Rosethorn’s voice drifted through on the breeze. “—said there hasn’t been a forest fire since—”
“It’s been thirty years,” Yarrun interrupted, sounding as clear as if he stood inside the tower. “My father and I labored for that. Grassfires are one thing. At least they are over quickly, and they renew the land. The forest fires were impossible—costly to the fa Juzons and all under their care. My father and I banned them.”
“Banned them,” Rosethorn repeated, her voice flat.
Uh-oh, Briar said through their magic. I think it’s about to get interesting.
Rosethorn lowered her voice. The wind picked at the immense house banners that hung over the castle gate, making them flap noisily.
Tris, mind-called Sandry fix it.
The redhead tugged a handful of air as it drifted through the crack; Briar shaped it into a tree-limb that kept the door partly open. Daja gripped one silver-glittering branch and drew it out like wire, shoving it behind her so the strand of air would continue to blow past the four of them and down the stairs. The flow strengthened as Tris pulled more of the outer air through the door. Daja crossed her fingers in the hope that Rosethorn—who was often wise to their tricks—wouldn’t notice the small breeze that blew steadily across her face and into the tower.
“Do you know why there are fires in woods and fields?” Rosethorn’s voice was clear again, although she fought to keep it to a whisper. “Did it occur to you they might provide a service?”
“Fire serves humankind, my dear young woman,” said Yarrun, his voice cold and clipped. “Beyond that, it is a symptom of chaos, disorder. Destruction.”
“Don’t patronize me. I am not ‘your dear’ anything.”
I love it when she talks mean, Briar told his companions. Their grins were all as wicked as his own. They knew Rosethorn’s prickles very well and respected them. It was always a treat to see some unfortunate draw her wrath.
“Do not take that tone with me. If you have nothing constructive to say—”
“Deduce something for me, university mage—”
“You Living Circle types are all alike. There is no order anywhere; there is only instinct, and currents, and movement without meaning or structure. Yours is simply a way to avoid study and research—”
“You said it yourself: grassfires renew the land. Everything grows back even better than before the fire, isn’t that so? Did it never once occur to you or your father that woodlands need fire in the same way?”
“I did not spend the day in the saddle to be lectured by a chanting religious!”
“This valley is a deathtrap.” Rosethorn’s voice was tight with rage. She took a deep breath. “Fires—small, fast ones—scour the ground of mast.”
Mast? Daja asked the others silently.
Junk, replied Briar. Dead wood, saplings, dead leaves, and nuts.
Rosethorn was still talking. “Normally an inch or two of that trash burns off fast. The bark on mature trees is thick enough that they survive with only a mild scorching. But now? With no fires for thirty years? The mast is at least a foot thick in most places. Normally it would be wet, damp enough to discourage fire, but you’ve had three years of drought. It’s dry as tinder, your saplings are tall enough that fire in their crowns can now leap to the unprotected crowns of the big trees, and everyone here believes you can stop such a fire.”
“I can.”
“And if you can’t?”
“I have yet to fail, Dedicate Rosethorn. I am very good at my work.”
“You have been good at crushing spot fires and warding off lightning strokes. Now you are breeding a firestorm. That won’t be so easy to halt.”
“And I say you underestimate my power at this!”
“Talk to one of my students about fiddling with nature when it gets in motion. She’s still alive to talk about it, but it was a near thing.”
“A child—”
A hard thumb and forefinger gripped one of Tris’s ears. Niko had come up on them from behind, and he did not look pleased. “That’s enough,” he whispered. “I want that door closed, and then I want all four of you to come with me.”
Tris released the branch of air. Briar called the wood of the door to the wood of the frame, until they came together and the latch caught. Without giving up his grip on Tris’s ear, Niko led the four out of the tower and back to their rooms. When they came in, Little Bear jumped up barking.
Niko deposited Tris in a chair. “Sit,” he told the three remaining young people.
There was a couch next to Tris that could hold all three of them. Settling on it, they meekly folded their hands on their laps. Niko scowled at Little Bear, who fled into one of the bedchambers.
The man paced, hands in his pockets, heavy brows knit in the blackest frown they had ever seen on his face. His mouth was drawn down tight, the lines around it pulled deep.
“The fault is mine,” he said at last. “I never had students so young before. It simply did not occur to me that you would not understand the manners or the common sense that goes with magecraft.” He stopped to glare at the four.
“I confess, had I not been so interested in the way your powers combine, I would have called you to book before this,” he continued. “Certainly I knew there were other occasions when you eavesdropped on conversations not meant for your ears.”
Tris stared at her blue cotton-covered lap.