Shatterglass

suppose you never did anything of the kind,Keth accused.

replied Tris, straight-faced. if Niko tells you that one time I decided to halt the tides, and the rocky cove where I tried it is now called Gravel Beach, well, he exaggerates.

Tried to halt the, the tides.There was awe in Keths voice.

important word there is tried. I was very foolish, and lucky enough to survive the experiment,Tris informed him. you hungry at all?

Keth shook his head. a little. Trying to think of ways to pull the lightning out of the globes. Where were you? I went upstairs, but Ferouze is with Glaki.

m trying something of my own,Tris said. need to be in open air for it to work. Its not going as well as I had hoped,she confessed, and sighed.

have trouble? But you wear the medallion,Keth protested, sitting up on his elbows. thought, once you have that

Tris shook her head with a rueful smile, wishing that were so. spells make different kinds of trouble,she explained. can do every kind of magic, and the more complex a spell, the harder it is to work. She sighed, remembering. years ago there was an epidemic in Summersea,she told him. thirty of us, including my broth er Briar and two great mages, worked day after day, trying to make a cure using magic. Every time something went wrong, we knew more people were dying. And there wasnt a thing we could do except keep working, one hard step at a time.

She looked at him. She could see that he listened to her with every particle of his being. Finally now, to Keth she was not fourteen and unworthy; she was a mage, with a mages wisdom. They had come a long way since their first meeting. Every mage knows what it means to fail at something,she continued, to bungle it, or to do so much you just collapse. One of our great mages got the essence of the disease on her by sheer accident. She got sick and nearly died.

Thought magic made things simpler,Keth protested. a wave of a hand, and poof! You have answers. This slowness, this plodding, its

much like the everyday world?suggested Tris.

Keth nodded.

Tris leaned over to pat his arm. some ways, magic is the everyday world, complete with fumbles, sweat, tears. . . All the happy things. Go to sleep, Keth. Tomorrow your magic will be fresh. We ll try again.

heart flutters with joy,he grumbled. With a groan he turned on his side. d like to tuck this killer into the furnace, let him anneal for a while. It might burn off the impurities.

Like that,Tris said, imagining it. not to dream about it, though.She got up and blew out his candle, then went outside with Chime and Little Bear. Quietly they climbed back up to their room.

Tris halted outside the door, staring into the dark, or at least into a dark punctuated by the occasional spark of colour. Her head ached; her eyes burned. She would learn how to do this. She wouldn t allow herself to be driven mad by a flood of sparks. The trick would be to learn it in time to capture Yalis murderer. She was beginning to doubt that she would.

She woke the dozing Ferouze and sent her back to her rooms, her payment of five biks stripped of sparks. Glaki, sound asleep, lay half out of bed, her head nearly touching the floor, as limp-as her ragged doll. Tris gently lifted her back on to the bed and arranged Glakis old doll on her left side. On her right Tris placed a new doll she had bought earlier, a pretty thing with brown hair, a yellow veil and a cost ume much like Xantha s. Beside the doll she also set a brightly coloured ball so Glaki could play with Little Bear. They were just tokens, not that expensive, but Tris had owned few toys. She knew it could be lonely, sometimes, to have only one doll.

Tris washed her face and hands and settled in the chair to read. The nicker of the candle was too hard on her weary eyes. She blew it out. Making herself comfortable, she combed one of her thin braids until enough lightning had collected on the end to make it glow. With steady light to read by, Tris opened Winds Path.

At Touchstone the next morning, Tris and Keth were preparing to meditate when Tris looked at Glaki. The girl sat in her usual corner, out of the range of any molten glass accidents. She had arrang ed her dolls, Chime and Little Bear around her, but she was looking at Keth and Tris, loneliness in her eyes.

D find it boring, most likely,Tris warned.

Glaki shrugged.

Tris looked at Keth, who also shrugged. long as she doesnt make noise.

Before Tris could invite her, Glaki raced across the shop to plop herself on to the dirt floor between Tris and Keth. do things and count to seven,she told Tris.

The older girl said. in and count, hold it and count.

Keth vanished into his meditation, his magic back to its former strength and tucked into his imagined crucible, where it shone brightly in Tris s magical vision. Once she saw Glaki knew how to breathe, Tris began, deliberately using her power to reach for water without using her eyes as a change from her normal exercises. She found it. Water ran in the gutter outside as shopkeepers washed their doorsteps; it splashed in fountains on the Street of Glass, rushed in streams throughout the city, churned in the bed of the Kurchal River as it raced to the sea. Further off, in the marrow of her bones, Tris felt the pull of the sea and the draw of the tides. When they would have taken her far from shore, Tris shook herself free and returned. Glaki was asleep, her thumb in her mouth. Keth looked much improved.

They spent the morning quietly. Tris went to try wind-scrying again. Keth moulded glass bowls and pressed signs for health into their bases. When Glaki woke, she played with her dolls, Chime and Little Bear.

The citys clocks had just struck midday when Keth shouted,

The redheads still figure in the courtyard didnt move.

Keth frowned. bring Tris out of it?he asked.

Chime soared into the open air, the sun gliding from her wings as she flew. She lit on Triss shoulder and looked back at Keth. He nodded.