Flick’s mouth dropped open. Her breath rattled in her dry mouth and nose. She was asleep.

“Worms and flukes?” asked Briar, not sure he’d heard right.

“Parasites, in her body. They live on her. I would imagine, before Rosethorn cleaned her up, she had lice and fleas as well.”

Briar was about to ask, “Don’t everybody?” when he remembered that he had not since his arrival at Winding Circle. Who am I? he wondered for a moment, shocked. Who am I really? It’s like I shucked being Roach the street rat like worn-out clothes—but Roach is who I was for years. I can’t just strip away years, can I?

“Where is this girl from?” Henna was asking. “Where did she live?”

Briar frowned at her. “The sewer,” he said irritably. He didn’t like the disapproval in Henna’s face and voice. Where else could Flick live and be safe? he wanted to ask, but did not. Instead he thought, Henna acts like I’m one of her kind, one of the citizens. And I’m not. I can’t be.

Henna shook her head and reclaimed her magic. Gently she drew the blanket over Flick’s thin arms. “She will have a battle of it, I’m afraid.”

“We’ll pull her through,” Briar said confidently. “I’ve heard them at the Circle—they say you’re one of the best. I’ll do whatever you say. I was thinking maybe Flick could do with more willowbark tea.”

“I’ll take care of that,” said Henna, regarding him with an odd expression in her eyes. “You should rest.”

“I don’t mind—”

“All our patients are asleep now, so I don’t mind either. Bed.”

Briar turned to go. He was halfway across the floor when her soft yet clear voice reached his ears. “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do, boy—Briar. Sometimes they don’t have enough to fight with.”

He looked back at her. “Flick’ll fight. You’ll see.” He fell on his bed and rolled the blanket around him. Maybe for a birthday I should pick the day when Roach of Deadman’s District kicked the bucket and left this kid Briar in his place, he thought tiredly. Except I don’t even know when that was. It all happened in bits and pieces, like.

Maybe the girls know when it was.

Sleep, like the change from Roach to Briar, came slowly. Somewhere, between thought and dreams, he flowed along the invisible ties that stretched between him and the girls. It turned his dreams to small chunks of their lives.

He was Daja, bent over a sheet of iron beaten leather-thin as Kirel, Frostpine’s other apprentice, bludgeoned away on a nearby anvil. Heat pressed Daja/Briar from the right, drawing her skin tight on that side while a cold, damp blast made her left side pebble with goosebumps. The grip of a sharp-edged tool she thought of as a “graver” nestled firmly in her right hand.

Slowly she thrust the sharp point of the graver along the iron, shaping the curves that would form the symbol for protection. Her magic flowed in the graver’s wake. It called the power to shield and to hold out of the metal. She followed a magical trail, Briar realized: there was a design already drawn on the metal in rose geranium oil and Frostpine’s magic. It combined with Daja’s as she cut four half circles into the metal, each combining with the others to shape four petals. Last of all she cut a full circle that passed through the other curves. As she completed it, running into the point where she had begun, the magic faded, power seeping into iron to fill every inch. At last it was just a dimly glowing set of curves in her eyes.

A hand—large, warm, callused—came down on her shoulder. There was no telling how long Frostpine had been there, watching. She looked up into his proud eyes. “Very good,” he said. “The best yet. One more, and I think we are finished for the day.”

Briar lost Daja, but magic tugged him still. He found himself in Sandry’s mind as she labored with mortar and pestle in Lark’s workroom.

Charcoal to filter out the bad, rose geranium for protection, she was thinking—Briar noticed that both Lark and Frostpine liked to use rose geranium. Sandry worked her pestle around the mortar’s bowl in a steady rhythm, thrusting her magic into her ingredients. Granules of frankincense flattened under her rocking pressure, mixing with the liquid in crushed flower petals and rosemary leaves. Protection and purification, Sandry thought; no shadow can enter. She filled the bowl to the brim with her power. Carnation and frankincense oils strengthened and purified what would be a thin paste rather than an oil. In a corner of her mind the noble drew and redrew a protective circle in white fire around those she loved. Peering at those within her circle, Briar recognized himself, Rosethorn, the girls, Lark, Frostpine, Niko, Little Bear, the duke—and Dedicate Crane?

The surprise of seeing Crane made him wake on his cot at Urda’s House. He blinked at the ceiling. Why in Trickster Lakik’s name did Sandry care what happened to Crane?

Sitting up, Briar looked around. Henna sat next to one of the new kids’ beds. A silver shimmer marked the flow of magic through her fingers into her patient. It chased a blue tint out of the boy’s unpocked skin.

Briar went over for a closer look. “What’s the matter with him?” he whispered.

“He had a seizure—a convulsion—while you were asleep,” she replied. “It happens when a fever runs too long unchecked. He’s blue all over because he didn’t get enough air during the spasms, so I’m trying to change that.”