She gathered some dead limbs and leaves, gently cutting them from bushes and saplings with her belt knife. I wasn’t going to say that if they were dead, they couldn’t feel the cutting. “If I knew that, we might be able to go home.” Raising her voice, she said, “Stop rolling your eyes and sighing, Myrrhtide. If there’s anything I hate, it’s a person who rolls his eyes and sighs when he’s impatient. It just makes me move that much slower.” Under her breath she added, “Twitterwitted Water temple bleat-brain.”

I grinned. She learned “bleat-brain” from Briar.

I put the dead stuff in her workbasket while she mounted up again. Then I got on my own horse. “I’m sorry about all this getting on and off,” I told the horse. “It seems to be that kind of day.”

“You are always hopping about, Evumeimei.” Luvo was still in his sling, hung from my horse’s saddle horn. “I was telling Jayatin and Oswin about our travels in the East.”

I wrinkled my nose as we rode on. “Not the nasty parts, I hope. Nobody needs to remember those.”

“Only that there was fighting, and that we were caught in it.”

“He was describing the temple of the Great Green Man,” Jayat explained. “I can’t even imagine a solid jade statue over a hundred feet tall.”

“It was wonderful,” I said. “The jade was the color of that grass over there. It sang to my magic. Alabaster the color of the moon. Some rubies, though they weren’t very good. It was hung with ropes of pearls, too. They’re well enough in their way. Briar really liked the blue and pink pearls, the ones as big as his thumb. He said you could get very good prices for those in the markets in Sotat and Emelan.”

“But you weren’t impressed.” Jayat sounded like he was laughing at me.

“Well, they’re pearls. They’re just fake stones, you know. Cheats. They’re dirt an oyster puts around grit to keep it from itching. You’d think there’d be a law against trying to cheat people with fake stones like that. Now, jade—the Green Man statue had it carved all kinds of ways, so it sang back to you in different tones.”

We talked about my travels as we rode onto the shores of Lake Hobin. We’d finally reached Moharrin, just as dark was setting in. Torches were lit on the road along the lake, to guide us past farms and orchards to the village.

“Jayat, go let Azaze know we’re here.” As Jayat rode ahead, Oswin told Rosethorn and Myrrhtide, “I know you’re too tired for a big reception, but Azaze—our headwoman—also owns the inn. People tend to gather there as a matter of course. There will be some of them to greet you.”

“As long as there is a decent meal, they may greet me as they choose.” Myrrhtide snapped his horse’s reins and moved ahead of us.

“I don’t think you have to worry.” Oswin sounded very innocent in the dark. “Azaze gives a decent meal to almost everyone.”

I saw Rosethorn slap Oswin lightly. “Naughty.”

I don’t think Myrrhtide could hear. Or if he did, he pretended he didn’t.

4
The Inn at Moharrin

I  hung back as the grown-ups rode on. People rushed out of the houses as we reached the outskirts of the village. They surrounded Rosethorn and Myrrhtide, giving me the shivers.

“Evumeimei, you are unhappy,” Luvo remarked. “Are you so weary from your journey?”

Luvo sees in the dark. I think he sees, anyway.

“People,” I grumbled. “Look at them. They swarm around Rosethorn and Myrrhtide like ants at a feast. They do everything but wag their tails—”

“Ants do not have tails, Evumeimei.”

He couldn’t distract me so easily, not when I was cranky at seeing the old game begin again. “Don’t play logic games, please. Just listen to them for me, will you?” I asked. Luvo could hear at great distances. It was very useful.

“They say it is an honor for their village and their island, that two dedicate initiates of Winding Circle temple are here. They say they could not have hoped for such blessings. They are happy, Evumeimei.”

“They’re happy now, Luvo. People always start out being grateful,” I reminded him. “But under the gratitude? They’re already telling themselves that Rosethorn owes—”

“Not Myrrhtide?”

Luvo was learning too many human tricks, including trying to distract me. It wasn’t at all becoming for a rock to be so sly. I ignored him. “Fusspot, too, if you insist. That our people owe them work and magic. That they should half-kill themselves in the service of this, this beetle-spit village next to its chicken-piddle lake on its donkey-dung island. You watch. Fast enough their requests will turn into demands and orders. That’s what people are like. If you do things for them? You turn from friend, or even helpful stranger, into a slave.”

I hadn’t noticed that Jayat had returned on foot. He’d come through the trees on my right. That was why I hadn’t noticed him getting close to me. He’d heard some of what I told Luvo. “Evvy, how can you say that? Surely you don’t believe people are so cruel.”

I slumped in my saddle. I hated having this argument with others, even more so when they seemed like they might be sensible. I squinted so I could see Jayat’s face better in the shadows. “I know they are that cruel. See here. My mother sold me as a slave when I was six. It was because I was one mouth too many, and only a girl. I understood that. The part I minded was where they sold me. They brought me all the way from Yanjing to Chammur. Why didn’t they just sell me in Yanjing? At least I was born there, and I knew the language.”