
Daja still held the red metal out to the novice, though she had begun to shake. Just so her own kin would look at her, for handling the work of lugsha—for spending a whole afternoon in a lugsha’s shop.
Gently Frostpine reached over her shoulder and took the hot bar from her grip. Kirel ran outside.
Frostpine placed the iron on the rim of the forge. “Show me your hands.”
Daja obeyed. He turned them palm up in his own—they were unmarked. “Will you get the iron from my anvil?” he asked, folding her fingers over her palms and giving them a squeeze. “Put it beside this piece—don’t stick them back in the fire. Get two fresh iron bars from that box, and put them in till a third of the bar is on the coals.”
“Frostpine—” she whispered, not sure of what she wanted to say.
“He’ll be all right,” the smith told her. “These big northern lads are just a bit high-strung.” He went outside.
Daja put the iron on the fire, then stood in the doorway to cool herself off. She heard Frostpine, whispering, say, “I warned you when you came to me that you would see odd things.”
“A girl who holds red-hot metal in her hands? That’s more than just odd!”
“I don’t understand why you’re upset. I do the same thing, all the time.”
“You’re a great mage, perhaps the greatest smith-mage in the world. I always assumed you’d—you’d learned it, after years of study.”
Daja stepped away, not wanting to eavesdrop anymore. Once out of hearing, she regarded her hands: dark brown with tan-and-brown palms. They were striped with heavy calluses from the hard labor that went with being part of Third Ship Kisubo.