"Get Lark," Rosethorn whispered to Briar.

But Lark was coming already. "I'll do more good over here," she grumbled to Rosethorn quietly. "Why is it no one wants to work with anyone else?"

"/ don't want to work with those idiots," said Rosethorn. One of the war-mages standing close enough to hear snorted.

They heard a snap. The catapult nearest to them hurled a small grey bundle high in the air. From one sleeve Lark brought out a square of cloth, its edges unsewn and fraying.

Her eyes on the cloth bundles as they soared over the ground, she tugged the edges of the bit of cloth, yanking out threads three and four at a time. The bundles came apart, releasing clouds of seed into the air.

Rosethorn made room for herself and Briar by a notch, so they could lean on the raised stone beside it. Briar was pressed against it, with Rosethorn close behind him.

He breathed in her funny scent: pine, dark soil, hints of basil and aloe. With her at his back, he felt almost as if he rested in the arms of Mila of the Grain herself, though he quickly a.s.sured the G.o.ddess there was no blasphemy meant.

"Are you ready?" enquired Rosethorn.

His eyes were on the seeds as they drifted to the ground. "I think so."

"The magic is a pattern of reaching into the ground and growing with the seeds from there. I'll pa.s.s it through you, so you can follow it, and me," she told him. "Just don't think you can do this with growing things all the time."

"They need to grow slow," he replied. "So they're strong clean through."

"That's right. I'm glad you understand. All right, breathe in..."

Closing his eyes, Briar drew breath in through his nose. The two of them sinking down through the cold, white-flashing inside of the wall-

What is all that light? Rosethorn demanded within his mind.

With a half-blink's time of thought, he explained about Tris's magicked spectacles, and the silver glitter of magic that the four children now saw. They broke through the wall, and the earth outside the wall, and the spells that held the ground under Winding Circle together. They were in soft dirt now, spreading themselves wide through the slope down to the water.

The seeds were on the surface. Rosethorn called to them, breaking into hundreds of magical threads, each seeking, then entering, a seed. In her magic was the power of stone-cracking vines, of pine seedlings that could grow over a farm in a handful of years, mixed with the demand for haste that only humans felt. Briar saw how she made her magic a root system; all that was left for the seeds to do was to stretch out branches and limbs, instead of fragile shoots. Once he knew what he saw, he reached with his magic, running it through the pattern she had placed inside him. Connecting to hundreds of seeds to her left, he fed them a rush of strength. Bushes and brambles leaped into growth, exploding from the ground, throwing out leaves and flowers as if a spring were compressed into minutes.

Rising above the ground for a look, he discovered his third of the barren slope was covered with the fresh, pale colour of new growth. Rosethorn had two-thirds of the open ground; her plants were dark green, the thistles already a foot high. Her vines and brambles scrambled to cover as much surface as they could, reminding Briar of a litter of puppies squabbling over a meat-covered bone.

Nearby he could hear a series of dull cracks. Something thudded, shaking his spine.

Fire erupted in his shoulder and on his back - not the back of the body still up on the wall, but on his magic's back. Briar yelled, looking around. Five more craters had been gouged out of the earth. They smoked and glowed like dying embers, filling the air with the stink of burning leaves.

He could feel Rosethorn trembling behind his true body. "Concentrate!" she snapped when she realized he was thinking of her.

Briar urged his plants forwards through the magical root-pattern. He coursed along their veins, filling them with anger. Bramble wove itself into thistle clumps and braided with rosevines. Sea holly mingled with sea buckthorn to form solid walls of stickers. Moving out into the plants' skins, he gave particular attention to each and every spine and thorn, urging them to grow, and to grow sharp.

To give them fuel, he fed them his hate for pirates on sh.o.r.e leave who thought it fun to kick a street boy, or break his arm as a warning to pickpockets. They would wrap and cling like the muck of the sewers that he'd once lived in. Emotion ran through his garden like sullen blood, a dose of misery, resentment and fury that they would be eager to pa.s.s on.

More cracks; overhead, boom-stones bounced off glowing circles in the air. The circles turned and shifted as the mages used them like shields to keep boom-stones off Winding Circle. Once a ball was knocked from its path, it either blew up - or fell.

Six roars shredded the air as four boom-stones exploded high overhead. Near the base of the wall two fountains of dirt and rock erupted, spraying everyone above.

Rosethorn and Briar screamed in pain and rage as their greenery was torn to oozing pieces.

"Look at the sh.o.r.e. Can you speed it up?" Skyfire asked,

his voice booming in their bodies' ears. Sending their power above-ground, Rosethorn and Briar looked at the water's edge. The longboats had reached the sh.o.r.e. Three- foot-high plants awaited them where Rosethorn had been working; Briar's were a little more than two feet tall. It wasn't enough to stop them, not for long.

"Deeper," Rosethorn growled. "I'm going deeper into the spell."

"I don't know how," Briar reminded her. "Show me."

"No. Keep working as you have. You aren't ready for this."

Somehow she moved him, until his pattern fed into the plants she had brought along already. Part of her remained there, while the rest wove itself into Briar's old area.

She flexed around him, then pulsed, expanding like a bursting sun. Where he had gone only as deep as each plant's skin, keeping most of his attention for their weapons, Rosethorn became each and every root and stem. She collapsed the growth of months, even years, into a breath. Everything grew.

It was a comfort to find that her thorns, needles and stickers weren't as long or sharp as his. She didn't hate enough, he decided. She had never been tossed through the air by pirates celebrating a big haul, or dropped because they were too drunk to see where she was thrown. Briar shared that with her plants as their leaves and stems lengthened.

Their spines stretched for him, looking for a pirate to sink into.

Something louder than the earlier boom-stones whooshed through the air, near enough that his real body flinched. There was a dull thud, and a sudden wash of heat. Briar threw up an arm to shield himself - to shield his plants - from the fire. Rosethorn screamed, and screamed again.

The raiders had landed. Setting up catapults, they had launched skins of battlefire into the green tangle before them. On landing, the skins had burst, spraying jelly every- where. The mages had only to touch the stuff with flame to make it burn. Sheets of fire sprouted between the raiders and the wall.

Nearby, someone was screaming. Further down the wall, a gout of battle-fire had splashed through the mages' protections. A warrior-dedicate stumbled burning through a notch and fell into the brambles. Other dedicates were beating out flames with their habits. Two novices dragged a charred body out of the way. It looked like the woman warrior from that morning.

Rosethorn sagged against Briar. He dragged her arms around him, taking her weight on his shoulders. She was groaning deep in her throat. Suddenly, he was terrified.

Sandry! Tris! Da- We're here. Power flooded in, making every hair on his body stand up. Clutching the thread circle, the girls were twined together like a spun cord, Sandry a gold-white strand, Daja red-orange, darker - weaker - than the other two for today, Tris a brilliant blue shot through with white. What do we do? they asked.

Rosethorn refused to let go of her magic and her ties to the plants. She clung to them, despite the pain from all the burning. Everything continued to grow frantically.

Like this, Briar told his friends. He slammed into his pattern, taking them along. They roared through its crossings and turnings, bringing it to life in the mind they now shared. Now they saw, as he did, how to build the magical fire until every green thing in the cove had to grow fast or explode. They fed the thorns and stickers with their anger and bitterness. Daja had her own memories of pirates, as did Sandry. Tris was furious at these parasites who burned and killed and made her new home unsafe. The four boiled through every root, branch, vein and needle, forcing them higher, longer, thicker, sharper - definitely much, much sharper.

They knocked Rosethorn out of the pattern without knowing it. Ablaze with anger and fear, they were deaf and blind to the hands that shook and tugged at them.

"Trisana, you aren't listening to me!" a cracked, sharp, familiar voice said in her mind. She smelled vinegar and mildew. "You beggar me with your extravagance! I'm just a poor widow, with barely enough to live on, and you eating me out of-"

Tris's hold on their joining faltered. "Cousin Uraelle?" she whispered. "You're dead."

'No more beef at this table, not at these prices! And a copper penny for turnips? You didn't bargain enough! You-"

The others felt Tris shrink and fade as that voice railed on and on. She was losing confidence. She was losing her grip on the pattern.

A fiery spindle appeared in the children's mind, whirling counter-clockwise, unravelling things. Their bond with the plants was coming unspun. Briar's grip on the magic relaxed. Sandry, recognizing Lark's work, dropped away. In Discipline, Frostpine held Daja's fingers, wrapped tightly around the lumpy thread, and gently pried them open, one at a time. Oh, all right, she thought, and let go of the magic herself.

Someone pinched Briar's earlobe hard. "Don't ever break loose from me like that again," Rosethorn said, her voice ragged. "You could have killed yourself and the girls."

"But they were hurting you," he protested.

Lark, shaking her head, tucked her spindle into her sleeve. "You should have warned him," she murmured.

"You're not helping," snapped Rosethorn. To Briar she said, "A little pain is bearable, to protect this place. And at least we've done that." She pointed to the ground outside the wall.

He could see nothing but stems, vines and very long thorns. In some places the growth was nearly six feet high - nowhere was it shorter than four feet. It reached up to - even a little way into - the water. Search though he did, he found no sign of the longboats, their catapults, or the pirates who had manned them.

"They escaped?" he asked, his knees starting to wobble. "They got away?"

Skyfire uttered a barking laugh. "Never had a chance. They're somewhere under all that. They're never coming out, if that's what worries you." Moonstream had joined them. To her Skyfire said, "Can we bring up the entire spell-net for the night? Not just the east and west segments?"

The Dedicate Superior shook her head. "Hardbottle village - half of their people haven't made it in. We told them we'd keep the North Gate open until dawn for the stragglers. As far as anyone knows, the pirates haven't got around the spell-net in the east. If we had a way to make them stay put once it gets dark, that would help."

Skyfire looked at the silent cl.u.s.ter of senior mages. Briar realized they must have drawn close to watch him and Rosethorn. "I want a fog around this place so thick I wouldn't know my mother if I stepped on her foot," Skyfire ordered. "Those villagers will have the road, and our guards, to guide them in, but anyone in open country had better not dare move, for fear of breaking their necks. And if some of you can't drum it up, maybe I'll just get all four of these young people up here, and see that they can do."

"Unnecessary." The voice - stiff, haughty, male -belonged to Dedicate Crane. He looked down his very long nose at Briar. "I submit that senior mages are superior in their control. Your charges need to work on theirs," he told Rosethorn, his rival.

Briar just grinned tiredly, and gave Crane a careless salute.

Half an hour later, Tris still had not forgiven Aymery for putting Uraelle so vividly in her mind. "I can't believe you did that to me," she said for the dozenth time, wrapping trembling hands around the cup of tea that Frostpine had made for them. The two men had been going through some books Aymery had brought up from the guesthouse when the girls received Briar's call. Somehow Frostpine had guessed what the children were up to, and insisted on trying to break the link. Aymery had made the first important dent in their union with Uraelle's voice - Tris knew that as well as her cousin did. "You couldn't have used someone else?"

"She was the best one I thought of," he replied with a shrug. "And Asaia Bird-Winged knows I heard her yattering on enough when I was small." Seeing Tris's puzzled look, he explained, "We lived with her for two years when I was your age."

She winced. "I'm sorry. You still didn't have to-"

Niko stalked in the door in a swirl of robes and steel-coloured hair. "What is the matter with you four?" he cried, black eyes flashing.

Daja, Sandry and Tris drew closer together. Frostpine, brewing a fresh pot of tea, looked at Niko with raised eyebrows. Aymery pretended to inspect the nestling's box.

"Have you no hold on yourselves?" Niko continued furiously. "Can't you tell when you're about to pa.s.s your own limits? You could be dead at this very-"

"They were hurting Briar and Rosethorn." Sandry forced herself to meet Niko's blazing eyes. "We thought they were killing Rosethorn."

"She is a senior mage who knows the difference between momentary discomfort and true danger, which none of you seem to understand! Have you not learned that you simply cannot throw yourselves into the great magics as if they were bathtubs?"

"We're just kids," snapped Tris, lips trembling as she fought tears. "We haven't had time to learn hardly anything!"

"We've learned some," Daja added quietly. "But not huge things."

"At least they did help," growled Briar. He had followed Niko from the gate, determined to get home under his own power. And he had managed it - just. When Sandry helped him to the table, he couldn't bring himself to object. Once seated, he glared at Niko. "They didn't stand there like a bag of bleaters, waiting for mamma's leave to romp."

"Those bleaters, as you so delightfully call them, are mages who know better than to enter a pattern-magic without the primary mage's permission." With a sigh, Niko sat on the bench next to Tris. "They wouldn't have been able to." Looking at each of the girls, he said wistfully, "You shouldn't have been able to."

"That was pattern-magic they interrupted?" Aymery wanted to know, eyes wide.

"These - children broke into-"

"If it's something 'children' can't do then we kids didn't do it." Briar glared at Aymery.

"Drink this." Frostpine pressed a mug into the boy's hands. "It'll make you feel more human."

Niko rested a hand on Tris's shoulder. She yanked away and turned her back to him, still fighting tears. She had been scolded so rarely at Discipline that it hurt twice as much as before, when it had happened so often.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper," Niko murmured. "You frightened me. I didn't know if you would be alive when I got here."

Tris shook her head, refusing to look at him.

"I think the bird wants supper," Frostpine said.

It was true - the nestling was screaming. "You're not supposed to yell or be loud around him," Tris said to no one in particular. "It upsets him." Picking up the nest, she carried it into Rosethorn's workshop.

"I'll help." Sandry collected milk and honey from the cold-box, and followed Tris.

Frostpine stared at the door to Rosethorn's bedroom, rubbing his bald spot. "Will she stay with Moonstream or at the Water temple tonight? I don't think she ought to sleep on a pallet in her shop - she'll be drained - but she won't let me sleep in there. I could go back to my forge."

"She's coming here," replied Niko. "Some of Skyfire's people are carrying her up.

Lark's with them. It's just taking them more time than it did me."

Briar slumped forward against the table, resting his head on his arms. "She hates being carried, even when she can't walk," he mumbled. "Sleep in my room, Frostpine.

She won't mind if I'm in her shop. Just let me neaten up." Getting to his feet, he stumbled into his room.

Frostpine raised his arms over his head with a groan. "I'll make Rosethorn's bed." He went into Rosethorn's room. Aymery started to brew more tea with the water Frostpine had set to boil.

Niko said nothing for a while. When he spoke, it was to Daja. "I thought you were depleted - exhausted - from this morning."

The black girl shrugged. "I had Rosethorn's green stuff to drink," she replied. "Same as Frostpine. It did a lot of good."

"But the basic dose of tonic can restore only so much. Where did you find the strength to help Briar so - dramatically?"

Daja shrugged again, looking at the table.

"I must know, for your own sake. Did you drink more tonic than you were supposed to?"

Daja shook her head. "It's the string we spun in the earthquake," she told Niko. "It made Sandry feel better this morning, and it made me feel stronger when she had me touch my lump."

"Your lump?" Aymery enquired, then winced. "Sorry, Master Niko. Must I go?"