CHAPTER
12
Grace was in a conspicuously fine mood that morning, which was terrifying.
Toshi pulled his gaze from the bow of the yacht as it dipped into the surf and looked across the brunch table at Mala, hoping she didn’t crack. Grace’s good humor seemed to hide a thousand threats, and the Warrior Sisters perched in the rigging didn’t help. They looked down on the forced merriment, twitching their heads and shivering their wings with malice. Toshi could practically hear Mala chanting she knows under her breath.
Of course, it would be a miracle if Grace didn’t know. Toshi and Mala had been meeting with malcontents for the past week to gather up opposition, and hopefully, some kind of fighting force. They had plenty of support from foreign sources. Every other country in the world wanted what Bower City had, and they risked little by pledging money, weapons, even soldiers. It wasn’t their home that would be destroyed in a war with the Hive, or their lives that would be left in tatters afterward. Every meeting where he spoke in code and exchanged microcapsules of pre-written terms with a handshake had left Toshi feeling like a traitor. None of those foreign forces cared if Bower City fell, just as long as they were the first to get the formula for making willstones, and because of that Toshi had forgone accepting their help. So far.
The homegrown opposition that Toshi really wanted was harder to come by. The natives knew what would happen if they tried to fight the Hive. They knew the Hive wouldn’t hesitate to kill them all.
“Toshi?” Grace said, as if she were repeating herself.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head and giving her one of the more charming smiles from his repertoire. “I was miles away.”
“And I can understand why. You haven’t been getting much sleep lately,” Grace observed casually, as if it were normal for her to know something as private as his sleep schedule. She spooned more caviar onto her crostini. “Lunch with the minister from Japan. Then drinks with the foreign trade envoy from Germany. And that was just yesterday.”
A Worker ambled toward him across the tablecloth, feeling her way through the salt spray in the air with her antennae. Toshi watched her slow progress and concentrated on his breathing. She was trying to taste his sweat. If she did, all she would taste was fear.
“I’m always looking to improve our relations abroad,” he replied when he knew he could do so without his voice breaking.
Grace’s eyes narrowed over a brittle smile. “Are our relations in such bad shape that the two of you feel you must repair them with every nation?”
Mala hadn’t moved a muscle in too long, which is difficult to do on the deck of a yacht. Toshi looked at her and laughed, letting the sun bounce off his upturned face to show how carefree he was. Mala joined him a beat late, but at least she broke out of her frozen posture.
“Mala and I have come to an understanding recently,” he said, reaching across the table for her hand. She took his cue and looked at him with a simpering fondness that he forced himself to duplicate. If they were going to play lovers, they might as well play it to the fullest. “And we decided it was time to think about our futures. If we ever want a family, we’re going to have to focus on our careers now while we can.”
“Family?” Grace asked. She looked between the two of them, stricken. “I never thought of you as the type to want children.”
Toshi shrugged a shoulder in a way that could be seen as apologetic, allowing her to assume that he hadn’t wanted children with her. If they were lucky, Grace would be so derailed by the blow to her ego that she would overlook the fact that both he and Mala were sweating.
There was something about being on a boat with someone you didn’t trust. It didn’t make much sense, seeing as how Grace could have both of them killed anytime she wanted, but out on the open water where there were no witnesses, Toshi still felt less secure than he did on dry land. He couldn’t shake the image of his body being dumped overboard, never to be found. He could tell Mala was thinking the same thing from the way she kept peering over the railing, contemplating the deep, cold waters of the bay.
“So you can see why we’re eager to be indispensable to you, Grace,” Toshi finished.
“Yes,” Mala said, her voice gravelly with disuse. She hadn’t said a word yet, and was now forcing an overly animated smile to make up for it. Clumsy. Especially considering the fact that she had nothing more than “yes” to add. Toshi poured them some more wine. Maybe if he got her drunk she’d calm down.
“So, to what do we owe this little excursion today?” Toshi said. He’d hoped to sound lighthearted, but the abrupt change in topic was as jarring as grinding gears to his ears. He winced a little at the awkwardness of it.
“I’ve had some good news and I was looking to spend the morning with two indispensable people,” Grace replied.
Toshi didn’t know if he should laugh at her play on his words or not, so he settled on looking inquisitive. “What news?” he asked.
“I found someone I’ve been looking for. I think having him as part of the team is going to open up more opportunities for all of us.” Grace sipped her wine. “You two both speak your native languages, correct? Japanese and Indian?” Toshi and Mala nodded. “Good. We might be expanding soon. I’m going to need people I trust to acquaint me with the locals.”
Toshi and Mala shared an uneasy look, trying to decide if she was being facetious.
“I’d be happy to show you where I’m from. But, Grace, in all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never left Bower City,” Mala said.
“And I don’t intend to.” Grace popped a strawberry into her mouth.
“So how do you expect us to acquaint you with the locals in Japan and India?” Toshi asked. He was thoroughly sick of playing this game of cat and mouse.
Grace grinned, enjoying his frustration. “Haven’t you ever heard of being in two places at once? It’s a skill I’m planning on acquiring very soon.”
Lily paced back and forth in front of the fire. The light had grown long and the day was nearly spent. She lifted her eyes expectantly as her sister approached. It hit her again—that happy-sad tangle of feeling every time she looked at Juliet now. A part of her was relieved to have her Juliet, and another part felt guilty for being comforted, as if the other Juliet had been nothing more than a spare. Her thoughts skipped to the surviving Tristan. She was still avoiding him, and although she recognized that fact, she couldn’t seem to make herself stop.
“Any luck?” Lily prompted, dragging herself into the here and now.
Juliet joined her, shaking her head. “I don’t know why you thought I would be able to convince him,” she said. “The guy’s as stubborn as a mule. And I’m not his Juliet.”
“What on earth were you doing in there for four hours, then?” Lily asked, dumbfounded.
“Talking. Not about anything that I intended to talk about, though,” she replied, looking confused. “Every time I specifically tried to avoid a subject I’d end up telling him all about it.” Juliet sighed in exasperation. “I told him about us. About you while we were growing up—how you were sick and Mom was crazy and Dad was gone. About medical school, and how I want to heal people. All kinds of random stuff, really.”
“Did me claiming him even come up by accident?” Lily asked petulantly.
“I did my best, okay?” She scratched at a red welt. Mosquitoes adored Juliet. Her tender skin was absolutely irresistible to them.
“We’re running out of time and I need him, Jules,” Lily pressed. “The braves still follow him, not me.”
“But I don’t know him,” Juliet said, rolling a delicate shoulder. “I mean, sometimes he’ll look at me and I feel like I know him, but I know I don’t. Does that make any sense?”
“It does to me,” Lily said. She knew she shouldn’t take her frustration out on Juliet, especially since she was having such a rough time of it. This Juliet wasn’t the version who had toughened up on the trail, and she looked a little worse for wear—still adorable with her bug bites and burgeoning freckles, but definitely like an indoor cat that had been suddenly thrust outside. “Was there any sign at all that he didn’t want to be left behind, at least?”
“No.” Juliet tipped her head to the side in thought and threaded a tress of hair behind an ear. “In fact, he spent nearly twenty minutes trying to convince me how foolish it was to go. He kept reminding me that in a battle no one was going to be able to do my fighting for me.”
Gotcha, Lily thought. She tried not to smile. “Interesting.”
“I told him I was still going, of course,” Juliet said quickly. “I don’t care how dangerous it is.”
Lily turned away as nonchalantly as possible. “Well, you tried. We’ll just have to get along without him.”
“That’s what I said to him,” she said, her eyes flaring. “I told him that I was going no matter what, and he could stay behind for all I cared.”
“Good. You don’t need him,” Lily said.
“Of course I don’t. I don’t need anyone to protect me,” Juliet agreed haughtily, crossing her skinny arms over her chest. She found another mosquito bite on her wrist and scratched at it. “I can take care of myself. And that’s exactly what I told Alaric.”
Lily peeked around her sister’s shoulder. She wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Alaric striding toward them, surrounded by his painted braves. Juliet couldn’t have played it better if she’d actually known what she was doing.
“You can claim me on one condition,” Alaric said, fuming.
“Which is?”
“That Juliet stays in my sight at all times, and that I get first and last say about her personal safety. No arguments from either of you.”
“Done,” Lily said with a nod.
“Lily!” Juliet protested, smacking her sister on the arm.
“What? You said you’d help. This is helping.” Lily rubbed her arm. “Ouch.”
Juliet grabbed Lily’s hand and dragged her a few feet away. “You can’t just pawn me off to that . . . savage!”
“I’m not pawning you,” Lily said in an injured tone. “I’m selling you at a very high price. Now get over there where your savage can see you.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” Juliet muttered, following Lily back to Alaric.
“Personally, I don’t see how it could have worked out better,” Lily replied under her breath, just low enough so Juliet could pretend she didn’t hear it. At least this way Lily knew that Juliet would be kept safe, no matter what happened to her.
I’m claiming Alaric, Lily told Rowan in mindspeak.
How’d you manage that? Hang on. We’ll be right there, he replied from the perimeter where he and rest of the coven were on patrol duty. Rowan, Caleb, and Tristan arrived a moment later with grins on their faces.
Lily stared at Rowan, caught in one of the rare moments when she could admire him from afar. He was dressed in light wearhyde and he carried a tomahawk in an absentminded way. A feather was braided into his hair at the back and he looked wild and pure, like a piece of the forest turned human. He gave Alaric an I-told-you-so smile that stopped well short of smug, and Lily could see how easy it was for anyone to love him. He never pushed too far, especially when he was right.
Alaric faced Lily with an uncertain look on his face—something Lily had never seen before.
“It’s okay,” Lily said, reaching for the willstone at the base of his throat. “I won’t take anything you don’t give to me freely.”
Lily didn’t see full memories from Alaric—his internal barriers were too strong for that—but rather she saw impressions that he swept aside as quickly as they surfaced. She saw her sister—then, dreamlike, Juliet morphed into another woman with the same sweet smile and huge doe eyes. Then the smile was blotted out by driving snow. She felt helplessness that was bigger than drowning as she watched an infant turn blue and go still. She heard weeping as if it’d come from a distant room in a labyrinthine house. She tasted nothing but ice and ash and felt nothing but a sinking anger that was almost like falling. She saw the sweet smile again as Juliet scratched at a bug bite.
The streak of impressions ended. Lily let go of Alaric’s willstone and let out a shaky breath. His anger still yawned inside of her as if she stood on the edge of a great cliff. He looked so calm. Lily marveled at his ability to hold so much rage and not shake with it. She met his eyes and nodded, finally understanding him.
There aren’t enough bodies in the world to fill up that hole, she told him gently in mindspeak.
He startled, and considered it. “There’s only one scalp I’m after now,” he replied softly. They moved away from each other, both of them needing to put a little distance between them. “What can we take with us?” Alaric asked, changing the subject.
“Unfortunately, only what each of us can carry,” Rowan said. “The armored carts, horses, extra food, and weapons will have to stay behind.”
“And Bower City is surrounded by walls, you said?” Rowan nodded and Alaric frowned. “That doesn’t leave a lot of options if we have to lay siege.”
“The land is rich there,” Caleb added.
“Lots of farms,” Tristan said, meeting Caleb’s eyes.
“We’re not thieves,” Lily said warningly.
“We’ll need to eat, Lily,” Rowan said plainly. “Anyway, this is all if there is a siege. The Hive may not give us the chance for that.”
They all fell quiet, thinking of the Hive.
“Don’t we have to meet up with Lillian first?” Juliet asked, breaking the long silence.
“Yes,” Lily replied. “That’s our next stop.” She looked at Rowan. He didn’t meet her eyes, even though she knew he felt her stare.
“The sooner the better,” Tristan mumbled. “I don’t know how much longer the ceasefire between the tunnel people and the Outlanders is going to last.”
Caleb snorted. “It’s only going to get worse where we’re going.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked.
“Lillian’s army is mostly Walltop soldiers,” Caleb replied with a grimace. Lily looked at him blankly. “You’ll see when we get there,” he assured her.
“Walltop soldiers are . . . different,” Rowan said, looking at Alaric’s stony expression cautiously.
“If by different you mean a bunch of unfeeling, inhuman bastards,” Caleb grumbled.
“You need to rest,” Rowan told Lily, changing the subject. “We’ll build your pyre in the morning.”
The group broke apart and started drifting in different directions. As Lily headed for her tent, followed by Rowan, Lily saw Alaric approach Juliet to speak to her privately.
“What does Alaric have against Walltop soldiers?” she asked, turning to Rowan.
“You know he had a family before?” Rowan said. Lily nodded. “Walltop soldiers refused to open the gates to Alaric and his family during a blizzard because it was after dark.”
“Outlanders aren’t allowed inside the cities after dark,” Lily recalled aloud.
Rowan nodded. “They stood there and watched while his wife and baby girl froze to death in his arms.”
Lily looked down at her feet as they walked. “Is this going to be a problem?”
“It already is one,” he said through a mirthless laugh. “Walltop soldiers look at Outlanders like they’re no better than rats, and Outlanders hate Walltop for watching from on high while they died.”
“Let me get this right. The ranch hands and the below folk hate the Outlanders, the Outlanders hate Walltop, and Walltop look down on all of them?”
“Exactly,” Rowan replied. “At least they agree on one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“No matter how much they hate each other, they hate the Woven more,” he said bitterly.
“Do you?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Even still?” she asked. He nodded, his lips tight. “But it was all Grace. She was controlling them,” Lily persisted.
“I know it might not make much sense to you, but telling my people it wasn’t the Woven, it was Grace using the Woven, doesn’t change much. It doesn’t change what we went through.”
“But they’re intelligent—”
“That makes it worse, Lily. Not better,” he said in a choked voice. His eyes turned inward to watch a dark memory, and Lily stifled what she was going to say next. Telling him that the Woven had suffered even more than the Outlanders wasn’t what Rowan wanted to hear. He couldn’t hear it, actually, no matter how loudly Lily shouted it. The Woven were his enemy. His hatred for them was in his blood. It was handed down to him from generations past and was as much a part of his makeup as his dark eyes and clever hands. Somehow, she had to find a way to get him past that, or they were going to die.
“Then let’s hope the Hive will be enough to get all the different factions of my army to work together,” she said.
“The Hive is more than enough.” He looked hopelessly at the night sky. “More than we can handle.”
They slowed to a halt. “Is it that bad?” she asked.
“It is. We don’t have the numbers. We’re about thirty thousand. They are millions.”
“Most of them are Workers, though. I can protect you from them. I did it before—”
Rowan shook his head, cutting her off. “So instead of the odds being a hundred to one, it’s still twenty Warrior Sisters to one of us,” he said. “I might be able to take twenty Sisters in battle. Caleb, Tristan, and Una probably could, too, but the rest of your army can’t be counted on for those kinds of numbers. The ranch hands have never been in a real battle before. A lot of them are going to desert as soon as they see the Hive rising.”
“Not if I make them stay and fight,” Lily said quietly.
“Possessing them would keep them in the battle, but it won’t keep them alive for long,” he warned. He was right, of course. Lily knew she couldn’t win this war with an unwilling army.
“So what do we do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I’ve gone over it a dozen times in my head, and I can’t make it work. We don’t have enough fighters.”
After a few pensive moments, Rowan finally shook himself. “I’ll figure it out,” he promised.
He left her at the entrance of her tent and went to rejoin his stone kin out on patrol. She watched him until he disappeared among the trees, hoping he would forgive her for what she knew she had to do. She went into her tent and sat down on the ground.
She hadn’t had water or eaten most of the day in order to prepare. She didn’t know how far she’d have to roam on this spirit walk, but she figured it was going to be a long trip. She threw some herbs that were good for relaxation on the fire and settled back, breathing in the fragrant smoke.
There was one moment where she felt like she was falling even though she was pressed to the ground. She briefly looked down and saw her body lying below her wandering spirit, and then she turned her attention out past the Mist and into the overworld.
Spirit walking isn’t sequential like normal traveling. There are gaps in the journey, and vast stretches of space are covered in the blurry blink of an eye. It’s easy to get lost, and hard to pick a destination and simply go there unless you have some kind of landmark or key to highlight the path. But Lily knew what she was aiming for. She’d touched it with her own hands and chased its inner light with her own eyes, and although its pattern was too big for her to ever claim for herself, she knew how the first few notes of its great song went.
Lily sent her spirit all the way back to Bower City to find the pearlescent speaking stone on top of Grace’s villa. Starting there, she looked out across the overworld and saw them—bright and clear like searchlights beaming straight into the sky. She wondered how she could have ever missed them, but not knowing they were there had kept the speaking stones hidden in plain sight.
From her vantage in the overworld Lily could see that each speaking stone was unique. Each had a slightly different hue from the others, making it possible to know where your message was coming from based on the tint of the image you saw. Lily saw Grace’s line of speaking stones stretching across the continent and meeting up with another line of thirteen speaking stones down the eastern seaboard, one to each of the Thirteen Cities. Now that Lily had both of the paths clear in her mind’s eye she could use them when she returned to her body.
She soared back down to her body, noticing that the sky was turning pink. Rowan was sitting on the ground cross-legged next to her still form. She entered her body and felt the chill of stiff muscles and a creaky ache in all her joints as she dragged in a rattling breath.
“There you are,” Rowan said. He started chafing her cold limbs. “Where did you go?”
Lily’s teeth were chattering too hard to answer right away. Rowan lifted her up and brought her closer to the coals of the fire.
“All the way across the country and back,” she finally managed to croak. “I’ve never been this cold before.”
“It’s the tattoos. You’ll have to be more conscious of getting cold now.” Rowan sat behind her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her hands closer to the fire. “Why did you go so far?”
“I was looking for the line of speaking stones all the way across the country,” she told him. “It’s how Grace claims and controls the wild Woven from so far away.”
“Did you find them?”
“Yes.”
“Can you jump us to them?” he asked, the wheels in his head already turning.
“I can’t jump anywhere unless I have the vibration of that specific location in my willstone, and I don’t have any claimed near the speaking stones to gather the vibrations for me. I could send out riders, though. I know where the nearest one is.”
Rowan’s face lit up with hope. “All we need to do is pull down the one closest to us and Grace won’t be able to reach the wild Woven in our area.”
“Knock out any link in the chain and her signal would fall short. She wouldn’t be able to make them attack us anymore,” Lily said musingly, nodding her head. She looked at the fire, frowning. Grace wouldn’t be able to use the line of speaking stones—but neither would Lily.
Rowan sat back, studying her face. “You’re hesitating.”
“Because I need the speaking stones to communicate with one of my claimed,” she replied evasively.
“Who?” His eyes narrowed when he saw her hesitate. “Did you claim Toshi?” he asked, jealousy flushing red across his cheekbones.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Pale One.”
“The Woven?” he asked needlessly. He drew away from Lily, a thinly veiled look of disgust on his face.
“Would you rather I had no one scouting for us out west?” Lily asked, frustrated.
“Honestly? I think it’s a small thing to give up to keep the Woven from attacking us,” he said angrily. “What do you really want the speaking stones for?”
Lily felt Breakfast brush against her mind and she was glad for the interruption. It kept her from having to explain her real reason for needing the speaking stones intact. Her eyes unfocused as she listened to Breakfast.
I found Red Leaf, he told her.
Where is he? Lily immediately shared what she was getting from Breakfast with the rest of the coven.
He’s in bad shape. A raptor has him. This is what he showed me . . .
. . . I only let my eyes crack open—barely enough to see—and hope that it doesn’t notice that I’m awake. If it thinks I’m awake, it holds me tighter to keep me from struggling until I can barely breathe.
Great, leathery talons encircle my chest and my waist. Wings that are ten times the length of a man pound the clouds to either side of me. I’m so cold and the air is so thin.
There’s that voice in my head again that is so like mine. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m dying. The voice inside my head asks me where I am.
I look down and see nothing below but flat green stretches. The Ocean of Grass. A cloud hangs low on the horizon—a smudge across the otherwise blue sky. No. Not a cloud. Great Spirit, protect me. It’s the Hive . . .
He’s about halfway across the country, Una said in mindspeak.
The raptor has taken him to the Hive’s territory, Breakfast added.
Grace will have him soon, Lily said. We have three, maybe four days until she has him, and we still have to join up with Lillian’s army.
Lily looked at Rowan. His expression was guarded, their disagreement on pause, but not forgotten. “We can go now if you want. Your pyre is ready whenever you are,” he said crisply.
Lily climbed the pyre and, with no claimed in Lillian’s army for her to use, she was forced to call out to Lillian herself.
I need to use you as my lighthouse.
Where are you? Back in your world?
No. I need you to put your hand on the ground and feel the earth under you.
I’m doing it.
Now I need you to let me possess you.
Why?
It’s how I’m going to get my army to yours. Hurry. The fire is rising.
Lily smelled the smoke billowing up from the bottom of the pyre and felt the heat that followed. The next moment she was out of her body and soaring across the overworld toward the beacon that was Lillian. She was easy to find, high up in the Appalachian Mountains.
She dove down and felt searing pain—Lillian’s pain. Her guts rolled with nausea, and her vision tracked a few seconds behind the movement of her eyes, setting the world into a dizzying spin around her. It took her a moment to push past Lillian’s sickness enough to feel the vibration of the earth under Lillian’s hand, summon the willstones of her claimed, and jump them all to Lillian’s position.
Lily’s army appeared amid Lillian’s. There was no boom or gust of wind or streak of lighting. The Outlanders, below folk, and ranch hands simply materialized among the open spaces between the Walltop guards on the rocks and cliffs.
Lily appeared next to Lillian, inside her tent. “Tell your soldiers not to panic,” Lily said.
Lillian’s cracked lips were parted in surprise, but she gathered herself and closed her eyes for a moment, sending out a message in mindspeak to all of her claimed. Lily could hear the shocked murmurs coming from outside the tent, but luckily, she didn’t hear the sounds of fighting.
“I probably should have given you more warning,” Lily apologized. “A bunch of Outlanders and criminals appearing alongside a bunch of soldiers could have been bad. I see that now.”
“I know why you didn’t warn me. You couldn’t give me any chance to figure out how to do this . . . feat . . . and go without you,” Lillian replied. She crinkled a wan cheek into a half smile. “What would you call this in your world?”
“Teleportation,” Lily answered. “But that sounds so corny I’ve mostly been calling it jumping.” Her face pinched in sympathy. “You look terrible, Lillian.”
“I told you. I’m dying,” she replied with a humorless laugh.
“I’m sorry.” The words didn’t seem big enough.
Lillian was paper white, skeletal, and the sickly sweet smell of decay clung to her. Her head was wrapped in a strip of linen, and from the bare pink sheen of the skin high on her temples, Lily could tell it was because her hair had fallen out. Even her eyes seemed drained of color. Lily reached out and took Lillian’s hand. She wanted to hug Lillian, but she knew that any contact would feel like knives sticking in her.
They heard voices outside the tent and turned in unison as Rowan, followed closely by Captain Leto, pushed into the tent. Rowan stopped abruptly and made a dismayed sound deep in his chest when he saw Lillian.
“I’m sorry, My Lady,” Leto was saying as he grabbed Rowan’s arm. Rowan didn’t resist. He’d gone boneless as he stared at Lillian.
“It’s all right, Leto,” Lillian said, raising a placating hand. “Rowan is here for her.”
Leto noticed Lily and dropped Rowan’s arm in shock, looking back and forth between the two Lillians.
A long sigh gusted out of Rowan. “Oh, Lillian. Why didn’t you let me help you?” he asked. He took a step toward her and Lillian lurched away from him, her eyes pleading.
“Don’t, Rowan. There’s nothing you can do to help me now,” she said. She turned to Leto. “Captain, would you please escort Lord Fall out of my tent and ask him what his people need? Lily and I will be out in a moment.”
Rowan allowed Leto to lead him away. Lily turned to Lillian.
“You’re still not going to tell him?” she asked. Lillian shook her head. “I think you’re wrong,” Lily persisted. “I understand why you hid the version of River you saw in the cinder world, but Rowan’s changed since you knew him. He accepted that I wasn’t you. He can accept that his father wasn’t that man in the barn.”
Lillian looked down, wringing her hands. Lily watched her, eerily recalling how she was prone to do that when she doubted herself.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “What was this all for if I do?”
Lily felt truly sorry for her. “Do you want me to see if there’s anything I can do? I don’t know much about healing,” Lily said, trailing off with a shrug. She thought of Toshi. He would know how to heal Lillian.
“I can show you,” Lillian said, accepting Lily’s offer.
Lily helped Lillian comb through her cells and kill off as much of the cancer as she could, but there weren’t enough healthy cells left after that to keep her organs running properly. Lily might not have done much healing in her time as a witch, but she knew a failing liver when she saw one. When she had done everything she could to keep Lillian going for a few more days, she sat back on her heels.
“Your rose stone did all the work,” Lillian said. She wiped away the sweat beading on her upper lip. “So it’s true that the different colors are better at different kinds of magic?”
“Yes,” Lily answered distractedly. She heard shouting outside the tent. “Lillian, we need to talk.”
“We do. It was always my intention that you take my place when I’m gone. That’s why I went to find you in the first place,” Lillian said. “I’ll leave instructions with Leto that you are to be treated exactly as they would treat me. Salem is yours.”
“No, that’s not—” Lily stammered. “It’s the Hive. We can’t beat them. Not with the numbers that we have right now.”
“I know. That’s why we need to use the bomb.”
“But that’s insane—you know it is,” Lily said.
The shouting outside the tent grew loud enough to bring Lillian to her feet. She and Lily looked outside and saw people running past as Lily felt Rowan reaching out to her mindspeak.
Things are getting ugly out here. Come quickly.
“It’s Rowan,” Lily said urgently.
She and Lillian rushed out of the tent and followed the sound of a fight to a clearing among the trees, where a year-old rockslide had knocked down a swath of thick timber. Rowan was holding back someone who looked like he was trying to attack Alaric, while Caleb and Tristan restrained two screaming ranch hands. Una, Breakfast, Captain Leto, and some of his uniformed soldiers seemed to be busy with crowd control as waves of people, most of them from the ranches, shook their fists and shouted. At the center of it all was a small Outlander woman with steel-gray hair and skin like leather. She stood stock-still with her hands crossed in front of her, her gaze elsewhere and her expression unconcerned.
“Chenoa,” Lillian said, teeth bared. The name hissed out of her like a curse word.
As Lily and Lillian approached the center of the clearing together, the shouting fell to a murmur. The crowds stopped pushing against the barricade and the man in Rowan’s headlock settled down enough that Rowan let him go.
Chenoa looked at the two Lillians, her mouth tilting with a knowing smile. Her eyes were like two black beads—hard and clear—and they sent a thrill down Lily’s spine.
“So I suppose you’ll be fixing to hang me,” Chenoa said, instigating a fresh round of hateful calls.
“She should be hanged!” yelled the man recently released from Rowan’s headlock.
“Otter—don’t,” Rowan growled in warning in case he decided to lunge at Chenoa again. Rowan knew this man. He spun away from Rowan and faced the bloodthirsty crowd.
“She killed my Lena and our baby,” Otter said. Voices shouted out the names of more dead. “She could have told us what was in those canisters.” More voices rose like “amens” in church. “She should have told us it was going to make them sick.”
Lily looked out at the quickly turning mob, and then back at Lillian’s impassive face. Lillian would let the mob hang her, and as Lily recalled the women dying horrible deaths in the tunnels, a tiny voice in her head said maybe Chenoa deserved it.
But then she noticed the Outlanders in the crowd were slowly detaching themselves, watching with their weapons ready. Lily reached out to Rowan.
Will the Outlanders fight if the ranch hands try to hang Chenoa?
Yes, Rowan replied in mindspeak. To a lot of Outlanders she’s a hero. This could get very bad, very fast. Find a fire and get ready to fuel us.
I don’t think you can stop my army from tearing itself apart, Rowan.
Neither do I. The only thing that I’m concerned with now is keeping you safe.
While Lily racked her brain for a way to defuse this powder keg, Mary stepped forward, holding up her hands for everyone’s attention.
“We below folk know all about the dust sickness that Chenoa brought on us,” Mary said in a commanding voice. “We’ve seen it with our own eyes. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve had nightmares about it ever since.” She started to pace around Chenoa, circling her like a cross-examiner. “This isn’t just something she brought on the women who agreed to carry her poison dust into the Outlands. It’s something that got brought back to those women’s families. Children. Babies, even.”
Chenoa grunted and smirked. Mary broke off and turned to address her.
“You think babies dying is funny?” Mary asked. Chenoa leveled her with a look. Anger seemed to gather around the old woman like a cloak. “Speak,” Mary urged. “Give us some reason why you did what you did. I’m trying to give you a chance here, or would you rather I just let my people string you up?”
For a moment it seemed as if Chenoa would remain silent on her own behalf. She looked out at the mob as if it were happening to someone else, and then nodded to herself as if she already knew the ending to this story.
“I’ve always been good with numbers,” she said in a soft, dry voice that carried. “I’ve always been able to look at numbers and equations and understand them. Always been able to see through the numbers to the truth hidden behind them. I don’t know, maybe it’s a kind of magic. How many children do you think I’ve had, blond city woman?” she asked.
Mary was taken aback by the question. “I don’t know,” she replied.
“Four. All dead in their first year.” Chenoa’s voice was even and empty, her words pressed flat by the weight of the grudge within her. “My first babe starved to death. Belly swollen and so weak she couldn’t even cry anymore. She just made this mewing sound, like a kitten.” A long silence spilled out of her and swept over the crowd. “My middle two were taken by the Woven and the pox got my youngest. You ever see a baby die of the pox, blond city woman? No, you haven’t. The witches wouldn’t help us Outlanders when the pox came, but the below folk, they got the medicine ’cause they’re citizens.” Chenoa laughed, her head settling deeper into her shoulders, like a bird’s in a rainstorm. “You below folk are acting like you invented suffering, but how many of your children were lost by what I did? A few hundred? How many hundreds of thousands of our babies starved, were taken by the Woven, or died from the pox . . . or maybe you’ve done the math and think your pink babies are worth a thousands times more than our brown ones?” Her mouth pressed into a sneer. “Well, I’ve done the math, too, and I got some different numbers. One number in particular.” Her eyes dropped to the ground, all the fire suddenly snuffed out of her. “Four.”
When it became clear that Chenoa would say no more, the crowd began to shout their grievances at her again. There had never been anything she could say that would have persuaded them not to hang her, and the fact that they pitied her only served to anger them more. A rock was thrown. Then another.
Oh my God, they’re going to stone her, Una said in mindspeak. A score of Outlander braves notched arrows into their bows.
Tristan addressed the coven in mindspeak. Lily, can you jump us out of here?
Jumping might be our only option, Caleb agreed.
Jumping won’t stop them from killing one another, Lily argued.
We can’t contain this, Rowan said.
I brought them here to fight together, not one another. I can’t just let them riot.
While Lily looked around at the mounting chaos, she met Lillian’s eyes. Lillian turned away from her, unyielding. She wanted Chenoa dead. Samantha dithered her way into the center and stood next to Chenoa. She looked out at the crowd, wringing her hands and trying to duck as rocks sailed by. Lillian took a step forward to stop her, but Samantha moved even closer to Chenoa.
“You can’t have both, Lillian,” Samantha said, suddenly calm. “You have to decide. Chenoa or Grace.”
Samantha stared Lillian down. She was chillingly sane and in control of herself. She didn’t back down until Lillian finally looked away. Knowing her job was done, Samantha seemed to unravel. She shuffled off into the crowd where Juliet hastily corralled her and took her away.
Lillian turned to the crowd, raising her voice so everyone could hear. “I need her,” she shouted. She stepped forward, stood in front of Chenoa, and raised her hands. “Listen to me—I need her.” The sound from the mob died down. “When we get to Bower City, we are going to be facing a force too large for us to conquer. That’s a fact. Our only hope is to use the last remaining bomb against the Hive, and Chenoa is the only person who knows how to detonate it safely.”
Surprise, confusion, even sounds of dismay arose from the mob.
“But Alaric promised the western city would be our home,” shouted one of the Outlanders.
“Mary promised us the same,” said a ranch hand. “What good is fighting the Hive if we’re just going to blow up the city when we get there? We’ll still have no place to live.”
“We came out here to fight for a home,” someone else added stridently, touching off an avalanche of responses.
Alaric stepped out next to Lillian and quieted the crowd. “Let us consult with the leaders from all factions before we make any decisions,” he said. “Everyone make camp until we’ve had a chance to discuss the best plan of action.”
The crowd began to disperse, but Lily could hear the grumbling and feel animosity mounting as they went.