Briar gave his work area a last check to ensure that everything was stowed in watertight cabinets, safe from the cleansing steam. Osprey had gone to speak to the outer workroom crew. Crane was lost in thought, gazing blankly through the glass wall at the fog that rose in the night air.
It all depended on Crane now, didn’t it? He had plenty of help, it was true, but the experience and the skull work would be his.
I don’t even like this man, Briar thought, dismayed. I respect him, but I don’t like him. And he don’t like me.
The things I do for her, he told himself, and walked over to Crane. “You can stare and blink as well outside as in here,” he reminded the dedicate. “And I want my supper, even if you don’t.”
Crane looked at him as if he had forgotten who Briar was. Then he shook his head as if to clear it. “True. Let us be off, then. We shall return all too soon.”
It had been in Briar’s mind to sit with Rosethorn. Lark would hear nothing of it. “Visit after you eat,” she said firmly, thrusting Briar and Tris toward the table. “But not for long—you’re going to bed. You cannot be muzzy when you work like this, you know. Some of the worst disasters in history came about because people were too weary to know they made errors.” She brought covered supper plates that she’d kept warm on the hearth, while Daja poured out juice. “She’s done nothing but scribble ever since I brought her home.”
Briar, listlessly picking up a napkin, felt interest course through his veins like tonic. “She’s doing notes?”
Symbols of health and protection gleamed silver on Rosethorn’s doorway, to keep sickness inside. They didn’t capture sound, because Rosethorn called loudly, “You thought I would come home to languish? I have some things Crane should try. Come in after you finish.”
Tris grinned at Briar.
He started to eat. He bet Crane would be glad of Rosethorn’s notes for as long as she could make them. And as long as she did make them, Briar knew her thinking was still sharp, not fever-muddled. The blue pox might have fooled the diagnosis oil for a time, but it had a serious battle to fight if it wanted to munch up Rosethorn.
Once finished, he got his shakkan and took it to Rosethorn. “It’s glad of company,” he said cheerfully as she glared at him. She sat propped up on pillows as she wrote on a lap-desk. “It moped the whole time we went north last fall and lost a couple of twigs. I’ll feel better if you’d just watch it.”
“Of course,” Rosethorn said tiredly. “I can see it’s moping. If we’re not careful, it could shed a needle. I don’t need a nursemaid, young man, not even a green one.”
Briar grinned. “You got one anyway.”
“I have one anyway. Take this.” She held out a waxed paper tube, spelled like the doorway to keep out disease. Briar accepted it with a gloved hand: at Lark’s command, anyone who saw Rosethorn dressed as they might for Crane’s workroom.
“Now go to bed,” Rosethorn ordered. “I bet two silver astrels that Crane finds a cure before I show spots. That means you need to rest and help him win me money.”
“Even if he don’t approve of gambling?” Briar shook his head, glad she could joke.
Rosethorn grinned. “Particularly because he doesn’t approve of gambling.”
If Crane was glad to see Rosethorn’s notes once they were carried through the washroom in their waxed tube, he hid it well. He read them, Briar noticed, but he directed Osprey to do the suggested work. Briar tried to watch Osprey, until he ruined a tray by losing track of what he’d added. After that, he kept his mind on his work.
The pace in the greenhouse changed. Acacia often came to ask Osprey things, while Crane spent more time advising Osprey than he ever had with Rosethorn. Osprey always had questions and needed to check almost every step with Crane, which maddened Briar. He wanted to order Acacia to show some backbone and Osprey to let Crane work. One day went by, then two, then three: every minute that Crane was distracted was a minute taken from Rosethorn’s life. They had found no more keys since her last discovery. Each night, when the crew left the greenhouse, Briar looked for a steady bright glow over the wall between them and Bit Island, hoping not to see it. It was the fires in the vast pit where the dead were burned, and it was always there.
At midmorning of the third day, the clamor of tolling bells in Summersea got louder, making the glass on his counter wobble. Then Briar realized it wasn’t city bells, but the Hub bell, that clanged so mournfully.
“What is it?” asked Tris. “What happened?”
“One of our own died,” Osprey replied, making the gods-circle on her chest.
“Who?” asked Tris. No one knew. Neither Sandry nor Daja, caring for Rosethorn, had any idea of who it was.
That night, when Briar and Tris came home and looked in on Rosethorn, they found Lark with her. The women clasped each other’s gloved hands; both had reddened, puffy eyes, as if they’d been weeping.
“Henna,” Rosethorn said to Briar. “The fever. That cursed fever!”
“Her magic,” Briar whispered numbly. “She said she always kept enough back to burn it out—”
“Except she didn’t,” Lark said bitterly. “Willow-water told me she was helping a couple of sick novices.”
Briar stared at Rosethorn, frightened. Rosethorn’s eyes were glassy; her lips were dry and peeling. She was feverish. It was as if death circled his teacher.