At last she made herself enter the room he had borrowed from Sandry. Moonstream had taken his magical possessions and journal for examination, but his clothes and books were still there. Like Briar, she could see that Aymery spared no expense on himself. No wonder he'd had debts - debts the pirate mage had used to get him into his power. What was his name? Enahar? He had bought a Chandler like a toy, used him until he tired of it, then thrown the toy away. She reflected on these things, rubbing the earring with her thumb.

"Merchant girl, you have got to pull yourself in and stop this foolishness," Daja said from behind her.

Tris stared at her. "Foolishness?" she asked numbly.

Daja pointed. "Your dress is starting to smoke. There's sparks jumping all over you."

Tris looked down. There were scorch marks on her clothes. "I'm all right," she said, and went to check her porridge.

Daja leaned back when she passed. "All right as compared to what?"

"Let me be," Tris advised, stirring the pot. "My feelings are none of your affair."

Taking the boiling water off the fire, Daja fixed tea. "They are if you burn this house down around our ears."

"I'm not going to do that," said Tris grimly, the ends of her hair gleaming with tiny sparks. "If I burn anything, it's going to be pirates."

"Wonderful. How?"

"I'll think of something."

Daja crossed her arms over her chest, staring at the other girl. "Well, if you think of something, I might help. Might."

"Help what?" Yawning widely, Rosethorn came out of her room, shutting the door behind her. "Is there any tea from last night?"

"There's fresh - it just has to steep a little more," said Daja. Rosethorn nodded, and lurched out the back door to the privy.

Taking her spoon from the pot, Tris faced into the draught that blew in through the open door, and sniffed. The wind had risen and changed, coming now out of the south. It was prodding the fog. Reaching out with her mind, she found a tiny bit of magic in it, something as faint as the scent in a long-dried rose. "Wind's turning," she whispered. "It'll blow off the fog."

Daja frowned. She didn't like the sound of that at all.

"It's almost like there's magic in it, but it feels really strange," Tris added.

There were no odd sparks playing over Tris's skin or hair now, no small lightning bolts jumping across the spaces between her fingers. Hesitantly, Daja rested a hand on the other girl's shoulder, expecting a shock. She was relieved when it didn't come.

The contact brought their magics together, and she saw what Tris meant. She could even guess the explanation. "I think maybe some people have untied a bijili-knot," she whispered. "One that mimanders tied south winds into. It feels like mimander work, anyway."

"So you Traders really will sell to anyone, won't you?" growled Tris yanking out of Daja's hold. "Even your filthy jishen."

"I don't hear you when you cluck like a kaq," Daja replied coolly. "And I doubt it. Dealing with pirates gets you executed by your own crew. I bet they took the bijili from Traders they killed."

Tris started to argue, and let the harsh words go. Daja was probably right. Why pay money when you can take from the dead?

A screech burst out of the covered nest on the table. Her charge was ready to eat again. Rosethorn, coming back from the privy, stuffed her fingers into her ears and retreated to her room.

No one kept the schedule that morning, but the chores got done. When Briar had finished the breakfast dishes, Rosethorn took him to view the greenery around the North Gate, with an eye to fixing the damage from the hailstorm. She was careful not to look at Tris when she mentioned it, but the girl blushed and shrunk in on herself anyway. In daylight, she could see bruises on everyone, even herself, marking the areas they hadn't been able to protect from the tumbling ice-chips.

"I didn't mean to create hail," she muttered to Daja and Frostpine as she settled at the table. Daja and Frostpine were putting out the things they would need to work on the spell-net: coils of wire, bits of mirror with metal loops on the back, pieces of the old spell-net, pliers.

"It did a good thing," Frostpine pointed out. "It slowed the pirates down, and helped those who were drugged to wake up. It probably saved our people's lives, and yours. See how this works, Daja? Use the wire to create new squares of net. Start with the edges of the old net and build out from it. For the plain joinings, where you aren't putting a mirror, just twist the strands around each other three times. Where you want to put a mirror..." He showed her how to do it, giving two metal strands one twist around each other, threading one through the loop on the back of each mirror, and giving them another twist.

"I have to inspect the Gate," he said when it was clear that Daja had got the knack of net-mending. "They'll need all new metal work for that, I'm afraid. You three stay put," he added as Sandry emerged from Lark's workroom, carrying her small loom. "Don't leave this cottage for any reason, unless it's with permission from an adult." He picked up the toolbox that Kirel had sent over the day before. Smiling ruefully, he told Tris, "About your hail - I'm not saying it would be terrible if you could learn, once you got a wind or a storm going, how to send it someplace in particular. Seems to me that if air and water get all stirred up when you do, they might want to listen to you as well. You just have to be firm with them." He waved, and left the cottage.