Shatterglass by Tamora Pierce
“Tris, look,” said Glaki impatient, bouncing in the older girl’s lap.
“I’m looking,” Tris replied. “Don’t do that, I might break.”
Glaki pointed to a dish on the table. It rose, shakily, three full inches, then settled again.
“Very good,” Tris said. She hesitated, then kissed Glaki on the cheek. “Your mother and aunt would have been proud.”
Keth had continued to work at Touchstone Glass while Tris slept, with Dema to keep him enclosed with protective magic. A week after Tris got out of bed, she rejoined Keth at the shop, along with Glaki, Little Bear, and Chime. They said hello to Antonou on their arrival, then retired to the workshop.
The slip into their old routine was as easy as Tris’s slip into sleep. The three of them meditated. Glaki settled into her corner to play with her dolls as Tris drew her protective circle around the shop. Watching Keth work, she thought that she would dispense with the barrier after today. He kept his power firmly in hand as he created the small, sparking globes that Antonou could sell.
Comfortable with Keth’s skills, Tris let herself out through her barrier, to practice scrying the winds. Her bit of success in pursuit of the Ghost had given her confidence. She could master this in time, and who knew? Unlike her other magics, she might be able to make a living with this.
She only had the strength for less than a half hour of work. Sweating, she lowered her barrier on the workshop and left it down. As she sat on a bench, watching Keth, she realized that his eye was on her.
“What are your plans?” she asked. “Niko says they’re going to move the conference to an island off the coast. I should go with him.” She smiled wickedly. “It seems our fellow mages don’t find Tharios, with all the garbage piling up, much fun as a place to write their text on visionary magics.”
“I’m going with you,” Keth says. “There are glassmakers on the island related to Antonou. They’ll take the work they can sell to him, and he’ll pay them for my supplies. Later …” He gouged at the floor with his foot.
“Later …?” Tris nudged.
Keth looked at her. “I want to study investigators’ magics. While you slept, Dema shielded me while I made two more globes with crimes in them. It’s not something I want to do constantly, understand, but if I can help, I’d like to.”
Tris nodded encouragement. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. I wouldn’t want you to give up your glassmaking, but even a little help from time to time would make a difference, it seems to me.”
Keth grinned at her. “I figured you’d approve. And Tris, I had another thought.” She raised her eyebrows. Keth said, “How would you like to learn how to work glass?”
Tris blinked. “You mean, learn to work it like an ordinary craftsman does.”
“Exactly.” Keth sat next to her. “You won’t get further than journeyman, probably. You don’t have the time to spend just on glass, for one thing. But you could learn to mold and pull glass. I’ve seen how you admire the work.”
Tris looked at the ground to hide her blush of pleasure. “I’d love to.”
Keth laughed. “Oh, I have you now!” he said, rubbing his hands together. “A little repayment for your hours of torture —” He went into the shop and took down two leather aprons.
“I did not torture you,” Tris retorted. She accepted one apron and tied it over her gown. “No more than you deserved, anyway. And I’m still your teacher, so mind your step.
“I am going to enjoy this,” Keth said. “Come here. We’ll start with the basic mix of materials you need to melt down.” As Glaki invented stories for her dolls, Keth proceeded to instruct his young teacher on the mysteries of glass.
They were cleaning up for the day, or rather, Keth and Glaki cleaned up while Tris sat on a bench and sweated, when Dema walked into the courtyard. Little Bear greeted him with earsplitting barks as Chime flew around his head. “You look terrible,” Dema informed Tris. “Are you even ready to be out of bed?”
“Nice to see you, too,” she mumbled.
“Slumming, or moving to a more respectable arurimat?” asked Keth, grinning at Dema.
“Neither.” When Keth and Tris stared at him, Dema coughed into his fist. “I’m, ah, staying at Elya Street,” he confessed. “I, well …” He looked at them and shrugged. “I like it down here. I asked the Keepers to promote one of my sisters instead.” When Keth and Tris continued to stare at him, Dema flushed under his brown skin. “They need me more down here than they do farther up the hill. And after catching the Ghost, the, yaskedasi are talking to me. I’ve been able to solve three old crimes since that night.” He sighed. “The Keepers rewarded me anyway. At least, they said it was a reward. I’m also assigned to the Hodenekes and Noskemiou arurimati. I guess they think if I like the lowlife, I ought to get a belly full of it.” He looked at Tris. “Which reminds me — who tipped the prathmuni off, do you suppose? Let them know to flee the city?”
Tris knew that sooner or later someone would think to ask. Though she was not generally in favor of lying, she saw no reason why anyone should know the truth. She looked Dema in the eye and said, “For all you know, there were prathmuni everywhere on that street. They’re not stupid, Dema.”
“No, they’re not,” he said grimly. “They’re negotiating a contract with Tharios right now from hiding. They won’t return until the Assembly grants certain concessions, like pay for their work, and better living conditions.”
Keth and Tris exchanged grins. “What a shame,” Keth remarked.
“I feel for you,” said Tris, innocent and earnest. “I feel for all Tharios.”
“Me too,” said Glaki, hugging Dema around the knees.
Dema lifted her up and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad someone around here feels sorry for me.” To Tris he said, “We can’t change overnight. Not Tharios.”
“But a little change won’t kill you,” replied Tris as Chime began to purr in her lap. “It might even help Tharios to stand another thousand years.”
The Circle of Magic Books
Circle of Magic quartet:
Book One: Sandry’s Book
Book Two: Tris’s Book
Book Three: Daja’s Book
Book Four: Briar’s Book
The Circle Opens quartet:
Book One: Magic Steps
Book Two: Street Magic
Book Three: Cold Fire
Book Four: Shatterglass
The Will of the Empress
Melting Stones
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I owe heartfelt thanks once again to my friend, Thomas Gansevoort, whose knowledge of crafts and the perils attached to them has saved my grits time after time throughout both The Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens quartets. I owe him a particularly large debt for his guidance with regard to the perils of glassmaking. I owe thanks at a researcher’s distance to William S. Ellis’s Glass: From the First Mirror to Fiber Optics, the Story of the Substance that Changed the World and to Christina Schulman, who showed me the book. The Circle Opens is also the result of years of reading about the acts and psychology of serial criminals in books by writers such as Jack Olsen and Anne Rule and in the groundbreaking study Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives by Robert K. Ressler, Ann W. Burgess, and John E. Douglas.
Closer to home, I owe tremendous debts of gratitude. First and foremost, I thank my editorial staff at Scholastic — editrix Anne Dunn, who inspired and signed up the quartet and who helped me to shape Magic Steps; editrix Kate Egan, who took over where Anne left off and has been a support, mainstay, and guide through the rest of the quartet; Elizabeth Szabla, who has stepped into the breach with able, gracious assistance and support when Anne and Kate were not there; and Jennifer Rees, line editrix and able hand-holder for wifty authors — and at Scholastic in England, to editrixes Holly Skeet and Kirsty Skidmore, whose intelligent commentary and suggestions did so much to influence the final shape of the quartet. My thanks also to my eagle-eyed agent Craig Tenney,
Last, but never least, I thank teachers, particularly those in grade school, middle school, high school, and college, who taught me what good teaching really is. Our teachers are never paid enough and never thanked enough, yet they create the future when they shape the people they instruct, guide, and encourage. No book I write would exist if it weren’t for a steady succession of teachers who gave me hope and the belief that I had something positive to offer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TAMORA PIERCE is a New York Times best-selling writer whose fantasy books include The Circle of Magic, The Song of the Lioness, The Immortals, and The Protector of the Small quartets as well as Magic Steps, Street Magic, and Cold Fire. She says of her beginnings as an author that “after discovering fantasy and science fiction in the seventh grade, I was hooked on writing. I tried to write the same kind of stories I read, except with teenaged girl heroes — not too many of those around in the 1960s.”
In her Circle of Magic quartet, Ms. Pierce introduced the unforgettable mages-in-training who are now four years older in The Circle Opens — Sandry, Briar, Daja, and Tris. She began the new quartet at the urging of her many readers, who encouraged her through letters and e-mails to explore the mages’ lives further. She chose their next turning point to be when they each acquire their first students in magecraft while still in their early teens.
Ms. Pierce lives in New York City with her husband, Tim Liebe, their cats (Scrap, Pee Wee, Gremlin, and Ferret), two parakeets (Timon and the Junior Birdman), and a “floating population of rescued wildlife.” Her Web address is www.tamora-pierce.com, and she is active on the discussion web so co-founded, www.SheroesCentral.com.
Copyright
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
All rights reserved.
Published by Scholastic Inc.
SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Copyright © 2003 by Tamora Pierce.
Cover art by Jonathan Barkat
Cover design by Steve Scott
Map Illustration copyright © 2003 by Ian Schoenherr
First Scholastic trade paperback printing, March 2004
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-40588-1
Tamora Pierce, Shatterglass
(Series: The Circle Opens # 4)