“You have to be better than Jooba-hooba,” she said.
“Not like that’s saying much,” he retorted. “That —”
“Hey — tree people!” someone said sharply, interrupting.
Briar and Evvy looked up. Two of the three Gate Lords who had passed by earlier had returned. Their morning’s good mood had vanished: they looked hot and cross as they walked up to the booth.
The female, a black girl of Briar’s age, pointed to Evvy. “What did they do with him?” she demanded sharply. “Your two friends? We saw him talking with them, and that’s the last we saw of him.”
“They’re just people I know,” Evvy protested. “And who’s ‘him'?”
“Our tesku, brat,” said the male Gate Lord, a brown-skinned youth of seventeen. He reached over the counter and grabbed Evvy’s shirt-front, dragging her toward him. “And if you’re friends with Vipers, you’re a Viper —” He looked to the side, to the dagger Briar had gently laid against his face.
“She isn’t a Viper and you just annoyed me,” Briar told him softly. “If you don’t want a third nostril, let her go.”
“She runs with Vipers,” objected the girl. “Or gutter slime that let go their true gang to join Vipers.”
Briar saw the girl was moving to the side, ready to grab Evvy’s arm when her mate let Evvy go. Briar woke the willow and the fig trees, releasing years’ worth of growth into their branches. As soon as the Gate Lord girl was within reach of the miniature, he turned them loose.
Wire-thin branches twined around her arm and neck as Briar called on the essence of the full-sized tree at the heart of each miniature. Though the girl’s bonds were flexible, slender branches, she felt as if she were locked in the limbs of a full-grown willow and a full-grown fig. “Pahan,” whispered the girl, her dusky skin gone ashy with fright.
“Now back off,” Briar told the male Gate Lord. “I get any more vexed and I can’t promise what I will and won’t do.”
The youth released Evvy, held up his hands to show they were empty, and waited for Briar to lower his knife. When Briar did, the Gate Lord took three slow steps back. “If she ain’t a Viper, does she know what those two done with our tesku?” he asked. “He was talking to them, and no one’s seen him since.”
Evvy shook her head. She smoothed her blouse with a shaking hand. “They just wanted to say hello to Pahan Briar,” she mumbled.
“Let my friend go,” the youth told Briar. “We’ll be about our business then.”
Sweat came to Briar’s forehead. It was much harder to get miniature trees to reabsorb all that wonderful new growth and return to being small again. Even though he drew away the strength of their sprouting, letting its power spill into the air, he would have to do serious pruning to return them to their original state. The fig, sensing his plan, instantly started to complain.
When the trees let her go, the female Gate Lord scurried off with her friend. Both of them looked back over their shoulders at Briar to make sure he didn’t follow.
“Are you happy?” Evvy demanded, her lips trembling. “This is what happens with gangs. You don’t have to belong to one — just be in the way when they get a notion into their heads. And if you do belong, it’s worse.”
He would have told her she was wrong, but he knew she wasn’t. He remembered the times he and his mates would charge through a market, overturning baskets, scaring donkeys, and pulling down awnings. They would single out a man or woman walking down the street and flock around that person, cutting him or her off from other passersby, tugging on clothes, pinching or patting, giggling as their prey grew more and more frightened. As part of the gang, he’d thought it funny. It didn’t seem amusing just now.
“You don’t understand,” he replied at last. “Your gang’s who you have when you don’t have anyone else.”
“For you, maybe. For me, it’s one more pack of wild dogs looking to tear me apart.” Evvy brushed away something that looked uncomfortably like a tear and smoothed her blouse again.
Rather than defend it, knowing he couldn’t, Briar went for food, leaving Evvy in the stall with the trees. They would keep her safe if anyone else bothered her. Making his purchases, Briar kept his eyes and ears open. The Gate Lords were everywhere, making guards edgy as they searched behind curtains and stalls. The Vipers appeared to have left the souk — Briar didn’t see any of them.
He and Evvy ate their midday in silence. She stayed close for the remainder of the afternoon, while Briar worked on trees and talked to people. A second noble and a wealthy mage both expressed interest in trees, and told Briar they would send word if they chose to buy. He thought the mage would follow through, though he wasn’t sure about the noble.
Finally it was time to go. Evvy retrieved the donkeys he’d rented from the market stables and helped him to load his trees in their special carry-baskets. After making sure they’d left the stall as clean as it had been when Briar arrived that morning, they led the donkeys outside. The sun was already below the western wall, though higher buildings still got plenty of light.
They hadn’t gone far from the souk when a woman in the full-length veil-cocoon worn by the strictest Mohunites walked up to them. ”Pahan Briar, may I walk with you? Just ‘til we’re out of Gate Lord territory?”
He glared at her. “I don’t even know you,” he snapped. He was tired, headachy, and not at all ready for his talk with Rosethorn.