CHAPTER
11
Toshi and Ivan were in their wordless flow, silently agreeing that the latest virus they had concocted to wipe out the Hive had to be scrapped because it would most likely kill everyone in the city along with the Hive, when Grace walked into the lab.
She looked at the petri dish, took its contents apart with a glance, and then looked up at Toshi and Ivan with eyebrows raised.
“I hope that’s not going around,” she said, alarmed.
“It’s just a sample. There’s no host,” Ivan replied with a small shake of his head.
“Good.” Grace smiled and looked between the two of them like they were her dear friends. “You two have been busy lately, although I can’t quite tell with what.”
Toshi didn’t react. He’d gotten good at burying his feelings over the past week and a half. If he felt anxious that Grace was actually here in the lab to see what they’d been up to, he quickly snuffed it. Whether she was physically in the room or not, it made no difference. She was always watching, which was why Toshi and Ivan hadn’t even attempted to become stone kin. It was a good thing they knew each other well enough not to need mindspeak in order to read each other’s minds. Toshi glanced at Ivan, who was even better at appearing calm. But then again, he’d had almost two hundred years of experience hiding his emotions from Grace and the Hive.
“We’ve been updating the inoculation roster. Would you like us to walk you through the new diseases we’ve identified?” Ivan asked, with an ever so slightly belabored breath to indicate how tedious that would be for all of them.
“The flu is doing something interesting,” Toshi added with a listless shrug.
Grace declined their unappealing offer by wrinkling her nose. She started wandering around the lab, peering into jars and touching instruments. “It’s been a while since you’ve been down here,” she said to Toshi. When she turned to face him, she gave him a glassy-eyed smile. “I wonder what prompted you to become so hands-on again?”
Toshi knew there was no point trying to act too innocent. She knew something was going on, but had decided that finding out what they were doing was more important than stopping them. For now, anyway.
“Just looking for meaning in my life now that I’ve discovered everything I’ve ever thought to be true was built on a giant lie,” he rattled off as if it were of no consequence. She laughed aloud at his audacity. “What are you doing down here?” he asked in return.
“Alright. No more dancing around it, then.” She stopped her wandering and faced them. “I want to know if your renewed interest in the lab has anything to do with how Lily and her coven disappeared into thin air.”
“You’re really obsessed with that, aren’t you?” Toshi asked, not having to fake his surprise.
Grace’s eyes flashed with anger. “My scouts can’t find her. There’s no trail, no scent markers. Nothing. I’ve sent half the Hive clear into Pack territory, and there’s no sign of her.”
“I don’t see what you expect us to do about that,” Ivan said irritably. “We deal in real materials in the lab, not hocus-pocus. Toshi and I can’t help you if she’s been”—Ivan waved his hands about, searching for the appropriately derisive expression—“spirited away.” “Spirited away.” Grace laughed at the foolishness of that under her breath, and then caught herself. “Spirit walking.” Her smirk dissolved and her eyes moved about restlessly. “Maybe she wasn’t lying about the shaman.”
Toshi hadn’t entirely understood what Lily was talking about when she was pleading for her sister’s life in the redwood grove, but he did know that she had been about to tell Grace how she could be in two places at once. She’d talked about spirit walking and a shaman, and Grace had dismissed it out of hand. It seemed she was changing her mind about that now. Dread roiled in his stomach. The last thing Grace needed was more power.
Grace started heading for the door, already forgetting about Toshi and Ivan now that she had new quarry.
“Where are you going?” Toshi asked. “Grace!” he called out as the door shut behind her.
Lily’s spirit flew up and out of her tortured flesh. Down below, she saw herself writhing in flames. Out and beyond, she saw that the overworld had taken on the shapes of vast swaths of forest and rolling hills.
Lillian was out there somewhere, waiting for her. That wasn’t Lily’s first stop. She had to find Alaric and her braves. She turned away from Lillian’s faint call.
Lily scanned the virgin tracts of land for a beacon. As her body burned she felt it tugging on her spirit, like a child pulling on a balloon. But she was calm here. Patient. She couldn’t jump without some kind of tie to the land she was going to jump to. She needed the vibration of the land in order to unlock the key to that particular place in the same way she needed the vibration of someone’s mind inside their willstone in order to claim them.
She thought she’d managed it with Pale One. But Pale One was so close to the earth, so in tune with where she was that unlocking the vibration had been easy. Finding a human with that kind of awareness of the land he or she was standing on was going to be a bit harder. Until she found a suitable host to gather the vibration for the unknown place she had to jump to, all she could do was soar through the gray overworld.
Her body tugged with increasing urgency. Time was short. She looked one way and saw the silvery fog of the Mist right on the edge of the overworld. She looked the other way and saw a golden haze. She chose to let her spirit fly there. As she got closer, she understood what it was—the minds of her claimed still under Alaric’s rule.
Lily hoped that what she was about to do either went unnoticed or, at the very least, didn’t cause her host to feel violated. She scanned her Outlander claimed and found a girl gathering water from a stream. Her hands were in the stream and momentarily a part of it, but Lily pulled back, knowing that it wouldn’t work. Rivers flow over the land. They are wanderers, and not tied to any place.
Lily left the girl and went back to scanning the huge host. They were all moving about too quickly. None of them were tied to the place they occupied, but rather focused on where they would be tomorrow or the day after.
She found one of her claimed sitting on a rock. His mind was exactly where his body was in space, but the rock was too full of quartz for Lily to get a vibration from the land under it. Time was running out. Frantic now, she pulled up and out and saw what she was looking for. One of her claimed was digging in the ground, waist deep in the earth. He could feel it all around him—the smell of it, the texture, the thisness of that particular spot. His whole being was tuned into that particular patch of the planet because this was the place he was going to bury his best friend. She thought of calling to him by name, but stopped. She didn’t want to let him know she was there.
As she let her spirit dive into his, Lily tried to comfort him wordlessly. She was with him. The horizon pitched, there was a dizzying swirl of perception, and then it was her blistered hands on the shovel, and her heart that was aching with irreplaceable loss. She invaded his willstone with a small apology, and used it to sound out the vibration of this place. When she had the particular pattern locked, she dove out of him like a bungee jumper reaching the end of her tether and plunging upward.
As her spirit sped away from the ground and back up into the gray of the overworld, she saw him pause and clutch his chest. He glanced at the wrapped body of his dead friend and then up into the clouds above.
Lily spooled back into her body, still locked in the jaws of the fire. In agony, she let out a piercing scream that echoed around the bailey. Rowan pivoted and came charging toward the pyre, an ax already in his hands. Before he could reach her, a thunderclap tore through the sky, and with the roaring sound of air suddenly being emptied of over ten thousand bodies, Lily jumped them all hundreds of miles.
They appeared around the man burying his friend. He was still clutching his chest and staring at the sky. One moment he was alone, and the next he was surrounded by a multitude. Ten thousand men and women stood facing him in an ever-expanding circle, their staring faces manifesting out of nothing among the trees.
Lily appeared right next to him inside the half-dug grave. She made a whimpering sound and the shackles on her wrists clanked as she fell forward. He caught her burnt body in his arms.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Relieved it was over, she placed her head on the man’s shoulder and took a few deep breaths. She could feel Rowan’s tattoo cooling her burns from the inside, and every breath she took loosened the pain a little more.
Rowan ran to the edge of the grave and knelt down. “Give her to me,” he demanded, reaching with his hands to take her.
The man held Lily to his chest, his arms reluctant with shock. The man was an Outlander, so Rowan repeated his order in Cherokee. The man started nodding, but still had to be coaxed into giving Lily over. When he did, she heard him saying one phrase over and over.
“What’s he saying?” she asked as Rowan carried her away from the grave.
“He said he felt you before he saw you,” he replied. He lowered his voice and put some distance between them and the rest of her mechanics. “He said that you were with him, and then he pointed at his chest.” Rowan’s tone was tight. “What does that mean?”
“You know what that means.”
“You possessed him.”
The word hung between them while Lily tried to decide if Rowan was censuring her or not. She refused to get defensive. “I took nothing from him. I even tried to comfort him a little, which is why I think he sensed me,” she said plainly. “There was no other way to jump us.”
He sighed and nodded. “Let’s just hope the rest of them don’t find out,” he said, and focused on her injuries. “These don’t look too bad.”
She gritted her teeth to keep the pain at bay as he peeked through one of the burn holes on her dress. “I want to speak with Alaric as soon as I can,” she said.
“I’ll see to it,” he replied.
Carrick had been riding hard for three days. The mount Lillian had given him was a tame Woven—part horse, part something with scales. It was called a runner. Carrick had no idea what the non-horse part was, and he hadn’t asked.
The runner’s dagger teeth and the reptilian feel of its black hide had made him a little hesitant at first, but it rode like a regular horse and he’d gotten the hang of it soon enough. The thing hadn’t needed food or water until that morning. Carrick had fed it a raccoon, which it swallowed whole, and then they’d been on their way. Efficient.
Carrick had left Lillian’s army on her orders and backtracked to find Alaric’s. As his silent mount picked over the trail, Carrick noticed how differently a city army traveled from an Outlander tribe. Lillian’s tightly packed army had trampled everything in their path, leaving a swath of dead bodies and spoiled land in their wake. The Outlander army fanned out, traveled lighter, and killed less and died less along the way. Carrick had to really look to find them as they slipped from hollow to vale, riding spread out by day and sleeping in their camouflage tents by night. But he was an Outlander like them. He knew how to look.
Yet as observant as Carrick was, the thing he was looking for had eluded him so far. Now that Lily was back in this world and had pledged to join Lillian, Carrick had been given his old orders again. Find the last bomb and dismantle it.
There used to be two. Now there was only one. Carrick had asked about the other, but Lillian hadn’t answered him.
He’d been annoyed that one of her other legmen had taken care of it, mostly because he guessed it had to be one of those pompous Walltop soldiers. Carrick was used to being looked at with distaste, whether it was for his stringy hair, his unnerving stare, or the blood under his fingernails that never seemed to entirely wash away before he found himself wrist deep in it again. But even the most squeamish sidestepping that was done to avoid crossing his path was done with a certain level of respect.
Walltop soldiers were different. They regarded all Outlanders (except maybe his half brother, the legendary Lord Fall) with a disdain that lacked the fear that Carrick was accustomed to. Unfortunately Carrick could do nothing to teach them otherwise. His Lady Witch simply wouldn’t have it. She was overly fond of Walltop for reasons she would not disclose to him.
Carrick rode into a copse of trees and saw some signs of Alaric’s tribe—nicked bark on the side of a hickory tree and two ruts through the maidenhair ferns where one of the heavier armored carts had passed. This particular cart had caught Carrick’s attention because its drovers seemed to mostly travel at night. Carrick had a hunch it was the armored cart he was looking for, but he hadn’t gotten a look at it yet.
He rode fast across the open ground and slowed when he reached the cover of a forest. He dismounted and started scanning the ground. His mount hissed softly. Carrick looked up in time to stop the first blow, but he was overpowered and knocked out before he could make contact with Lillian.
Lily floated in a wooden tub of cold spring water. Rowan had sprinkled some kind of herb in it that smelled like thyme and lemon and a few drops of something that tingled.
Her new tattoos were chilly under her skin. The blisters from the pyre had shrunk, and as Lily watched, the red welts on her wrists from the shackles were disappearing. She felt tired, but it was the pleasant feeling of drained muscles, not the pounding head and nausea that usually dogged her after going to the pyre. She tipped her head back in the tub and just let herself float.
She could hear Rowan’s voice outside the tent. He was explaining the situation in Cherokee to a handful of baffled Outlanders who couldn’t understand how over ten thousand tenderfooted city folk had managed to appear in the woods without making a sound. Outlanders are not used to being taken unawares. She smiled to herself as she listened to his overly patient tone. He hated repeating himself. She heard Caleb take over when Rowan had finished and then she heard the crowd outside her tent disperse. Her mechanics would stay close to her through the night to guard her, although Lily knew they didn’t really need to. Almost all of these braves were her claimed, and she’d already explained her strange return to them in mindspeak, even though most of them had no concept of teleportation.
Rowan ducked into the tent with a clenched jaw. Lily laughed.
“It’s not funny,” he said, repressing a smile. “The Elders are angry you brought so many tunnel folk and ranch hands.”
“They’re collectively calling themselves ‘below folk,’ by the way, and I don’t blame the Elders for not liking them,” she said. “But at least the braves are happy I’m here.” She rolled over in her cool bath, hearing laughter and the beginning of a song a few campfires away.
“Are you kidding? They’re ecstatic you’re here. They feel like they can actually survive this war now,” Rowan said, kneeling down next to the tub. “You’re not the problem, the below folk are. They hate the Outlanders for what Chenoa did to them, and there’ve already been a few serious fights. The Elders are worried the fighting is going to turn to killing soon.”
Lily frowned, remembering. Chenoa had used the women living in the subway tunnels to smuggle the radioactive materials from her lab at Lillian’s college to the Outlands, but she never explained to the women how dangerous those materials were, probably to keep their contents secret. Lily had seen the result.
“They have every right to be angry,” she said quietly.
“Of course they do,” Rowan replied. “That only makes it worse.” He picked up a bowl and started pouring water over Lily’s back. “The ranch hands are a rough bunch, and most of them have family ties to the women who died transporting Chenoa’s dust.”
Lily knew exactly what kind of men the ranch hands were. Some of them would have been good people if their lives hadn’t been so hard, but all of them had done something to earn a place on the ranches. These weren’t just petty thieves. Lily didn’t trust them.
“I won’t let them hurt anyone else,” she promised.
“How are you going to stop them?” Rowan asked delicately, unwilling to bring up the touchy subject of possession again.
“I’ll tell them right now that if there’s any more violence tonight, I’ll be their judge and jury in the morning. They can’t lie to me, and my punishment will make whatever the crime was pale in comparison,” she said. She trained her inner eye on the minds of the ranch hands and sent them her warning. “There. It’s done.”
The sound of the water trickling over her skin seemed to fill up the tent as she watched him. He kept his eyes on his task as the tension built.
“I thought you hated me for siding with Lillian,” Lily whispered, breaking the hum of attraction between them. She thought about the moment he tore her willstones from her neck. They were in such close contact that Rowan saw it, too.
“I never hated you,” he said, shaking his head. “As soon as I learned about the bombs and what they could do, I understood why Lillian started hunting scientists.” He pulled his lower lip through his teeth and continued haltingly. “She worldjumped to a place where the bombs had been used, didn’t she? That’s where she was for those three weeks she disappeared.”
“The shaman called them cinder worlds. There are a lot of them clustered around this world in the worldfoam. Similar universes are closer to one another, which mean most of the worlds like yours—where there are witches and Outlanders and Woven—have already been destroyed by someone who made the wrong decision.”
Rowan considered that, his forehead knitted. “So my world is on borrowed time?”
“As long as Chenoa’s bombs are out there? Yes.”
“When I saw the tunnel women, I knew Lillian had the same thing they had.” A look of pain crossed his face. “Will you tell me why she wouldn’t let me touch her, not even to help her?”
“I can’t.”
“It’s about my father, isn’t it? She didn’t want me to touch her because she was scared she couldn’t keep what she’d seen there from me if she did,” he said. Lily pressed her lips together and pushed away from the edge of the tub. Rowan stopped her from floating away. “Look, I’ve put it all together. Lillian went to a cinder world and something happened to her there, something that had to do with my father because he was the first person she hanged when she got back. Just tell me what it was. What did he do?”
Lily shook her head. “I can’t.” It was Rowan’s turn to pull away from her. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’?” she asked. He shook his head. “Every time I had a seizure and lived through it, I believed it made me a little bit stronger. I still think that being sick so much as a kid gave me the strength to handle this.” She gestured to the fading marks on her wrists. “But when I saw the cinder world, I stopped thinking that saying was true. There are lots of things that can happen to people that make them weaker. Things that break them. That’s all I can say about your father.”
Rowan thought about what she said carefully, but in the end he shook his head. “That’s not good enough, Lily. I deserve to know why she killed him.” Rowan moved to stand up, but Lily put out her hand and stopped him.
“You’re going to see Lillian soon. You have to ask her yourself. But do you want my honest opinion?” He nodded slowly. “Don’t,” she begged. “It happened in another world. Leave it there. Lillian couldn’t leave what happened to her behind in the cinder world where it belonged, and that’s why she killed your father.”
Rowan sat back down next to her. “That bad?” His next question hurt him to ask. “Do you think she was right to kill him?”
“No,” Lily said emphatically. “Lillian thinks the only difference between the different versions of us is our experiences, and if you were to make one version of a person experience what another had, they would react the same. I don’t believe that. Your father was not the River Fall of the cinder world, and I don’t believe he ever would have become him, even if he went through the same thing. Just like I’ll never become Lillian, no matter how many memories of hers I absorb. Lillian believes our experiences and our worlds make us. I believe our choices make our experiences and our worlds.”
“So you’re saying you would have chosen differently than she did?”
“Not about everything,” Lily admitted, her voice catching in her throat. She reached out and brushed her thumb across his lower lip. Rowan inhaled sharply and Lily saw his eyes darken and felt his mouth soften against her fingers.
But there was a gulf between them. They couldn’t even talk about it because Tristan was inside that gulf, and because of that, Lily couldn’t bring herself to close it. She pulled her hand back and slid it under the water.
“I’ll get you something to wear,” he said hoarsely, and stood without looking her in the eye.
Rowan heard the alarm yips from the sentries before Lily did. He sprang to his knees and peeked out the entrance of the tent. Shapes and shadows sped past.
“Stay here until I send for you,” he said as he pulled on a shirt and slid a knife into his belt.
Lily nodded and scrambled through the sheets to find shoes. She remembered falling asleep alone, feeling cold, and then delicious warmth wrapping around her back. She’d dreamed of turning to Rowan and kissing him. Some part of her must have known he was there. He only came to her now when she was asleep, like he couldn’t stop himself. It hurt her to think that they could only be their true selves to each other in dreams.
Lily finally found her shoes and put them on as Una pulled open the flap to her tent.
“She’s okay,” Una said over her shoulder.
Lily heard Tristan speak to Breakfast behind Una. “Who’s with my mother and sister?” she asked.
“Caleb,” Tristan answered. He motioned for her to come out of the tent. “We’ve got to move you. I’ll have Caleb bring them to you when he can,” he said.
They bundled Lily out of the tent, Una on one side, Breakfast on the other, and Tristan leading the way deeper into the camp. She reached out to her claimed braves along the perimeter and asked what was going on, but she got only confused images from them.
Most of her braves weren’t accustomed to mindspeak, and they had either very little or no innate magical talent. Lily had gotten so used to conversing with her mechanics that she forgot most people in her army had never heard mindspeak before, and weren’t capable of forming full sentences or transmitting entire thoughts. She only got images and fragments from them. She’d have to change that if they hoped to fight as one—the way the Hive did naturally.
“I think they found a spy,” she told her mechanics as they entered the center circle where the one campfire was kept burning all night.
Rowan had his back to them. He turned his head as they approached and smiled at Lily, relieved. As he motioned for her to come and stand next to him she saw that the person he’d been having words with was Alaric. There was a slight hitch in her step when their eyes met, but she recovered quickly, squared her shoulders, and joined him at the fire.
“Good to see you again,” Alaric said, watching her reaction carefully.
“Is it?” she asked. “I can’t say the same.”
His mouth ticked up with a wry smile as his eyes narrowed. “Well, apparently you wanted to see me because you sought me out,” he reminded her.
“I came for the rest of my army,” she replied. The fire popped between them as the silence grew heavy. Finally, Alaric nodded in concession.
“From what Rowan tells me, you can bring all of your claimed from place to place with no need to travel. They’d all survive the journey if they travel with you, and I can’t promise them the same.” His poker face was flawless. “But would they follow you into battle?”
“We both know their loyalty is with you,” Lily replied, making a concession of her own. “So here’s what I’m willing to offer you. Your voice will be heard with all things concerning the Outlander braves in my army. You’ll be one of my generals and you’ll report to Rowan. I offer you this under one condition. That you let me claim you.”
Alaric barked with surprised laughter. When he realized Lily wasn’t kidding, he looked to Rowan for someone to talk reason to her, but Rowan shook his head once in answer.
“You lost my support when I found out about the bombs,” Rowan said.
Alaric smiled and nodded. “And that’s what this is all about.”
“It is,” Lily said. “I want to know where the bombs are, and I want them dismantled and disposed of properly. They are no longer an option in this war.”
“Bomb. Single. I only have one left that still works—and it does still work”—Alaric nodded to one of his painted braves—“even though you sent someone to try to sabotage it.”
“What are you talking about?” Lily asked, not even trying to hide her confusion.
There was the sound of a tussle as someone was dragged into the light of the fire. She saw Carrick pinioned between two braves. He was bucking against their restraints with real fear in his eyes as he was dragged before Alaric.
“Lily,” Carrick said, baring his teeth as he breathed her name. “At last.”
Lily could feel all of her mechanics step closer to her as she shrank into Rowan’s side. Rowan said something to Carrick in Cherokee, but Carrick only laughed at his half brother and shook his head.
“Don’t think I don’t know you and Lillian sent this uktena to undermine me,” Alaric said as he gestured to Carrick with a foul look on his face.
“I have nothing to do with Carrick,” Lily replied hotly. “Lillian and I don’t agree on everything. I came here with my own plans about how to deal with you and the bombs—sorry, bomb—and it had nothing to do with him. And where is the second bomb? I thought there were two.”
Alaric sized Lily up with a guarded look on his face. A thought occurred to him and he tipped his head to the side. “She didn’t tell you that she stole the other and kept it for herself, did she?” Lily stared at Alaric, horrified. He gave a bitter laugh. “I didn’t think so.”
Lily shut her mouth with a snap and reached out to Lillian in mindspeak.
Lillian. Do you have a bomb?
There was no answer. She stalked over to Carrick where he was still being held by two braves and slapped him hard across the face.
“Does Lillian have a bomb?” She slapped him again before he even had a chance to answer. Carrick’s face whipped to the side and came back to Lily wearing an indulgent smile. Her skin puckered as if something had slithered across it. “Answer me,” she warned.
“I don’t know. If she got one, it happened when I was following you,” Carrick replied. “But it sounds about right. Lillian plans to raze Bower City to the ground.”
I don’t think he’s lying, Rowan said to Lily in mindspeak.
He isn’t, she replied. Lillian told me herself that she planned on destroying the city, but I never thought she’d use one of the bombs to do it. Never. It’s the last thing she would do.
And Lily knew that was why Lillian was doing it. Lillian believed that in order to win, she had to cross the uncrossable line.
“You came here to gather an army and join Lillian, but the Outlanders are following Lillian to stop her,” Alaric said. “We want to live in Bower City, if we can get past the Hive.”
They don’t know the whole story about Grace. The thought came from Caleb, who was only now joining them at the fire with Juliet and Samantha in tow. He stepped into the light and spoke aloud.
“Sachem, there is no getting past the Hive,” Caleb said. “Not without Lily and Lillian and every single person they’ve claimed. The Hive is under the power of a witch named Grace Bendingtree. It’s bewitched. I’ve seen it myself. We can’t hope to beat her without a bewitched army of our own.”
Alaric heard what Caleb said, but his eyes kept darting over Caleb’s shoulder to the two women who stood behind him, his attention torn.
“Juliet?” he said, his voice softer and more plaintive than Lily had ever heard it. He stepped toward her with his halting gait and went to take her hand. She stepped back, uncertain and a little frightened by the intensity of his gaze. Alaric understood then.
“You’re not my Juliet,” he said. Juliet shook her head and Alaric turned his gaze to Lily. “Where is she?” he asked.
Lily pressed her lips together and swallowed, hoping to soothe the tightness that was closing off her throat. Her expression was all Alaric needed. His eyes shut for a moment and a held breath came rushing out of him.
“How? When?” he asked, suddenly looking a little smaller and a lot older.
“Grace Bendingtree. Last week,” Lily answered quietly.
Alaric nodded, his eyes looking inward. Anger began to mount in him the more he tried to push it down, like a smelting fire that gains heat from pressure. “This Bendingtree has claimed the Hive?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“She made them,” Rowan answered. “There’s something you need to know about the Woven.”
Rowan switched between English and Cherokee in order to explain everything to Alaric. When words failed him, he showed his stone kin what he had seen in mindspeak, keeping Lily in the loop as he did so.
Images of Bower City, its busy port, its wealth, and the exceedingly long and healthy lives of its citizens were passed to Alaric. Then Rowan showed him the antique womb combs and explained what they had been used for two centuries ago. Alaric didn’t say a word. He just sat there, staring at the fire. When Rowan finally showed him Grace and the confrontation in the redwood grove that had ended in Juliet’s death, Alaric barely moved.
“She’s an Outlander,” was all he said, past anger. After a few more moments of staring into the fire, Alaric stood and faced Lily. “You can take all the braves safely to Bower City, and away from it again to get them out of danger?”
“In an instant,” she replied.
“Then you may dismantle my last bomb. I have no quarrel with the Thirteen Cities anymore,” he said. Lily breathed a sigh of relief, but Alaric waved a hand, cutting her off. “Don’t celebrate yet, because I agree with Lillian. She’s still got a bomb of her own, and I don’t doubt she’s going to use it.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Can you believe it? I nearly killed you for saying this last time we met, but I agree with Lillian,” he said musingly. “Bower City should burn.”
“No, wait. You don’t understand. The citizens don’t know what Grace has done,” Lily started to argue. Alaric turned away, uncaring.
“Put Carrick Son of Anoki in the yoke,” he ordered, and Carrick was dragged off.
“The people of Bower City are innocent,” Lily pressed, but Alaric ignored her.
Leave him be, Rowan advised Lily in mindspeak. Give him a chance to cool off.
Alaric stopped in front of Juliet. “I’m sorry if I offended you earlier with my over-familiarity,” he said politely.
“Not at all. I’m sorry for your loss,” she replied in kind. Alaric bobbed his head in acknowledgment and limped away from the fire. Juliet’s eyes followed him.
“Alaric, I still need to claim you,” Lily called after him. “I can’t jump you if I don’t.” He didn’t stop. “You’ll be left behind!” she hollered even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Alaric was even more stubborn than she was.
Lily woke and found Rowan sleeping next to her again. His hair had fallen across his eyes and she resisted the urge to brush it away.
She left him in her tent and went out into the camp before dawn. The night was mild outside of Richmond, and there was a faint layer of mist between the ferns and the sycamore trees. She touched some of the minds of her braves and asked them where he was. She followed the faint tugging of their minds to the other end of camp and saw him chained up next to a giant armored cart.
She thought she’d approached silently, yet he raised his head as she neared. His chains clanked and she rubbed the marks on her wrists at the sound. Carrick was locked in an oxen yoke, arms suspended alongside his head, the heavy wood of it dragging down his upper body.
She looked at the armored cart behind him. Its wheels were sunk deep into the soft earth. Lily trained her witch’s eye on it and saw no radiation, but she did detect a large amount of lead.
“Lily,” Carrick rasped. He said her name a lot. She didn’t know if he knew how it unnerved her. “Don’t worry. I already disarmed it.”
“So that’s the bomb?” she asked, gesturing to the armored cart.
“The only weapon more dangerous than you,” he said, laughing with the effort to keep his head raised. “Maybe that’s why you and Lillian are so obsessed with it. You can’t bear the competition.”
Lily’s brow pinched at the troubling thought, and she glared at him. “The only thing I’m obsessed with is saving as many lives as I can.”
“Liar. You think I don’t know you?” Carrick smirked. “I know you. Better than that pretty brother of mine. Oh, he sees the magic of you, but what he misses is the blood. All you witches are magic and blood. You more than most on both counts. You like the blood as much as you like the magic, but what you don’t know, that I can teach you, is you need the blood.”
She kept her face neutral by dint of will alone. “Where’s Lillian’s bomb, Carrick?”
“If I told you, would you set me free?” He saw Lily’s lips purse at the thought and chuckled. “No. Because you’d never set a monster like me loose in the world. So why should I tell you?”
She knew that there was no point appealing to his humanity, no point in pleading for the lives of the people of Bower City. For Toshi’s life.
“You’ll tell me because you need me,” she said. “Lillian is dying. Who’s going to claim you when she’s gone?”
She saw the thought glinting in his eyes—a spark across the flat black of his inner life. “You’d claim me?” he asked, hopeful but cautious.
She nodded once. “Because I’d never set a monster like you loose in the world.”
A smile crept up his face. “I don’t know where Lillian’s bomb is. She acquired it while I was following you in your world,” he said. “But I will find it for you.”
“Find it. Disable it. And when Lillian’s gone, I’ll claim you,” Lily promised. When she saw him smile—a thin reptilian upturn of the lips—she felt a part of herself lie down and die.
Lily, what are you doing?
Lily turned to see Rowan coming toward her, shirtless, barefooted, and angry. He carried one of the silver knives from his belt in one hand and a torch in the other. It took everything in her not to run to him.
Making a bargain with the devil, she told him in mindspeak.
“Missing something, brother?” Carrick taunted.
You shouldn’t be with him on your own. Carrick is dangerous, even if he is bound, Rowan told her in mindspeak.
I know. But I need him—
Rowan stiffened and his head whipped around, interrupting her thought. Both his and Carrick’s eyes were already darting into the murky edge of the firelight before Lily could hear what the two of them heard—the absence of sound. The tree frogs had gone silent. Not one owl hooted.
“Let me out,” Carrick said in a low, desperate voice. “Brother. You can’t defend her alone.”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed at Carrick, and Lily got the sense that they were sharing mindspeak. Whatever Carrick said convinced Rowan. One quick tug and he pulled out the peg behind Carrick’s neck. The yoke fell away with a jingle and a thump. Rowan tossed Carrick one of his blades and the two of them put Lily between their backs, both of them looking out, encircling her against the silent darkness.
Lily opened her hands to the torch, absorbing the heat of its small flame. A witch wind whipped her hair about her head, whispering ghostly, half-heard words. She filled Rowan’s willstone just in time to meet the onslaught. The Woven burst through the trees in a wave of noise and motion.
“Simians!” Carrick called out.
The simian Woven hooted as they knuckled forward, their thick bodies swinging between their arms with blinding speed. Rowan ran out to meet them. They barreled into the light of the torch fire and stopped abruptly.
“Hold,” Rowan ordered, pulling up short.
“They’re not attacking,” Carrick said, like he couldn’t believe it.
The simians swung around a perimeter just far enough to show that they weren’t engaging in a direct fight, but not far enough to let the humans run.
Lily felt one of them look her in the eye, assessing her. He snorted and looked away, scanning Rowan’s and Carrick’s faces.
“They’re looking for someone,” Lily said, puzzled.
“Lily!” Rowan hissed as she stepped forward. She felt Carrick snatch at her arm and she shook him off.
“I’m okay,” she told them, walking to the edge of the perimeter. “Look—they’re not here to kill anyone. I don’t think those are their orders.”
The simians retreated as she neared, rolling their lips back and baring their fangs anxiously. One of them darted in at her, bluffing to push her back. It was just what Lily was waiting for. Instead of falling back in fear, she dove forward, her hands reaching for the Woven’s neck. The creature was so startled by Lily’s brazen action she had time to find a small, hard lump under its skin.
Lily touched the Woven’s embedded willstone and felt someone push back against her mind. A flash of fury ignited and fizzled in a moment as Lily shoved the other witch out of this Woven’s willstone.
“It’s okay,” she murmured to the frightened creature. “I won’t harm you.”
It wasn’t like a human mind. He had a vague sense of self, and even less of a sense of will. Lily knew she could invade his stone without cracking it as Grace had done, but she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to make any of the choices Grace had. Instead, Lily asked. She felt the Woven give his assent and claimed his willstone for herself.
Mine.
A barrage of images sped through Lily’s mind. Swinging through treetops. A beloved grooming the scales on his blue back. Peacefully warming in the sun. Awoken and commanded to kill. Shown a face by the angry one within—a face that must be found.
“Breakfast!” Lily piped, surprised, when she saw the face. She broke off the mindspeak with her newly claimed Woven and turned. “They’re looking for Breakfast—except he’s an Outlander?” she finished doubtfully as she assessed the image she’d seen. It had been Breakfast, but he’d had long, braided hair and war paint on his face.
“Lily, get back,” Rowan said. She felt him pulling on her arm, trying to get her to step away from the Woven who stood only inches away.
Without warning, the simians turned as one and sped back into the trees, hooting and howling as they went. All but one. Lily’s claimed Woven stayed where he was while the rest of his family group sped off.
Follow them, Blueback, Lily told him. She added an image of him turning and leaving her in case he didn’t understand. The Woven took her command and knuckled his way off into the darkness.
“Ro!” Caleb called.
“Here!” Rowan called back. He turned and made a disgusted sound. “He’s gone.” Lily looked at him, her mind still sorting out what Blueback had shown her. “Carrick is gone,” Rowan clarified.
“Lily’s fine,” Caleb said into the darkness behind him. Tristan appeared behind him at a jog, and they joined Rowan and Lily.
She reached out to the rest of her mechanics, searching for Breakfast. She found him, still shaken, as he and Una joined them. Una was covered in Woven blood. She started wiping at it to get it off her.
“They tried to carry me off,” Breakfast told them, offended. “They would have, too, if my girl hadn’t stepped in.”
“It wasn’t me,” Una said, declining to take any credit. “We were totally outnumbered, and then they just dropped him and ran off.”
“They weren’t looking for Breakfast,” Lily replied. She grabbed Rowan’s arm, her alarm growing. “The shaman Red Leaf. They came for him.”
Lily could hear braves calling out in alarm. Caleb and Rowan cocked their heads, listening to the coded signal calls for a moment before sharing a dismayed look.
“They got him,” Caleb said.
“Why would the Woven want the shaman?” Una asked.
“Not the Woven,” Lily said, shaking her head. “Grace. Why would Grace want a shaman who knows how to spirit walk unless it’s because of what I told her in the redwood glade?”
The coven’s eyes went wide as they realized what Grace wanted.
“Let’s get him back,” Tristan said, already breaking away from the group. “Come on, guys, let’s go.”
“There are too many,” Rowan said quietly.
Lily pulled heat from the torch, but it was a small flame. She gave her mechanics as much force as she could, and looked at Rowan. “She can’t learn how to worldjump, Rowan. She can’t.”
He nodded, but his face was furrowed with a doubtful frown. “Breakfast, stay and guard Lily,” he ordered, and then the rest of her mechanics took off so fast it was as if they’d disappeared. As soon as they were gone, the darkness seemed to grow eyes that watched her hungrily.
“Stay close to me, Breakfast,” Lily said. “Carrick is out there.”
“If we’re lucky he’ll get eaten by something ugly,” Breakfast said, kneeling down on the ground to build a proper fire. “I doubt he’d risk coming back for you tonight.”
Lily nodded and relaxed some. She reached out to Blueback in mindspeak. Find the human your kind has taken, she told him.
For a moment Lily was crashing through the underbrush and then vaulting up to the trees to careen through the branches. Blueback chased down his group by scent and sound, but when he caught up with them, none of them had Red Leaf. Blueback started to retrace his steps to find one of the other family groups that had been a part of the raid. He smelled for the human, but there were so many humans in the forest that night he couldn’t be sure which was the one Lily wanted.
You may stop now, she told Blueback. Go join your family, but watch for the stolen human.
She reached out to Rowan, only to hear from him what she had already learned from Blueback. The Woven trails broke off into over a dozen different directions and there was no way to be sure which group had taken Red Leaf. She called her mechanics back.
We know where they’re taking him, Lily told them, trying to quell her unease.
“Breakfast. Red Leaf is the other you,” Lily said. “You can reach him in mindspeak.”
“Ah—I’ll try,” he said uncertainly. His face scrunched up in confusion. “How do you contact another you?”
Lily smiled, remembering what it had felt like when she heard Lillian whispering to her across the worldfoam.
“You have to go a little crazy,” she replied.
Lily had no idea how long it would take the simian Woven to get Red Leaf to the edge of the Hive’s territory, and from there, how long it would take them to get all the way west to Bower City, but however long it was—days, maybe weeks—that was all the time she had to get her army assembled and ready to jump into battle. In the meantime, something had to be done about Grace’s control of the wild Woven.