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  Frostpine slung an arm around Daja’s shoulders. “Even if you never made another thing, the Traders will sing your name for generations,” he said cheerfully. “Of course, you’re going to make plenty more things.”

  “I am?” she asked, looking up into his laughing eyes.

  “Yes indeed—starting with nails.” He ignored Daja’s groan. “I believe you’ve made only a single bucketful the whole time we’ve been here, and I need a way to measure how much you’ve changed since our arrival. Nails will serve that need quite well.”

  “Can they wait?” asked the duke, soft-voiced. “If the snows fall in five days, I would like to go myself—tomorrow.”

  “Home,” said Lark with a happy sigh. “That sounds wonderful.”

  “I’ll make nails all winter, if I can just do them at home,” Daja told Frostpine.

  He sighed. “Oh, all right. We can make nails as well at Winding Circle as we can here.”

  “Better,” Tris muttered to Daja. “At least at home it’s warm.” Her breath steamed in the icy mountain air.

  Daja grinned. Not only would they be warmer, but they would be near the sea again. “Last one to the rooms gets to do all the packing!” she cried, and ran for the castle.

  TRADERTALK GLOSSARY

  Blue Traders —Traders who work from boats, either in fresh water or at sea

  daka —high-caste negotiator; brings profit to the caravan

  gilav —caravan leader, about the same rank as a mayor

  hamot —idiot, chump

  kaq —lowest kind of non-Trader, literally “dirt under foot”

  lugsha —craftsperson, artisan, one who provides goods that earn money

  mimander —a Trader mage, always robed and veiled in bright yellow

  pijule fakol —afterlife for those who don’t pay their debts

  qunsua(nen) —to cleanse—literally “to wash/ward off bad luck so it does not stick”

  saati —a non-Trader friend of the heart, as dear as family

  trangshi—outcast, unclean, cursed, nameless

  Tsaw’ha —Trader name for themselves, literally “the People”

  White Traders —land Traders, those who travel in sand or on snow

  wirok —low-status person who spends money on needed items like food, repairs

  xurdin —a non-Trader mage

  yerui —hungry ghost-devil that feeds and destroys

  zokin —balance in money on the Trader books, or a person’s stock of honor

  The Circle of Magic Books

  Circle of Magic quartet:

  Book One: Sandry’s Book

  Book Two: Tris’s Book

  Book Three: Daja’s Book

  Book Four: Briar’s Book

  The Circle Opens quartet:

  Book One: Magic Steps

  Book Two: Street Magic

  Book Three: Cold Fire

  Book Four: Shatterglass

  The Will of the Empress

  Melting Stones

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks are due to my husband, Tim, for the help, encouragement, and advice that saw me through a most worrisome first draft; to Rick Robinson once again for fast-turnaround proofreading and intelligent reader reaction; to my agent, Craig R. Tenney, the personification of grace under fire; and to my editor, Anne Dunn, who took time from her own hectic schedule to help me get this book out the gate and who gave me leeway when it came to handing in the first draft. As always, thanks go to Thomas Gansevoort, this series’s creative godfather.

  Copyright

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  Copyright © 1998 by Tamora Pierce

  Cover art by Jonathan Barkat

  Cover design by Steve Scott

  All rights reserved.Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First Scholastic trade paperback printing, March 2000

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-40592-8

 

 

  Tamora Pierce, Daja's Book

  (Series: Circle of Magic # 3)

 

 

 

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