"Not yet," Kirel replied, filling the other basket. "They might be waiting for dark."
"How long have you been sensing this azigazi?" Frostpine asked.
"Since - I don't know," Daja said, genuinely scared. Pirate tales had given her nightmares since she was a ground-pounding baby, too little to sail in the family ships. "It was at least an hour before midday."
"I'll wager they don't know we've spotted them. Don't look so frightened," Frostpine said with a grin. "You've given us warning, that's all. And next time, pay more attention to your azigazis!"
Chapter Five
Once they'd eaten midday, Rosethorn gave Briar inside tasks, filling small bottles with different syrups and muslin bags with blends of dried herbs. While he got to work, Rosethorn showed Tris how to make a paste of the finely ground beef and hardboiled egg yolks Briar had carried up from the kitchens. Rolling the paste into tiny balls, Tris fed them to the nestling at the end of a thin bit of wood. The bird would get those, and a few drops of water, alternately with the milk-and-honey mixture. The dedicate also helped Tris set up a special burner, a metal box that held a candle, to heat small amounts of goat's milk and honey as they were needed. Once the rest period was over, Rosethorn decided that the nestling could be fed every half hour, instead of every fifteen minutes. Loading a basket with the bottles and bags that Briar had filled, she told him to prepare a bushel basket of willow bark strips for tea, and left.
Once she was gone, Tris went upstairs for some books she was supposed to be reading. Bundling her hair under a kerchief, and shedding her shoes and stockings, she returned to the workshop, prepared for a long afternoon. Rosethorn had set her up in front of a window that gave a good view of the Hub clock. Briar, tearing small pieces of bark to shreds, was close enough to be company without making Tris feel crowded. She felt relaxed for the first time in hours.
"She's not so bad, is she?" Briar asked when they'd been silent for a while. "I mean, she's not sweet, like Lark, but she has her good side."
"You must be the only person in all Winding Circle who would say that," remarked Tris drowsily. Taking off her spectacles, she leaned her hand on her chin, gazing out the window through half-lidded eyes. It was a relief not to have light flickering on the edges of her vision.
Did Niko see this way all the time? Didn't his eyes get tired? There was magic everywhere in Winding Circle, she'd found - in the South Gate where it pierced the twelve-foot-thick wall, in the stones of the spiral road through the temple community, in windows and doors. It blazed along the entire length of the Hub, and from the Water and Fire temples, as well as shining from the mages and their students she had passed. Most interesting, to her point of view, it gleamed throughout Discipline, and blazed in this workshop - she wondered what she might see in Lark's workroom. All this time, she hadn't thought Lark and Rosethorn were as powerful as Niko, an acknowledged great mage. She had assumed that their magics were smaller, because they were centred around such ordinary things.
Maybe she needed to think again.
Soft cheeps came from the nest. Glancing at the clock, the girl realized that it was time to feed her charge goat's milk and honey. Placing her spectacles on her nose, she took the cover from the nest.
"Ugly little peep," Briar remarked, watching over her shoulder as she dripped liquid into the gaping beak. "What're those spiky things?"
"Rosethorn says they're pin-feathers. Once he fledges - once he gets real feathers - he'll grow up pretty fast."
Turning to find a wet cloth to mop up spilled milk, she was struck by a blaze of silver light that flared out from a fat, leather-bound book. Tris flinched, covering her eyes.
Hands steadied her on the stool. "Careful - you almost fell off. What's got into you, anyway? You've been a-flinch and a-twitch since you got back."
Tris sighed. Finding the cloth, she wiped away her mess, and covered her charge. "Niko did this thing to my specs," she told him, and explained about her new ability to see magic. "It takes getting used to. I suppose I will, eventually. Niko doesn't twitch all the time."
"So - if you see this - light, is it?"
"Mostly it's like there's a silver veil over things, or they have silver marks. Then there are the ones that shine like lamps. Big ones. Like the Hub - and not just the seeing and hearing places. The whole tower, clock to kitchens."
"And all of that light's magic."
"That's what Niko told me."
Briar thought about this, tapping the counter-top with a reed.
"You'll wake my bird." Tris took the reed away.
"We heard what you heard last night," Briar remarked abruptly.
"Yes." She looked up at him, waiting. He scowled, not liking the direction his thoughts took him in.
"So maybe, because Her Highness spun us together, we pick up each other's magic. And we don't always have to be close together for it to spread."
"Maybe." Tris realized what he was getting at. "You're seeing the lights, too? And you think it's my magic crossing over?"
"I see glitter all over the house, and I saw a bit on my way back from the Hub," he explained. "Not strong like it is for you. But..." He hesitated, scratching his head.
"Will you make me wait all day?" demanded Tris. "I have reading to do."
He shrugged, and told her about the figure in the stairwell. "I figured it was just one of the students, trying out a new spell. I'd want to play with an invisibility spell, if I had one."