"Pierce, Tamora - The Circle Opens 01 - Magic Steps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

fiber. As the mound wriggled and shifted, she confessed, "I don't know how I'm
going to get him to like the idea of magic."
"Of course you do," Lark said, picking up a square of cloth in one hand and her
scissors in the other. "It sounds like your Pasco is dying to dance. Lure him in
by telling him he gets to learn new dances to use with his power. Of course,
he'll have to practice a great dealЧbut I'll wager he wants to practice dancing.
You just need to weave the two lessons into one, and I know you can do that.'"
Sandry looked up at her teacher and grinned. She had a feeling Lark was exactly
right. "Are you sure someone else can't teach him?" she asked, though she was
fairly certain of the answer.
Lark grinned back at her, "It seems to me that teaching will be a very good
discipline for you, too," she replied, mock-serious. "Mila knows it was good for
me."
"Was: it hard, teaching magic?" Sandry wanted to know.
Lark nodded. "But I was older than you, and much more set in my ways," she
pointed out. "And I was so new to my own magic, coming to it late as I did, that
I was convinced I was leaving out something important. I'll tell you what
Vetiver told me: don't forget that Winding Circle is nearby. If you get stuck,
ask questions." She gathered up her scraps and put them aside. "Personally," she
added, "I think Pasco is very lucky to have you for a teacher. I think you're
going to be very good at it."
"I only hope I'm as good as you one day," Sandry re marked softly. "You were so
patient with me."
Lark shook her head. "You give me too much credit. It was very easy to be
patient with you, and an absolute joy to teach you."
Sandry looked down, blushing with pleasure. Hearing that from Lark meant a great
deal to her. Lark was pleas ant, but she also didn't believe in compliments
unless they were earned.
When Sandry checked the heap of thread-bits, she saw they had woven themselves
into one strand. Now they arranged themselves in a polite coil, as if they
wanted to show Sandry they could behave. "Thank you," she told them. "You did
that very nicely, and I'm sorry I frightened you before."
She didn't notice Lark's smile. She was thinking, Thread minds meЧwhy can't
Pasco? That wasn't entirely fair, and she knew it. This thread came from sheep,
who were docile enough if you kept after them. Silk thread would have been
harder to control, since the caterpillars that spun silk worked only for
themselves.
Remembering her friend Briar at Pasco's age, Sandry wondered if he'd been as
deliberately ignorant as Pasco was this afternoon. Briar hadn't been. He could
be in furiating, and difficult, and independent, but he was also a realist. He
would never argue when someone had pointed out something obvious, like his
magic. That made her wonder, was it Briar who'd been unusual for his age, or the
boy she had met today?
"Pasco seems so young'' she complained. "But that's impossible. He's two years
older than any of us were at the start of our studies."
"But by then you in particular were no longer young," Lark told her quietly.
Sandry looked down. She knew what Lark meant. Two weeks locked in a cellar in a
country gone mad, with her parents and nursemaid dead and no hope of Sandry's
ever being found, had worked a change on her ten-year-old self. The weeks she
had spent afterward, staring at a ceiling and not wanting to leave her bed, had