The woman unhooked the section of pale blue cloth that covered all of her face but her eyes to let him see her: Mai. Her eyes were red and puffy from weeping; tears had made tracks down her dirty cheeks. Parts of the veil-cocoon were still wet — she must have stolen it from a drying line. “Please, pahan, don’t send me away. The Gate Lords killed Douna.” She began to weep again. “If they find me, they’ll kill me, too.”

Briar went cold all over. Just a day ago Douna had fetched him to the Camelgut den. He wanted it to be a story, but he knew it wasn’t. He knew the look of someone who’d just lost a mate. “Evvy already got threatened by Gate Lords just for being with you two,” he said, trying to sound cold. “See if your takameri will protect you.”

Mai wiped her eyes on her sleeve, then fastened the face veil again. “I don’t want anything from that —” The word she used was so raw that Evvy yelped and covered her ears. “Just let me come as far as Cedar Lane.”

Briar had been as tough as he could be when a girl he liked stared at him with heartbreak in her eyes. “All right,” he said gruffly. “Walk on the side of that middle donkey. Put a hand on the basket like you’re holding it steady.”

Mai did as she was told. There were Gate Lords everywhere in the crush of people leaving Golden House and the Grand Bazaar. Two of them started toward Briar’s donkeys, but the girl who’d been captured by the willow and the fig stopped them. Briar, Evvy, and the disguised Mai walked away from the gang searchers in safety.

Briar waited until he hadn’t seen a Gate Lord for five blocks before he walked up beside Mai. “Why’d they kill Douna?” he wanted to know. “Didn’t you tell them you had nothing to do with their tesku?”

Mai looked away.

“Lakik Trickster take you both!” he snapped. “You did it, didn’t you? You snatched the head of another gang! Nobody does that!”

“It wasn’t us that took him,” Mai replied sullenly. “We just lured him to Ikrum and the others. They said we had to, to prove we were worthy to be Vipers. If you’d ever been in a gang, you’d know.”

Briar did know. But the gang hadn’t saved Douna, had it? The Vipers had let her and Mai wander off alone, outside the safety of the group. They’d let them go, knowing the Gate Lords would remember who had been seen last with their leader.

Evvy, on the lead donkey, glanced back at them. Suddenly she asked, “So Pahan Briar, if I get ganged up, I could end like Douna someday, right?”

“You aren’t in a gang?” Mai inquired, startled. “Where do you live, in the palace?”

Briar, who’d gotten the point of Evvy’s artless question, glared at her. “Enough,” he told her. “You made your point.”

“I hope so,” Evvy retorted.

When they reached the Cedar Lane fountain, Mai let the Mohunite cocoon slide off her hair. “I’ve got to tell Douna’s granddam,” she said grimly, her eyes hard. “And then I’m going back to the Vipers. Gate Lords killed Douna. We’ll make them bleed.”

“Mai, don’t.” Briar reached for her. “What good —”

“Blood for blood.” She turned down Cedar Lane, walking away from them without a backward glance.

“That’s gangs for you.” Evvy’s voice was bitter in the growing dark. “Good at hating.”

“Evvy,” Briar started to say warningly. He stopped himself. She was right.

They finished their ride in silence as Briar tried hard to think of nothing at all. He wanted Sandry, and Daja, and Tris. He wanted to be in Discipline Cottage at Winding Circle, with his own garden, his dog, his foster-sisters, and Lark. He wanted to hear Rosethorn and Crane squabble. He wanted to eat Dedicate Gorse’s cooking again. Chammur was a hard place, with no love for the people that lived among all this stone. He wanted the rains to come and wash the city right out.

When he saw the night-lantern hanging over his door, he remembered he hadn’t planned what he would say to Rosethorn about Evvy’s refusal to study with Jebilu. “Oh, pox,” he whispered as he led Evvy and the donkeys to the Earth temple stable. It was not a good idea to say just anything to Rosethorn. Desperately he planned as they helped the hostlers to care for the horses and donkeys, and promised to return for most of the miniatures in the morning.

He and Evvy carried the shakkan, the fig, the willow, and Briar’s kit home while his mind raced. He’d tell her he’d rent a house. That would blunt the worst of her anger; even Rosethorn could live with Evvy for a few days. He had to remember to say that it would just be for a few days, before he mentioned the cats. But first he should tell her about Jebilu, then give her his plan for the new house.

What had Jebilu said to make it so clear that Evvy would be miserable with him? Or was it something that Evvy had said? Briar was too tired and too depressed about Douna to remember the conversation word for word.

He and Evvy walked into the dining room, where they put the trees and the saddlebags on the table. Evvy collapsed into a chair. Briar stood with his hands in his pockets, gathering his wits for battle. He could sense Rosethorn as she came down the stairs from the workroom.

The direct approach — Evvy’s going to be my headache, not yours — was a mistake. It would just spark Rosethorn’s temper. He had to come at things sidelong when she was involved. When a disruption of her routine was involved. She —