Tris brushed dirt-flakes from her book. “What do you care? Polyam,” she added when the Trader glared at her.

Polyam lifted the end of her staff and held it close to the book. “A polite answer is noted by Oti Bookkeeper, and is entered in the account-book of your life. I have nothing to do until the smith comes but keep my face in front of yours, if you would rather be rude than tell me what I ask.”

Tris looked up at the Trader’s scars, and looked away.

“I’m not pretty,” said Polyam grimly. “A wirok doesn’t need looks. People are very happy to give me what I want cheap and send me away, rather than have me about. I ask again: If you know one who is trangshi, would you also know why?”

Tris gnawed her lip and decided she would rather that this woman with her torn face and missing leg go away. “The ship Daja’s family was on—Third Ship Kisubo, it was called—it sank. She was the only survivor. Now she lives at Winding Circle temple. You people kicked her out like the wreck was her fault.”

“You do not get rid of someone with smallpox because it is that one’s fault. You do it so no one else will get the disease. Bad luck is a disease. Only the carrier—a trangshi—survives it, to give it to others.”

“Nonsense,” retorted Tris.

“You are sure of many things, for one who is not very old.” Polyam sighed and muttered, to herself more than to Tris, “I may be wirok, but at least I am still Tsaw’ha.”

“What does wirok mean, anyway? And saw-hah?” Tris always wanted to learn the meanings of new Trader words. Unlike her friends, she couldn’t speak Tradertalk. “And what’s so wonderful about being that and not what Daja is?”

“Wirok bring no profit to the caravan,” was the reply. “A wirok spends the caravan’s money with blacksmiths, and food sellers, and other needful kaqs. Even our children scorn a wirok. And you call Tsaw’ha Traders.”

Tris lifted her pale brows, her gray eyes puzzled. “Being a wirok is still better than being trangshi?”

The Trader hesitated. Whatever reply she might have made was lost when Daja shrieked inside the forge. Tris!, came Daja’s frantic mind-call. In all the months Tris had known her, she had never heard Daja sound as terrified as she did now. TrisTrisTRIS!

The redhead jumped to her feet and raced into the building. The moment she saw Daja, she skidded to a halt.

Inside the smithy, Daja could hear Polyam clearly. Eavesdropping, not thinking of what she was up to, Daja had gone to draw a fresh nail-rod out of the fire. Instead of one length of iron, she had grasped the entire fistful of rods she’d set to heat.

Once in her grip, unnoticed by Daja, the rods had twined around each other, then split apart, forming three branches. One branch reached toward the fire, splitting again to form three twigs. Another branch wound itself around Daja’s arm.

Startled by the feel of iron on her skin—though she could handle red-hot metal without getting burned, the sensation was an odd one—Daja looked down. A third iron branch reached between the fingers on her free hand, then wrapped around her palm and over her wrist.

Daja tried to pull free and failed. She bent her power on the iron, silently ordering it back to its original shape. Instead the pieces that gripped her arms continued to grow. They each seized a shoulder, holding it fast. One spread down her back; another sprouted a tendril that gently twined around her neck. That was when she panicked and screamed.

When Tris reached her, she found Daja trapped by what looked like an ancient grapevine—trunk, limbs, and all—made of iron that still glowed orange with heat. It was sprouting metal leaves.

“It’s growing,” Polyam gasped. She had followed Tris back to the forge.

“I can see that!” growled Tris. “Now hush—I have to do some magic.” Frostpine! she cried silently, calling through her magical connection to her friends. They needed Daja’s teacher, and they needed him now. Briar, Sandry, get Frostpine, hurry!

“Tris, make it stop,” Daja begged. “I can’t—magic won’t touch it. My magic—”

Tris felt Briar’s and Sandry’s magics flower in her mind, as if they stood within her skull and saw through her eyes. She wished that Frostpine were part of their link. Things would be so much easier if she could speak to him as she did to her friends.

Briar, it’s got leaves, it’s yours, Sandry announced. Do something. Tris, open to him. To us.

“Daja, breathe deep,” ordered Tris. “Calm down. It’s harder to work if you’re—”

“How calm would you be?” the captive demanded.

Tris hesitated, then grabbed Daja’s hands. Briar and Sandry concentrated. Using their intertwined magics, following the ties that stretched between all four of them, they reached into Daja with Tris, pouring in to fill Daja’s skin.

I never made anything not grow before, Briar told his friends. And the metal confuses me. He spread through the girls, reaching into the limbs of the iron plant. All of them felt him twine around Daja’s power, blocking the tendrils as the metal reached for more growth. All of them felt him grip, gathering the spreading power into his fist, and twisting it around. When he released it, the magic was locked in place.

Tris and Daja opened their eyes. The iron vine had stopped growing.

It had also wrapped its tendrils around Tris’s hands. Tug as she might, she could not pull herself free of Daja.

2

An hour later, the smith-mage Frostpine inspected Tris and Daja, stroking his wild beard and trying to look serious. A dedicate of the Living Circle temples, he wore the red habit that meant his vows were given to the gods of fire. He was muscular, an inch or two over six feet tall, with skin a deeper brown than Daja’s, dark eyes, and full lips that liked to smile. Bald on top of his head, he grew his wiry black hair long on the sides, as if to make up for it. His heavy-lidded eyes glittered now with what looked suspiciously like amusement.