“Two bellyache teas, then,” Stev said, and Abi took her hand away from the three coins. Korlak snatched them up, put them somewhere inside his baggy robes, and came out from behind the counter. The boy gave Stev two faded green bags, and Korlak followed them out into the street, crow and all.

“If you don’t mind, can we take the long way around, by way of the wall?” Korlak asked nervously, once the door shut behind him, casting a glance at the less-than-welcoming streets they would have to cross.

Stev sighed. Abi cast him a mocking glance. “I’d prefer that myself,” she said. “I don’t mind walking more.”

They didn’t actually have to go the whole way around. It wasn’t even a quarter of the way when the state of the houses and shops told both Abi and Stev that they were in “respectable” neighborhoods, and it was safe to cut across the city from there. When they reached the breach in the wall, it was late afternoon, and the site for the footings had been dug out, and framed in with scrap timber. It looked to Abi as though the damp ground wasn’t going to cause a problem with the concrete curing as long as Master Vance got the right mix.

“Ah, there you are,” said Vance, when he spotted them. “The last batch of clay is in the kiln. It should be burned off by morning. We’ll be able to mix and pour the cement then, and if all goes well and it sets and cures properly, we can be out of this place the next day, and they can rebuild the wall as quickly as they please.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Stev asked.

“It will!” Vance snapped. Clearly his temper had been tried by day after day of monotonous, poverty-level food. Not that Abi blamed him. Especially not after the generous way in which they’d been treated back at Ellistown. The food wasn’t going to kill them, but it wasn’t what they were all used to. In fact . . . unless she was very much mistaken, he’d lost weight.

“We might not get a good cure because we are not using components that have come from people who do nothing but make cement,” Master Padrick said, soothingly. “It won’t take long to find the proper mix if that happens. And we made plenty of all the ingredients for several batches. And as a bonus, the couple of more intelligent fellows we have here are learning how to make cement. So we’ve brought something new to the city.”

“Not that they’ll be grateful,” Master Vance growled.

Abi did not fail to notice that Korlak was carefully keeping Stev and her between himself and Master Vance. “Can we just get on with this, please?” the Mage whispered, timidly.

“We have another Mage to look over the wall, Master,” she said.