He looked at her, dismayed. “I never would!” he protested. “Never, ever!”

“Oh, you,” grumbled the woman. “Eat. When rest period’s over, we’ll have a look at that bush you stole.” She got up and went into her workroom.

Only when he was sure that she was out of hearing did Briar mutter, “It’s a tree. A shakkan tree. Not a bush.”

9

Lark pointed to the slate on the wall. “Chores. Do a good job today—there won’t be time for it tomorrow. Daja, after you scrub the privy, ask Rosethorn for herbs to sweeten the air. Briar, don’t neglect corners when you dust and sweep.”

Everyone got to work. Even the dedicates swept out their workrooms and cleaned the altar tucked in the corner between Sandry’s room and the front door. Once they were finished, they vanished into their workrooms.

Pouring hot water into the tub where dishes awaited Sandry, Tris saw that Briar scratched at the floor with a broom. “No, no!” she called. “Dust first, then sweep. That way you get the dust you knock to the floor.”

He looked at the broom and at the dustcloth. “You do?”

Tris went to Briar. “Here.” She ran the cloth over a table, carefully doing the corners. Aunt Uraelle, who had kept her for three years, always checked her dusting, making her do it all over if she missed a spot. “Do flat surfaces this way. When the rag gets dirty, shake it out the window. Now you. There’s a shelf.”

The shelf that she pointed to held a few small objects. Briar nervously poked at the spaces between them with his cloth.

“No!” cried Tris. “You have to pick them up, and dust them, and do the shelf under them! Honestly, you’d think you never dusted in your life!”

“I haven’t.” Who’d guess that people did things to keep their homes clean—or that they’d want clean homes in the first place? he thought.

“Me neither,” called Sandry from the washtub.

Tris pushed her spectacles up on her nose. “But—”

“We had servants,” explained the other girl.

Briar shrugged. “I didn’t have a house. Maybe my dam had a room, but she died years ago. The Thief-Lord wasn’t what you’d call a bear for housekeeping.”

“Mila bless us!” Tris said. “Well, then, watch me.” Carefully she lifted the vase that Briar had tried to work around and dusted it. “See? And before you put it back—” She briskly ran the cloth over the spot where the vase had been, then returned it to its former position. Handing the cloth to the boy, she pointed to the dog statuette that was next on the shelf. “Now you.”

Once he was dusting well enough to suit her, she went to the dishes that Sandry had washed and began to rinse and dry them. Shaking her head, she muttered to the other girl, “No house! As well as live among savages!”

“We had fine tunnels underground,” Briar remarked. His back was to them as he dusted, so he couldn’t see Tris’s glare. “If you didn’t mind rats. My mate Slug, he trained a rat to bite the toes of merchant folk. You should’ve seen them jump! Smart rat, eh?”

“I don’t think it’s funny!” Tris told Sandry, who giggled helplessly. After that, Tris kept her opinions about Briar’s upbringing to herself.

The boy grinned and set about dusting the window ledges.

That morning Niko held their class in meditation at Discipline. Before they started, Lark and Rosethorn did an odd thing: they walked a circle around the cottage, Lark going clockwise, Rosethorn counterclockwise. Lark carried a ball of white yarn, letting it unroll until the yarn reached all the way around the house. At the front door, where she had started, she tied the ends together so that it made a closed circle. Rosethorn carried a basket of dried herbs with her and trickled a stream of them in her wake as she walked her own circle. When she finished, the dried leaves and stems formed another O that enclosed the cottage. Only then did she and Lark join everyone else in the main room.

“Why did you do that?” Sandry wanted to know.

“It’s to keep magic from leaking in as we meditate,” replied Niko.

Rosethorn muttered, “Or from leaking out.”

“Everyone,” Niko said, frowning at her, “breathe and count. One, two, three …”

The dedicates sat on the floor and performed the breathing exercise with the rest of them. Today it seemed easier for the children to bring their minds to a pinpoint of concentration. Niko looked genuinely pleased when they finished and told them they had made real progress.

Going outside, Lark untied her yarn and rolled it up. Rosethorn followed. Scuffing her foot through the line of herbs in several places, she broke her circle.

During midday, Lark gave Daja a scarlet armband and a scarlet headband, to show that she was a Trader in mourning. Watching Daja put them on, Sandry looked at her black clothes. Her own mourning was not suited to housework or to carding and spinning wool. Even after she’d used Lark’s wool-drawing charm, her overdress last night still had a fuzzy white coat.

She finished washing the midday dishes, then climbed the stairs. Her boxes were neatly stacked in an attic corner. Opening them, she found her old, everyday summer gowns—a rose muslin and two blue ones, two brown linen dresses, and undergowns in white or undyed cotton and linen. These were the things she had worn last year, plain clothes for traveling in. For a moment she hugged them, breathing in the sweet pea sachet that Pirisi had always tucked into her boxes.