Free Street Magic by Tamora Pierce

ones that would stay on if tightly laced. He did that briskly, then commanded, “Right foot.”
    Evvy dropped her newly shod foot and let Briar take the bare one. “Where are we going?” she asked as he dusted the worst of the street dirt away. “Why I have to be shopkeeper-neat when I’m no shopkeeper’s get? Why are you all prettied up?”
    Briar glanced at his own clothes. Knowing servants and nobles judged people by their looks, he’d worn a clean white cotton shirt, full-legged brown linen trousers tied with a golden brown sash, and a green silk overrobe with an embroidered design of colorful autumn leaves. The robe was his favorite of the things Sandry had made him. He’d even polished his boots. “Because the only other stone mage in the city lives in the amir’s palace,” he explained as he secured her right sandal. “They won’t let us through the gates if we look like we did yesterday.” They would have admitted him - he’d worn good clothes for the trip that had ended at the Market of the Lost - but he included himself to spare her feelings.
    Evvy had been enjoying the sight of this elegantly clad young man waiting on the likes of her almost as much as she did the food she was stuffing into her face. Now she jerked her foot out of his hold. “Palace?”
    Briar sighed. “The mage who is to teach you is Jebilu Stoneslicer. He lives in the amir’s palace. We’d never see him if we dressed like street people.”
    Had he been bitten by a foam-mouthed rat last night, to come up with such a scary idea? She folded her arms over her chest. This had to be stepped on fast. “No.”
    Briar frowned up at her. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
    “I won’t go there and you can’t make me.”
    Briar scowled. “You have to be taught,” he told her. “Even you know that now.”
    Evvy shook her head, her chin thrust forward stubbornly. She might not know much, but she knew this: palaces and the people in them were a cobra’s kiss for any thukdak. Yes, all right, she had to be schooled, but not by some palace takamer. “Why can’t you teach me?” she demanded. “You’re a pahan.”
    “Absolutely not!” snapped Briar. “I’m a plant mage, not a stone mage. You need to learn from a stone mage.”
    “Not one that lives in a palace,” she replied flatly. “I - “
    “Pahan Briar! Pahan!” Someone pounded on the door.
    Briar scowled at Evvy once more and went to see who had come. The visitor, a small, monkey-faced girl of fifteen years or so, wore the green sash of the Camelguts. This one, Douna, had assisted him late the night before. “What do you want, Douna?” asked Briar.
    “Pahan Briar, you have to come,” the older girl said, bracing her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. “They got five more with their blackjacks - we didn’t even find ‘em till this morning. They’re a mess.”
    “Can’t you get a real healer?” Briar demanded, feeling pulled in two by Evvy and the Camelguts. “I just make medicines!”
    The look in Douna’s small brown eyes made him ashamed that he’d asked. What could a poor gang offer a healer to make it worth the risk to visit them? Even if they had enough coin for one of the locals, what kind of healing could they get? Up until he reached Winding Circle, Briar himself would have found the idea of getting a healer for his gang’s wounds hilarious. Street kids, whether they were called rats or thukdaks, learned to fend for themselves.
    “Sit,” he ordered Douna, pushing her toward the table. He pulled off his overrobe and folded it neatly, putting it on the sideboard. “Have some tea and something to eat. I’ll need to get some things. Evvy, grab that basket and come with me.” They’d have to argue about her schooling later. Right now he would use the healer’s trick of putting every idle pair of hands to work.
    Evvy stuffed the rest of a large slice of cheese into her mouth and grabbed the basket he’d pointed to. He led her upstairs to