“How did you do that?” Evvy wanted to know, awe in her wide brown eyes. “Can you teach me?”

“Not with catnip,” Briar replied with a grin. “Maybe us rock-killers are good for something after all.”

Evvy blushed, grinned, and flapped a hand at him. She wouldn’t say he was wrong, but she wouldn’t admit he might be right.

“Hurry up with the stones,” Briar ordered. “I have to see Lady Zenadia to deliver her tree, don’t forget.”

Evvy tied her rag bundle shut. She had left only one stone in the wall, to light their way out of the room. The others shone through her cloth, rays of light poking like fingers through openings and holes. “I’ll have to wash before we go.” She tied the rock bundle to her waist and let Briar settle her rack on her shoulders.

“You’re not coming,” he said, securing the ties. “I’m going by myself.”

Evvy scowled at him. “Why can’t I?” she asked. “She said I could. I’d like to see a takamer house.”

“Not this one,” Briar said firmly, checking the bindings on his baskets. “She might just try to keep you and give you to the Vipers. Better not to risk it.” When she opened her mouth to argue further, he said, “You wanted me for a teacher. That means you have to listen. If you don’t like it, I’m sure Jebilu Stoneslicer would let his student visit any takamer’s house in town, carrying messages and such-like.”

“No he wouldn’t,” grumbled Evvy. “He’d put me under a bushel basket and send a cobra in to keep me company.” She pried her final lightstone from the wall, then led the way out, holding the stone up like a lamp. They had re-entered Lambing Tunnel and passed the lump of rags that was Qinling before Evvy remarked, “You thought me living in the takameri’s house would be good yesterday.”

Is this how parents live? Briar thought a bit wildly, as frustrated by his own lack of answers as he was her questions. Do kids go on asking the same questions even after the answers change? Do they question everything out of a person’s mouth? “I changed my mind,” he retorted.

“So you don’t want me to work for her. And you don’t want me to join the Vipers. And you’re sure this time.”

“Right,” Briar said flatly. “Exactly right.” I think, he added to himself.

It was close to midday by the time Briar was able to set out for Lady Zenadia’s home. He bought food and ate on horseback rather than lose more of the day. He was starting to feel a little scraped and brittle. It was time to work on his trees, to brew medicines and weed the rooftop plants, before he forgot who he really was in all this running around.

Before that, he had a larch to install. It took five people to direct him through the maze of the city and into the less maze-like, but still confusing, web of streets that made up the monied parts of town. At last he came to Attaneh Road in the part of Chammur called the Jeweled Crescent. These homes were notable for their large gardens, the wealthy flaunting their spacious residences. The city’s oldest families lived here, those who grabbed the best land between the heights and the river when they finally spilled out of their rocky fastnesses.

He knew better than to enter through the front gate. He’d learned early that the rich viewed mages not so much as honored guests but as very expensive servants. Instead he rode to the tradesman’s entrance and told his business to a blank-faced man-at-arms. Once he passed through the gate, he was met by a chamberlain who guided him through winding galleries, halls, and courtyards.

Briar cast an expert’s eye over the gardens they passed through: like many houses in the east, it included small gardens within the larger one that wrapped around the house. Each of the small gardens was laid out to create certain moods. He was impressed by what he saw. Lady Zenadia’s gardeners knew the futility of trying to create too many lush, green spaces in so dry a climate. There were green oases, miniature water falls and ponds, but they were carefully tucked into corners to shelter them from Chammur’s dry, hot winds. The remaining gardens held a rich variety of desert and hot country plants, showing the bountiful life that flourished in country most people thought of as wasteland.

Passing along part of the garden that encircled the house, Briar paused. Some of these trees and shrubs were gleefully vigorous, pulsing with strength. What would do that? Surely the gardeners didn’t fertilize with fish heads — fresh fish was a costly delicacy in this water-poor country. Offal, perhaps, or animal leavings, chopped fine and mixed with normal fertilizers? He would have liked to ask the gardeners, but the chamberlain was tugging his arm.

Briar hesitated, curious still. What are they feeding you? he asked the fruit trees by the rear wall. What have they put in your earth to make you so alive?

Good food, they chorused, leaves fluttering. Rich food!

Briar sighed. How could he expect trees to know what went into the dirt around their roots? He was trying to formulate another question when the larch complained. They were in direct sunlight and the miniature was already dry so it could be drawn easily from its present earth to be repotted. The larch wanted Briar to stop talking to these great, overgrown plants and tend to it.

Briar shook his head and followed the chamberlain. Clad all in white — white breeches, white shirt, white turban — but for his green overrobe and sand-colored sash, the man seemed like a ghost. Only near the end of their walk did he speak. “Will you require anything of the house, pahan?”