We're here. Power flooded in, making every hair on his body stand up. Clutching the thread circle, the girls were twined together like a spun cord, Sandry a gold-white strand, Daja red-orange, darker - weaker - than the other two for today, Tris a brilliant blue shot through with white. What do we do? they asked.

Rosethorn refused to let go of her magic and her ties to the plants. She clung to them, despite the pain from all the burning. Everything continued to grow frantically.

Like this, Briar told his friends. He slammed into his pattern, taking them along. They roared through its crossings and turnings, bringing it to life in the mind they now shared. Now they saw, as he did, how to build the magical fire until every green thing in the cove had to grow fast or explode. They fed the thorns and stickers with their anger and bitterness. Daja had her own memories of pirates, as did Sandry. Tris was furious at these parasites who burned and killed and made her new home unsafe. The four boiled through every root, branch, vein and needle, forcing them higher, longer, thicker, sharper - definitely much, much sharper.

They knocked Rosethorn out of the pattern without knowing it. Ablaze with anger and fear, they were deaf and blind to the hands that shook and tugged at them.

"Trisana, you aren't listening to me!" a cracked, sharp, familiar voice said in her mind. She smelled vinegar and mildew. "You beggar me with your extravagance! I'm just a poor widow, with barely enough to live on, and you eating me out of -"

Tris's hold on their joining faltered. "Cousin Uraelle?" she whispered. "You're dead."

"No more beef at this table, not at these prices! And a copper penny for turnips? You didn't bargain enough! You -"

The others felt Tris shrink and fade as that voice railed on and on. She was losing confidence. She was losing her grip on the pattern.

A fiery spindle appeared in the children's mind, whirling counter-clockwise, unravelling things. Their bond with the plants was coming unspun. Briar's grip on the magic relaxed. Sandry, recognizing Lark's work, dropped away. In Discipline, Frostpine held Daja's fingers, wrapped tightly around the lumpy thread, and gently pried them open, one at a time. Oh, all right, she thought, and let go of the magic herself.

Someone pinched Briar's earlobe hard. "Don't ever break loose from me like that again," Rosethorn said, her voice ragged. "You could have killed yourself and the girls."

"But they were hurting you," he protested.

Lark, shaking her head, tucked her spindle into her sleeve. "You should have warned him," she murmured.

"You're not helping," snapped Rosethorn. To Briar she said, "A little pain is bearable, to protect this place. And at least we've done that." She pointed to the ground outside the wall.

He could see nothing but stems, vines and very long thorns. In some places the growth was nearly six feet high - nowhere was it shorter than four feet. It reached up to - even a little way into - the water. Search though he did, he found no sign of the longboats, their catapults, or the pirates who had manned them.

"They escaped?" he asked, his knees starting to wobble. "They got away?"

Skyfire uttered a barking laugh. "Never had a chance. They're somewhere under all that. They're never coming out, if that's what worries you." Moonstream had joined them. To her Skyfire said, "Can we bring up the entire spell-net for the night? Not just the east and west segments?"

The Dedicate Superior shook her head. "Hardbottle village - half of their people haven't made it in. We told them we'd keep the North Gate open until dawn for the stragglers. As far as anyone knows, the pirates haven't got around the spell-net in the east. If we had a way to make them stay put once it gets dark, that would help."

Skyfire looked at the silent cluster of senior mages. Briar realized they must have drawn close to watch him and Rosethorn. "I want a fog around this place so thick I wouldn't know my mother if I stepped on her foot," Skyfire ordered. "Those villagers will have the road, and our guards, to guide them in, but anyone in open country had better not dare move, for fear of breaking their necks. And if some of you can't drum it up, maybe I'll just get all four of these young people up here, and see that they can do."

"Unnecessary." The voice - stiff, haughty, male - belonged to Dedicate Crane. He looked down his very long nose at Briar. "I submit that senior mages are superior in their control. Your charges need to work on theirs," he told Rosethorn, his rival.

Briar just grinned tiredly, and gave Crane a careless salute.

Half an hour later, Tris still had not forgiven Aymery for putting Uraelle so vividly in her mind. "I can't believe you did that to me," she said for the dozenth time, wrapping trembling hands around the cup of tea that Frostpine had made for them. The two men had been going through some books Aymery had brought up from the guesthouse when the girls received Briar's call. Somehow Frostpine had guessed what the children were up to, and insisted on trying to break the link. Aymery had made the first important dent in their union with Uraelle's voice - Tris knew that as well as her cousin did. "You couldn't have used someone else?"

"She was the best one I thought of," he replied with a shrug. "And Asaia Bird-Winged knows I heard her yattering on enough when I was small." Seeing Tris's puzzled look, he explained, "We lived with her for two years when I was your age."

She winced. "I'm sorry. You still didn't have to -"