The dog trotted into Briar’s room; a moment later they heard him whimper. Coming to the door of the main room, Little Bear barked sharply.

“Briar’s not coming,” Sandry told him, her mouth quivering. “Now stop it.”

“I don’t see how he can know Briar’s not coming back,” remarked Daja impatiently. Frightened by the other meaning of what she’d just said, she added hurriedly, “Not right away. He’s not coming back right away.”

Sandry and Lark made the gods-circle on their chests.

Tris thrust herself away from the table so hard that she knocked over the bench on which she sat. Struggling to pick it up, she cried, “It’s their own fault! What were they doing mucking about the Mire anyway? Everyone knows the poor breed disease!”

Sandry and Daja held their breath as Lark gazed soberly at Tris, raising her eyebrows. Even Tris knew she had gone too far. Her face was beet red with embarrassment and fury, but she met Lark’s brown eyes squarely.

“If they could afford decent places to live, and expensive health spells, they would not be poor, then, would they?” asked Lark.

That made Tris look down. She scuffed her foot along the wooden floor.

“I know you are upset,” Lark continued in that quiet, disappointed tone that made the girls wish they could hide. “You four have not spent a night apart since you came to us, and the spinning of your magics has made you closer than siblings. But you must not let distress make you cruel. Rosethorn is there because it is the way of the Circle to help all, not just those who can pay. Briar went there because that is the soil in which he grew.”

With each word Tris seemed to shrink a little more. Lark never scolded them.

“She didn’t mean it,” offered Sandry, hoping to make peace.

“Whether she did or not is beside the point. No one asks to live in squalor, Tris. It is just that squalor is all that is left to them by those with money.” Lark stood, her shoulders drooping. “When I got the wheezes, what the healers call asthma, I couldn’t work as a tumbler anymore. The only place I could afford to live was the Mire.”

She walked into her workroom and closed the door. Tris ran upstairs, sniffling. Sandry went into her ground-floor room as Daja walked over to Briar’s open door. Little Bear looked up at her, tail fluttering. Daja sat next to him and let the dog put his head in her lap. Outside she could hear the light patter of rain deepen as it fell harder than ever.

Steepling her hands before her face, Daja whispered the prayer her people spoke each night before they went to sleep: “Trader, watch over those of our kindred, in port or at sea. Send them fair winds to speed them home.”

3

Some time after Niko had left, Briar heard the inside door rattle. Someone was pushing things through the lower flap: a large metal box with straps to hold it closed, jars of liquids and salves, a second water kettle in addition to the one that had already been in the room.

Flick had woken from her doze and seemed restless. “What’s all that?” she asked as Rosethorn and Briar carried the new supplies to the table.

“Things to help me care for you and to help others unravel what your pox is,” said Rosethorn.

Curious, Flick got out of bed and came to sit with them. She propped her chin on her elbows and scratched one of the raised bumps on her cheek.

“Stop that,” Rosethorn ordered. “If you feel well enough to walk around, you’re well enough to have some juice.”

As Rosethorn poured a cupful for their patient, Briar ran his fingers over the metal box. Like the gauze screens on the outer door, it was written over with signs for health and purity, pressed into the metal and worked into the leather straps.

“Sickness is a real thing, as real as air or insects,” Rosethorn explained to Flick, taking the box and undoing the straps. “We can’t see it without help, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. With the right magics and tools, you can uncover what disease has tainted.” Some of this she’d taught Briar over the last year. “That means we take samples not only from those with the disease but also from the ones close to them. We hope to get a look at the early stages of the sickness, before it turns mean. I wish I’d thought to keep a grip on your friend Alleypup. We need him for this.”

Rosethorn worked off the box’s tight-fitting lid. Inside lay stacks of square white cloth pads. Each was paired with an undyed bag that sported a paper tag on its drawstring. Beside those were flat plates made of glassy black rock and another stack of cloth masks. Briar also noted a tightly stoppered and wax-sealed bottle of liquid ink and a pair of writing brushes. All of these things were in a tray that fitted inside the box.

“Whatever you see here is spelled to keep every influence out but the samples that go into these bags,” Rosethorn told Flick. “Nothing is dyed, the materials are all the most basic. The only thing the mages who work with this stuff should collect is the disease, mixed with the body fluids of the people we get samples from.”

The woman lifted out the top tray to show an inner compartment. It held a second, smaller metal box, spelled just as strongly as the one in which it sat. “We send this back to Winding Circle with the samples. It’s magicked to keep those who carry it from getting sick.” This box she placed on the table. “They’ll send us a new one every day.”

Rosethorn then took square and bag pairs from the top part of the box, holding them by the edges as she placed five on a black stone plate. Handing the plate to Briar, she returned the top tray and its contents to the large metal box. “Don’t touch anything,” she warned Flick as the girl looked inside the metal container.