“If a trangshi were here, I could not accept work from that trangshi’s hand,” replied Polyam. “Even if you handled it before me. I must have a smith. One that is not unclean.”

Now tiny lightning bolts rippled over Tris’s hair and around the frames of her spectacles. The Trader clung to her staff with both hands, her dark face ashy with fear.

“She’s a xurdin, not a yerui,” Daja said quickly. She knew Polyam heard, but there was still custom to observe—she wouldn’t admit that she had. “Tris, tell her you’re a xurdin, a mage. She thinks you’re a yerui, a hungry ghost-devil. That your magic will eat her. Please,” she begged, knowing her friend was about to refuse.

The other girl sighed. The tiny bits of lightning began to shrink. “I’m a mage, all right?” she said to Polyam. “I’m a mage; she’s a mage. It’s just strange magic we have; it’s not like most people’s. It’s not evil; I won’t hurt you. I’m trying not to hurt you right now, and I’m succeeding, aren’t I?”

Polyam’s full mouth tightened. “You didn’t have to tell me your magic is strange,” she replied. “I’ve been on the roads all my life, and I’ve never seen anything like what you just did.”

Daja came up to stand at Tris’s back. “I’ll see if Sandry or Briar can get the smith,” she whispered into her friend’s ear. “Be polite. It’s not her fault I’m trangshi. Offer her water from the well.”

Tris glanced back and up into Daja’s eyes. “It’s not your fault, either.”

“It doesn’t matter, not if you’re a Trader. Offer her a drink.” Daja stepped into the shadows behind the forge. Perhaps if Tris couldn’t see Daja, she wouldn’t be so quick to defend her against what she saw as insults.

She’s only a kaq, thought Daja tiredly. It was the first time in weeks that she’d thought of the redhead that way. Tris wasn’t so bad, once you got to know her, but kaqs—those who weren’t Traders—didn’t understand important things like trangshi custom.

Sandry, Briar, Daja called, sending her magic through the air. Can you find the smith, Kahlib? He’s got an important customer who will only talk to him.

Nearly two miles away Lady Sandrilene fa Toren inspected a heavily embroidered jacket. It belonged to one of their warrior escorts, who had draped it over a tree-limb while he and his friends watered their horses at a mountain stream. Sandry had wanted a better look at one of those jackets all morning, ever since Lady Inoulia of Gold Ridge and her people had joined the duke on their inspection of the largest grassfires. No doubt the man would have let her see it if she had asked, but that would have involved bowing and respectful conversation with Sandry as Duke Vedris’s great-niece. She would have felt guilty about keeping a nervous man standing as she went over the beautiful needlework on his back. It was simpler this way with the tree to hide her slender form from the warriors at the brook.

She brought her small nose close to the stitches, marveling at the complex embroidery. All the riders’ jackets started with the same image: a lavender flower, well opened, with slender yellow rods at the center. Each design, though, was individual in the waves of light that radiated from the design, done in all colors, patterns, and threads. She had stopped doing fine embroidery more than two months ago, but these jackets made her fingers itch to pick up needle and silk again.

She was a slim, fine-boned girl, with bright blue eyes and a stubborn chin. Sunstreaks gilded her brown hair, tidily braided and pinned up under a sheer gray veil. Her overgown was dove gray linen, sleeveless and plain but for a long row of jet buttons down the front. Jet buttons also twinkled atop her small, black shoes. Her puff-sleeved undergown was white cotton, woven so fine as to be almost comfortable in the stuffy heat of the day. She would have loved to trade this elegant mourning for just one of her light cotton dresses, but that would have shocked the nobles who housed her great-uncle and his companions on this long ride through Duke Vedris’s realm. Sandry did not feel like explaining that her parents, dead a year, would have laughed at the thought of her wearing deep mourning, as was expected of the nobility. Instead, as long as she rode with the duke, she wore the clothes proper to her station and envied her three friends their freedom to wear colors and fewer layers as she herself did at home.

She thrust her discomfort from her mind and peered more closely at the ornate embroidery. Could she do that braided stitch?

“If you want me to nick it”—Sandry jumped, and the boyish voice went on—”I’ll have to wait till dark.”

She glared into Briar Moss’s amused green eyes. “As if you stole anything anymore!” she retorted.

“Now that’s where you’re wrong.” Reaching into the loosely belted brown jacket he wore instead of a shirt, he produced two small bunches of grapes. “The best around, with the crops falling off.” He passed a bunch into her hands. “I’ve had better.”

Sandry returned the grapes. “Thanks, but no. Watch for those riders coming back.”

He glanced at the brook. “Don’t worry. They’ve taken off their boots and they’re cooling their toesies. Maybe I could nick the jacket right now, if you want it.”

Sandry shook her head and returned to examining the embroidery. Briar leaned against the tree and ate his grapes. Unlike her, he was dressed for comfort: he wore cotton breeches and normally went barefoot, unless one of their teachers forced him into sandals or boots. At five feet, he was taller than Sandry by a hand’s length. He had the glossy black hair—worn short and rough-cut—almond-shaped eyes, and gold-brown skin of an easterner, but a thin-bladed nose and eyes that changed from gray-green to lime green pointed to western blood in one of his parents. He wasn’t sure which of them it might be: he had never known his father, and his mother had died when he was four.