Tris's Book

"Only Sandry," Daja muttered in Tris's ear. The other girl covered a grin with her hand and nodded in agreement.

The female guard blinked at Sandry. "That kind of thing will work much better when you've got some height on you and a bit more nose." She returned the iron token.

Sandry covered her nose, which was little more than a button.

"Don't lean out over the wall," advised the man. "Don't get to playing in the notches, either." Both guards petted the dog and walked on.

"You know, if you want, I'll pull your nose every day, till you get a beak like your uncle's." Briar slipped his fingers under Sandry's, and tweaked the end of her nose. "It'd be my pleasure, really."

"Thanks ever so, Briar," the girl told him sourly.

"I wouldn't offer if I didn't mean it," he assured her, grey-green eyes wide and solemn. "Honest."

Tris climbed up into her notch again. Pushing her spectacles up, she eyed the array of sea and islands that stretched before them. Even with the moon just beginning to wax towards full, she could see details at a fair distance: the watchtower on Bit Island, for one, and the glassy smoothness of the Pebbled Sea. A flash of light over shadowy humps was the Maja Island lighthouse. To the east, a mile or two down the long arm of the Emel Peninsula, gleamed the beacon on Pirate's Point.

"Look at this, will you? A good steady wind and not a cloud in the sky." Tris loved storms - she took clear skies as a personal insult.

Sandry leaned on her notch. "Pirate weather," she remarked softly.

Daja made a face. "Dirty jishen."

"What does that one mean?" Tris demanded. "J-jishen. It's Tradertalk, isn't it?" She always wanted translations for new words in Daja's native language.

Daja shrugged. "I don't know - tick? Louse? Leech?"

"It's something that feeds on others and then kills them," added Sandry.

Tris looked out to sea. The wind shifted a hair, carrying the scent of trees to her sensitive nose as it passed directly over the islands.

It also carried voices.

"This thing's heavy."

"Quiet!"

Tris bit her lip. Not again!

"Did you hear something?" whispered Briar.

"Why'd they just pick me and you?" panted the corn-plainer. "This thing needs at least two more -"

"The less that knows, the better, y' lazy cod's-head! Now stow it!"

"It's two men," Daja muttered, looking around. She wasn't a nervous girl, but she knew the sound of shady dealings when she heard it. "No one's in sight..."

"Tris is hearing something on the wind," Sandry told them.

"And we hear it, too?" Briar scowled. "We never heard it before."

"Before the earthquake," pointed out Daja. "Before we combined our magics -"

"Hush!" snapped Tris. Closing her eyes, she fixed her mind on the speakers. Whatever they carried, it was heavy - both Whiner and Gruff Man were gasping. They were scared, too, for all that Gruff Man would deny it. She heard the fear in their whispers.

"Now what?" demanded Whiner. He sounded better - they must have put down their burden. "Do we knock?"

"I swear by Shurri Fire-Sword..."

The sound of clattering bolts and creaking hinges interrupted Gruff Man - the sounds of a heavy door being opened.

The other three children came to stand behind Tris. With her concentrating, the talk was ever louder in their ears. As she heard the conversation, so did they.

"You're late!" hissed a female voice. "Ye wan' us t' get caught?"

Daja wrinkled her nose scornfully. The woman was drunk.

"Git that thing in here, b'fore some'un comes! Watch changes in an hour, an' sometimes they're early!"

Gruff Man and Whiner grunted, as if they'd picked up their heavy burden. A breach later, the door closed.

Tris faced the others. "You heard?"

"Like they was standing right here," Briar replied. "And none of us could do that hearing trick before."

"We're one now," Sandry murmured.

"Not all the way one," protested Tris. "When you fell this morning, I didn't know. When Briar stole that muffin from the cold-box, my belly didn't fill up."

"The muff would've gone bad anyway," grumbled the boy.

"We haven't really done a lot of magic since the quake," Daja pointed out, tugging on Sandry's braid. "If we had, maybe we would have found out -"

"Found out what?" snapped Tris.

"That maybe we know what goes on with each other's magic. We can't do the same things maybe, but we know what happens in all our magics." Daja sighed. "Something complicated. Simple things don't happen to us any more."

"Maybe it will go away," Tris said.

"What about these bleaters we're hearing?" asked Briar. "Can we tell what they're up to, or where they are?"

Tris shook her head. "I just hear voices - I can't tell where they're from."

"Smugglers, maybe?" Daja suggested. "Most islands with guard posts have some kind of smuggling going on. Guards always think nobody pays them enough." She had spent years among those who lived and worked on the sea, and knew the practices of all kinds of people.

"It could be smugglers," replied Tris.