Not long after he’d returned to work, Briar felt the mildest of cramps. He was shocked, then amused at his shock. How long had it been since he’d eaten food that hadn’t agreed with him? Four months? It seemed like four years since his trial and sentencing in Sotat and his trip north to Winding Circle with a stranger called Niko. Only two nights before his trial he’d spent part of the night groaning over a slit-trench, because the chunk of goat meat he’d stolen and devoured had been about a week too old.

There was no sense in complaining—was he a bleater, to whine because the grease in the sausages was off? Instead he excused himself to Lark and the girls and went in search of a privy. A laundrymaid pointed him in the right direction, to another small courtyard where a latrine was set into the outer wall.

Coming out of it, he found Daja kneeling on the ground in the middle of the courtyard. “What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Well, I was going to use that privy,” she replied absently. “I think the grease they cooked the sausages in had turned.”

“I noticed,” he said wryly.

“But I felt this warm spot….”

He looked at her. She was wearing shoes; he was barefoot. “I didn’t feel any warm spots.” He walked over to her and put a foot on the patch of ground beside her hands. “It doesn’t feel hot, honest.”

She shook her head, making her braids dance. “It’s there, just a little way down—”

Silver light blazed around her palms. She and Briar flinched.

“What happened?” demanded the boy. Now the ground turned warm under his toes. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Daja protested, sweating. “It just leaped out of me!” Still on her knees, she backed away. The earth was quivering. Something hot was coming up.

The ground where she had been cracked. Steam shot out in a hot, sulfur-smelling cloud, followed by a jet of very hot water. Both of them yelped when droplets hit their skins. Warm mist rolled through the courtyard, as heavy as any fog.

A small, dirty hand wrapped around Daja’s wrist. C’mon, Briar ordered. Let’s go, before we’re seen here!

Since she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she obeyed. Once out of the pocket of steam, they saw they were both covered with mud splatters.

“Cleanup?” she suggested. “Otherwise we look guilty.”

Briar nodded, and they dashed for the baths. In the outermost chamber at the foot of the stairs, troughs filled with heated water from the springs awaited those who just needed a quick wash. Both of them scrubbed their arms, legs, and faces, then did their best to remove the stains from their clothes.

“Where’d it come from?” asked Briar, drying his face and hands on a rough towel. “If you pulled that squirter out of the pipes down here and they’re broke, we’re in deep dung. And not just with Niko, either.”

“I don’t know where it came from,” she hissed, keeping an eye on the slumbering attendant across the room. “I haven’t anything to do with water!”

“No more than Sandry does vines, or I do lightning. Come on, feel around. Maybe we can fix the plumbing if you cracked it!”

Daja glared at him, still rubbing her arms dry, then glanced at the attendant. The woman was snoring.

“You need kettledrums to wake her,” said Briar.

As if in agreement, the woman snorted and turned away from them on her stool. Now comfortably wedged into her corner, she looked as if she might not stir until the supper bell was rung.

Daja took a deep breath, counting to seven, as she was trained. Briar joined in, closing his eyes as he took up the rhythm. There was her magic, and his, the edges blended together in spots. She let awareness spread, testing for heat where it shouldn’t be, or for breaks in the smooth tiles that covered the floor and walls. Metal rang in all her senses: the fixtures in the baths and the pipes. Riding on magic, she and Briar threaded their way through the ground until they found the broad pool of mineral-laden water from which the baths were supplied. They drifted around the immense underground rock chamber the water had shaped for itself.

There Briar split away to let his magic run over the walls. Daja found herself drawn to one of the many springs that fed the pool and dropped through that. She thrust along its length, exploring the walls, discovering a multitude of tiny outlets that bled into the mountains that cupped Gold Ridge Valley.

Sudden heat—much hotter than that of forge or springs, hotter than anything she’d felt in her life—wrapped around her and squeezed. She tried to shout, or thought she did, writhing against that breathless hold. Three months ago she had needed Tris’s help to reach the liquid rock that ran far below Winding Circle. Even then they weren’t able to touch the lava itself: Tris had called its heat up to where Daja could use it. Now the earth’s lifeblood of molten rock and metal had her and didn’t want to let her go.

She fought. Heat poured over her, making her edges go cherry red, then start to melt.

A square of blazing white light popped into existence and wrapped itself around her, forcing the lava back. The fire-weaving she had made just hours before was saving her life—or at least, her magical self. Niko was right, Daja thought crazily it doesn’t seem to need any air to burn!

Spying a crack in the rock overhead, Daja shot out of her protective blanket, arrowing straight for the exit. The moment she was free of it, the weaving collapsed, swamped by measureless heat.