Wren Journeymage by Sherwood Smith

you safe from pirates, why treat her bad?”
    “Didn’t kill her outright, did I?” the captain retorted, her face sullen, but her eyes afraid. A vein beat in her temple.
    Wren said, “Can you get a new sail by wishing it?”
    They stared, looking confused, until the first mate said, “Of course not. But you can.”
    “No,” Wren said. “Magic makes things same way as hands do. Gather the flax, work it, spin it. One thread, two threads, three. Weave it. It’s the same work. Just a different way.”
    They all showed various expressions of disbelief.
    “Magic is like . . . like food. You eat food, you can work. If you work and don’t eat, you get weak and can’t work. If you eat too much and don’t work, you get sick. Magic has . . .” She turned to Danal. “How do you say balance in Dock Talk?”
    He whispered it, his expression so unhappy, so betrayed, she felt her insides wring.
    “Balance,” she repeated the new word. “Use too much magic, and the entire world gets sick. Good mages don’t have silk. No palaces. No gold. They make bridges. They make spells to keep the streets clean.” She was going to add something about guild seals, but remembered her surprise down in the hold, and hastily said, “Water cleaning spells. Protections. Things making life for everyone better. Not just kings. Unless you are a bad sorcerer. Like Sveran Djur. And they aren’t as safe as they think. They make the world sick, and the Mage Council will come after them.”
    The captain and first mate stirred impatiently, and Wren realized they were getting over their fear. She knew if they acted, it would not be to her benefit.
    So she finished the second spell she’d prepared, a partial stone spell, just enough to keep them all in place. She made mysterious signs while whispering the last two words, and felt the heavy pull of magic within her that meant the spells held. But the cost was a return of that lightheaded buzzing.
    The captain and the mates stilled, their eyes looking wide and scared. The knife clattered to the deck.
    Wren knew the spell would not last long, so she had to be quick. She could rest later.
    Because the spell was only partial they were able to talk, though with difficulty. “Why. Do. That.” The captain spoke as though under water, slurry and slow.
    “Because I know what was coming next,” Wren said, picking up the knife. “From the threats you made to Danal, you were going to force Patka to do bad spells, weren’t you? You’d like to do that to me.”
    The captain’s eyes flickered and her mouth opened as if to deny, then shut. Once again Wren felt that inward prickle of alarm, just like the night they got boomed, and she remembered that whisper in the alleyway, “That’s the one.”
    Wren stared at the captain, sensing that there was some other plan here, but she decided not to waste time and effort trying to find it out. The captain would just lie. Better to get away, then any nasty plans wouldn’t matter.
    Meanwhile, Patka finally got the gag loose. “Not you,” she cried.
    Wren sighed. “It’s true. Come on. Outside.”
    Danal had picked himself up from the deck. He and Patka followed Wren outside into bleak morning light under a gray-streaked sky. Faces peered from the rim of the main hatchway, and once again Wren sent out her fake green fire. The faces dropped hastily away, and she ran forward and kicked the hatch cover over, then sat on it.
    Other than the lookout up on the mainmast and the young crew man at the wheel, everyone had gone below to nose out what was going on in the cabin. Only one sail had been set, just enough to keep the ship from wallowing. The mate of the watch had been one of the ones holding Danal.
    Wren looked at the boy at the helm, who stayed where he was, his mouth round with shock.
    “I have to leave,” Wren said to Danal and Patka, in their home language. “Otherwise she’ll be trying to make me do bad magic, or whatever else she’s got