Title: The Circle Opens; (2) Street Magic

Author: Tamora Pierce

Rating: 5+

At the beginning of the story Briar and Rosethorn are in the city of Chammur. Chammur was just a stop on there way to Yanjing. Every city Briar and Rosethorn had passed could use the help of plant mages, as Briar and Rosethorn were, Chammur was the same. They got so many requests for help that Briar and Rosethorn knew they would have to stay a while. Six weeks after there arrival Briar finished supplying the Water Temple with fresh medicines and herbs, the supplies would last a year; and decided to go to Golden House. Golden House was a large market where a diverse assortment of goods were sold. While waking through the market Briar sees a street girl named Evvy using magic to polish stones. When Briar tries to talk to her she runs. On the way back to his house Briar is stopped by some gang members called Vipers, when they finally let him pass they sends another Viper to shadow (follow) him. Why would they do that? When Briar gets closer to his house he asks some Camelguts he had made friends with to get rid of his shadow. If he had looked up he would have seen someone else had followed him home. After Briar finally caches Evvy the Camelguts start turning up injured: some small, some large, a few fatal. Its up to Briar and Evvy to help the Camelguts. The Vipers and the Camelguts have a gang war, the Vipers win! After the gang war the Vipers ask the Camelguts to join them, the Camelguts finally agree. How sad. With the Camelguts now joining the Vipers it will be much harder to keep the Vipers from getting Evvy. Many more things happen to them, will they survive them all?

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