Frostpine got to his feet. “I’d best go put on a clean habit if we’re supping with Lady Inoulia,” he commented, stretching. “She looks like the kind of woman who cares if people come to the table in work clothes.” Passing Briar on his way inside, he tweaked the boy’s nose.
Briar grinned, swatted the smith’s hand away, and walked onto the balcony, one hand in his pocket. “Want to see something dumb I did?” he asked Daja, producing a lump of dirty, irregular glass.
Daja held it up to the last rays of the sun, inspecting it. Some of those black wisps looked like plant matter, dried grass or root. “Where’d you find this?” she asked.
“I made it,” was Briar’s glum reply. He leaned against the door to the inside, running his fingers through his hair. “I fried about three silver astrels’ worth of dead saffron while I was at it.”
Daja figured the amount: he’d burned enough saffron to buy a poor family’s meals for three months? “Why do a stupid thing like that?”
Tris, joining them, asked, “Yes, why?”
“I didn’t do it a-purpose,” he snapped. “I was trying to see if the bulbs were still alive, and—lightning jumped out of me.”
Tris held out a hand. Daja passed the lump to her. “The soil in crocus beds is mostly sand,” Briar explained. “When I added lightning, I got glass.” As Tris examined the lump, her magic causing it to shimmer, Briar added, “If I have to cut my hair to stop lightning from growing in it like you did, I might as well shave myself as smooth as Frostpine is on top. It’s not like I have extra hair.”
Tris’s frown twisted into a wry smile. Even with her own hair cropped, she had more of it than Briar.
“Here you all are.” Sandry came out onto the balcony, pulling three bobbins of undyed thread from her string workbag. “I need you each to take one of these and keep it on you for a day or so.”
“Why?” Briar wanted to know, when she offered one to him. “It’ll get dirty.”
“That’s all right,” she told him, curling his fingers around a bobbin. “It just has to get to know you.”
“Why should we let it get to know us?” inquired Daja. It felt like plain old silk thread under her fingers.
“Lark thinks I can weave a map of our magics and see where they’re getting mixed up,” explained Sandry. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
“What about when we sleep?” inquired Daja. “Our nightgowns don’t have pockets.”
“Then they go under your pillow,” was the noble’s firm reply.
“Will this help?” asked Tris, her voice unsure. “Does Lark think it will help?”
Sandry nodded.
“What’s to lose?” asked Briar with a sigh. One by one, the friends tucked their bobbins into their pockets.
Lady Inoulia fa Juzon, whose domain Gold Ridge was, dined not alone with those whose rank was closest to hers, but with all the castle inhabitants, noble and servant alike. Sandry refused to think well of the lady for keeping to a custom that many nobles considered to be old-fashioned. She suspected that Inoulia—a cousin of hers by marriage—did it not to make people feel that the lady shared their lives, but to remind everyone who was in charge.
At least Lady Inoulia didn’t occupy the highest place on the dais alone, as she had since the death of her husband. Tonight she shared it with her father-in-law, Duke Vedris. Sandry had to smile when she saw her great-uncle incline his shaved head gravely to hear a serving-boy’s remark. The duke would listen to anyone, at any time. From Inoulia’s frown, she didn’t appreciate the reminder. She was the kind of woman who stared into the distance while her servants reported to her.
Sandry wondered if the leaders of Tenth Caravan Idaram, seated at the next table down, might have thought Inoulia was the greater noble if they hadn’t already known the duke. The lady wore a cloth-of-gold overrobe and a brown silk undergown with gold embroideries, both of which complimented her dark brown skin perfectly. The gold band on her brown, frizzy hair tilted up a little like a tiara and sparkled with emeralds; black pearls hung in three strands around her neck, and rings drew attention to her long, elegant hands. The duke wore a maroon linen tunic, white silk shirt, and black linen breeches. His only signs of wealth were a gold hoop ring in one fleshy earlobe and a heavy gold signet ring on his hand. To Sandry, Duke Vedris wore command on his powerful shoulders like a cloak. He didn’t need gems and precious metals to declare his position.
Lady Inoulia finished a remark to the duke and turned her attention to Sandry. “I regret that pressing duties today made it impossible for me to spend time with you, my dear Sandrilene,” she commented. “How did you spend your afternoon?”
“I was assembling thread for weaving, cousin,” she replied. “I need it for my studies.”
Inoulia raised a brow. “Women of our order do not weave.”
“You agree, do you not,” said an elegant, soft voice over Inoulia’s shoulder, “that mages must study that which best enables them to master their power? Sandry’s magic is expressed through weaving.”
Sandry leaned forward, so she could beam at her uncle. Trust him to hear and come to her rescue!
“Then surely Lightsbridge University is a better place for her to live,” Inoulia said to Duke Vedris. “Their mages receive a proper education—like our own dear Yarrun Firetamer and his father, Ulmerin Valeward. I believe most noble houses will hire only university mages.”