“Fine,” he said. He turned, wrapping Sandry’s ties to him around his waist. A knife had appeared in the grass by his feet. Had the garden appeared for Rosethorn in this same convenient way? the boy wondered. He scooped the knife up one-handed and began to gather the threads into a rope he could cut.
Rosethorn was always suspicious when he agreed with her. She turned. “What’s fine?”
“This. Here.” It was harder to gather the threads of his connection to Sandry than he’d expected. She fought, commanding the hair-fine strands to twitch from his grasp. Briar struggled with them—with her. With Daja, feeding the strength of stone to her, and Tris, adding lightning, and the shakkan its terrible, unmoving calm, an old tree’s patience. “I’ll stay here and help.” He cast a look at the overgrown park. The vine that covered that side of the garden had the nasty look of something that would throw out new shoots as the old ones were clipped off. “You’ll need it.”
“Absolutely not!” cried Rosethorn. “You are going home. The girls—”
“They’ll miss me, and I’m sorry for that, but they got their teachers, and Lark to make a home. They’ll manage. I can’t. I’m staying.” He began to saw at the fibers, cutting them handful by handful.
The girls argued furiously, refusing to accept his choice. Daja and Tris passed still more of their strength to Sandry. The shakkan did not argue. It could only wait.
“Stop fussing!” Briar ordered his friends. “You know why I’m doing this, so let me do it!”
A surge of fresh magic boiled down the tie that bound him to them as he fought to cut the last of it. It wrapped around him like a loop of rope and held him fast.
“Idiots,” Rosethorn said, pale and frightened now. “You’ll all die—”
Briar gave up trying to reason with them. He sat. The final loop of magic popped over his head as if he’d been oiled. Sandry shrieked in fury and hurled a fine thread around his wrist before they lost him. The thread strained.
“I stay,” Briar told Rosethorn. “With you.”
With a sigh, Rosethorn dropped the shears and basket, then knelt, folding her arms around him. “You will regret this for the rest of your life,” she whispered. “I’m going to see to it.”
He wrapped his hands firmly around her wrists, in case she changed her mind abruptly. “I know,” he said cheerfully. To the girls he said, “Reel us in.”
“Don’t you ever do that again!”
That was Lark, he thought sleepily. Only why was Lark upset? She was shouting.
He yawned and sat up. His right hand was cramping fiercely. He looked for the answer and saw that he still clutched Rosethorn’s hand.
“Rosethorn!” he cried, trying to get up. He was on the floor, and the bed was in his way. “Rosethorn!”
Somehow he got his legs under him and rose to his knees, all the while still gripping her fingers. If he let go, he would lose her. He was a little fuzzy just now, but he remembered that much perfectly.
Rosethorn opened her eyes and coughed. She continued to cough, trying to yank her hand free so she might cover her mouth. On the other side of her bed a woman in a gold-bordered blue habit helped Rosethorn to sit and gave her something to drink. Rosethorn gulped frantically, spraying water from the sides of her mouth. Her coughing eased; she lay back, gasping.
She was alive, then. He could let go.
That was easier thought than done. The cramps in his fingers made it necessary to pry them open, one at a time. When he finally let Rosethorn go, she drew her hand away.
Moonstream—the woman in the gold-bordered habit—regarded Briar, an odd look in her dark eyes. She reached across the bed, cupping his cheek in a hand that smelled faintly like cinnamon, and pursed her plum-colored lips. Magic flowed like cool mist through him, spreading to fill his corners. In the wake of that mist he felt calmer, more solid. More alive.
At last the Dedicate Superior of Winding Circle drew her hand away. Briar looked around. The girls sat between him and the door, looking as rumpled and shocked as he felt. Lark was on her knees beside Sandry, holding the girl tight.
“I am very upset with all of you!” she said, glaring at Briar. “You deliberately disobeyed me!” Her words notwithstanding, she kissed the top of Sandry’s head.
“Your eyes are all wet,” murmured Tris, reaching up to brush the damp from Lark’s cheeks. The distance between them was too great, and Tris seemed too weak to get up.
Niko stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. His eyes were huge with shock. When he smoothed his mustache, Briar could see he was trembling.
“We’re all right, Niko,” Sandry assured him. “We’re just a little tired.”
“Just a bit,” Daja mumbled. She dragged her knees up so she could rest her head on them.
Briar remembered something important. “Pneumonia,” he told Moonstream hurriedly. “She has pneumonia and she’s gonna die—”
“Calm down,” Moonstream told him. “I’ll see to it.” She laid one of her palms on the pulse in Rosethorn’s neck.
Silver glimmered and faded. Moonstream looked at Rosethorn, whose eyes met hers. “Well,” the Dedicate Superior remarked, taking her hand from Rosethorn’s throat. “You had pneumonia. Your lungs are perfectly clear now.”
“Maybe we burned it out?” Tris inquired, her voice rasping. “Things were—complicated.” She removed her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.