Trial by Fire

by Josephine Angelini

  I wasn’t there for him, Lily.

  … Elias lies in the alley. He’s not moving. They tried to take him to get to me, to make me submit. Help me, Rowan. There are too many of them.

  I’m so sorry, Caleb.

  It’s happened to both of us, you know.

  … Rowan is bucking and screaming. I try to hold him back, try to pull him away through the crowd. Curses fling out of him, every one of them for Lillian, standing stock-still on the scaffolding next to the hanged body of his father. River Fall is dead. Rowan’s voice shreds through the silence of the crowd as he screams how much he hates her. None of it will bring his father back, but his vows to kill Lillian with his bare hands might just get him the noose, too. Tristan comes. Together, we drag Rowan away. I’m scared he’s going to hurt himself, so I don’t leave him all night, even though he struggles to get away. But no matter how hard I hold him down as he sobs, I know it won’t hold together everything that’s broken in him.

  Lily dropped Caleb’s stone as if it had burned her. She looked over at Rowan.

  “Hey!” Rowan exclaimed, stepping forward to catch Caleb as he fainted. Lily put up her hands just in time, and together, she and Rowan guided Caleb’s slack body to the floor. “You can’t just tear yourself away from that kind of deep contact with someone, Lily.”

  “I didn’t know,” she said, avoiding his eyes. She couldn’t look at him. “I didn’t know,” she repeated, seeing a black-haired man dangling lifeless from the end of a rope.

  * * *

  Lily and Caleb sat next to each other on the floor of the kitchen. Caleb didn’t want to be healed, he just wanted to sit in the dark with his back up against the refrigerator for a while. There was a lamp on in the next room, sending cutouts of light and shadow through the legs of the kitchen table and chairs toward them. Neither felt like getting up and joining the others.

  “They need us to love other people,” Caleb said, breaking the long silence.

  “Who are they?” Lily asked quietly.

  “The Citadel—the Council, the Covens, Lillian and her army. And I almost allowed myself to be a part of it.” Caleb shook his head bitterly. “You know I was accepted as a mechanic when I was seven and given citizenship? When I was eleven, I dropped out. I didn’t want to be claimed and become a puppet. A witch’s fist. That’s what we Outlanders call mechanics.” Caleb glanced at Lily, smiling sadly. “The Citadel needs another way to control people like me. Lillian needs our permission in order to take over our willstones and rummage through our minds until she get names out of us. So she finds out who we love the most and hurts them until we submit. At least, Elias didn’t have to go through that.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Lily said, squeezing Caleb’s hand. “Is that what happened with Rowan and his father?”

  “That was different.” Caleb looked at Lily. “Did you know he was a doctor?” Lily nodded and Caleb continued. “River Fall was in my father’s tribe. That’s how Rowan and I know each other. We’ve always been friends, even after I left the Citadel and returned to my people. Everyone respected River Fall. Loved him, even. Lillian didn’t have to kill him. He wasn’t a rebel. All he wanted to do was help sick people who couldn’t afford a witch’s magic. But when she outlawed being a doctor, she went after River first.”

  “Why?” Lily asked. She remembered the elders’ bowed heads at even the mention of River Fall. “Why him first when so many loved him?”

  “To make her point,” Caleb said. “She did it so everyone in the Thirteen Cities would know that no one, not even the father of the person she loved most in the world, would be spared. And for the most part, it worked,” he said with a sad shrug that rolled his gigantic shoulders. “When people heard that she’d hanged River Fall, everyone in the Thirteen Cities fell in line. The other Covens, the Council, everyone.”

  “In line?”

  “With her doctrine. No science. No research. No inquiry. Witchcraft is the one true way.” Caleb laughed bitterly. “In a way, killing River Fall was the dumbest thing Lillian ever did. It left a lot of people with no choice but to join Alaric. All the Outlander tribes, city-bred teachers and doctors, and a lot of people who were just plain angry or scared, came from all over to pledge their lives to Alaric’s cause. Including Rowan, Tristan, and me.”

  “Is that when the three of you touched stones?” Lily guessed.

  “Right after Rowan had bonded with his second stone,” he said, nodding. “We became stone kin that night.”

  Lily’s mind was still entangled with Caleb’s from their claiming ceremony, and she caught glimpses of Tristan and Rowan from over the past year. Tristan and Caleb had worked hard to keep Rowan from falling to pieces after losing his father and Lillian, and they were there for him when he smashed his first stone. Lily saw a skinny body sweating under a sheet as Rowan wasted away for weeks in agony. She saw Tristan helping Caleb as the two of them brought Rowan back to health slowly, lovingly. Like true brothers.

  That time together had brought the three of them together quickly. Lily had always known the bond between the three men was strong, but now she understood just how strong. They would die for each other. And they had grown that close because of what Lillian had done to Rowan.

  “How can Rowan think I’m anything like Lillian?” Lily asked. “She’s evil.”

  Caleb’s eyes narrowed in thought. “You have her strength of mind, Lily. When you believe in something, you follow through, whatever it takes. He loves that about you. And it scares him to pieces.”

  Lily rubbed Caleb’s meaty hand in hers and let her head tilt back and rest against the refrigerator, thinking about why Lillian had chosen her out of the infinite number of versions of them available. She decided that there was one thing Lillian must not have considered—that strength of mind works both ways. If Lillian would do anything to follow through with her beliefs, so would Lily. And what Lily believed now was that Lillian had to be stopped.

  “She’s dying, Caleb. I’m sorry it wasn’t in time to save Elias.” Lily’s throat caught as one of Caleb’s memories of Elias, laughing on a summer day by a lake, flashed through her mind. Elias. He shone like the sun. Losing him cut into Lily as if she’d loved him her whole life. As Caleb had. “But trust me. It’ll be over soon.”

  Even if I have to kill her myself.

  * * *

  “Slow down, Lillian,” Juliet said anxiously. She tried to take a hold of her sister’s arm as they flew down the dungeon stairs, but Lillian yanked it away.

  “Don’t fuss, Juliet. I feel better than I’ve felt in ages,” Lillian said, her eyes gleaming.

  The robe she’d thrown on over her nightgown was untied, and Juliet could easily see a red flush sweeping up her sister’s pale chest and the dewy sheen of a fever sweat forming on her cheeks. Lillian was too excited to realize that she shouldn’t be out of bed, but Juliet knew there was no stopping her now. Citadel soldiers had just brought in the three scientists Michael Snowshower had named, and they were waiting in the dungeon below the keep.

  “This could be the end of it,” Lillian whispered hopefully.

  Juliet had no idea what her sister was talking about, but she didn’t bother asking. She was too worried that the flickering torchlight would make one or both of them miss a step and go tumbling down the spiraling granite staircase to spare a thought for her sister’s obsession. And obsession was the only word for it.

  Since the three scientists—Hakan, Keme, and Chenoa—had been named, Lillian had hunted them with every resource at her disposal. She’d claimed Michael Snowshower and dug through his mind for any information about the unlucky three. She’d sent out spies, restricted access in and out of the city, and raided every known Outlander caravan from Salem to Richmond. She was so consumed in the hunt she’d even seemed to have forgotten about Lily, although Juliet hadn’t. She thought about Lily all the time.

  “Lady,” chorused the soldiers. They stood at attention when she swept into the guardroom at the center of the
star-shaped passageways that radiated out to the prisoner’s cells.

  “Captain. Where are they?” Lillian asked, barely containing her eagerness.

  The captain led them to a nearby cell. Lillian waved her hand at the wall sconces and they burst into flame, revealing two men and one woman behind the bars. She smiled with relief. She’d seen their faces in Snowshower’s mind and knew that her soldiers had found the right scientists.

  “Hakan, the builder,” Lillian said, her eyes trained on a dark man in his early thirties. “Keme, the problem solver,” she said, turning her gaze on a frightened young man. Despite the fact that he had an old Outlander name, he was fair-haired and light-eyed like a citizen. Juliet guessed that he couldn’t be much older than her twenty years. Lillian repositioned herself and made one of the sconces flare more brightly for a moment, illuminating the woman. “And Chenoa, the dreamer.”

  Lillian stared at Chenoa the longest. She was the most important. She was older, and looked close to fifty. Her cinnamon-colored skin was creased with thick lines around her eyes and mouth, and her black hair was shot through with white. She was a little thing, but her presence seemed to fill up the whole cell. She looked back at Lillian, her eyes narrowing as she assessed the Salem Witch.

  “Have them separated, Captain,” Lillian ordered, suddenly turning away. “Put them all on different levels of the dungeon and make sure their cells are on opposite ends of the passageways—as far away from each other as possible.” Lillian looked back at Chenoa. “She goes on the lowest level.”

  Juliet hurried after Lillian, feeling relieved. “So you’ll have your Coven make the medicine for the Outlanders now?” she asked. Lillian remained silent. “Would you like me to get word to Nina to start work on that, or do you feel strong enough to do it yourself? I know yours would be better than hers, but maybe you need to rest?”

  “Juliet,” Lillian said, stopping on the stairs and turning to look down at her. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “What are you talking about?” Juliet said, her voice dropping. A knot was forming in her chest. “You promised.”

  Lillian’s face was as smooth as glass. “You think that medicine will go to heal children—and some of it will—but you must know that some of it will also go to warriors. Alaric’s savages are going to try to get Chenoa, Hakan, and Keme back. The more of them that die of fever, the fewer of them will be left to kill my soldiers.”

  “But, you said—”

  “Stop it, Juliet. You can’t possibly be that naive,” she said impatiently. “What I’m doing will save the lives of the men and women who defend this city.”

  “At the cost of how many innocent Outlander lives?” Juliet fired back. She stared at her sister, as if seeing her for the first time. “You’re a liar.”

  “I’m much worse than that.” Lillian looked away for a moment, and Juliet saw that flicker inside of her again—that inner turmoil that Juliet could nearly hear even without mindspeak.

  “Do these three scientists mean so much to you that you’d allow tens of thousands to die? They’re children,” Juliet said, choking on the word.

  Lillian didn’t respond.

  “Who are you?” Juliet swept past Lillian, leaving her to struggle up the treacherous staircase alone.

  * * *

  They had to spend the next few days hiding out at the safe house. Since the fight in the alley, Rowan’s apartment had been crawling with Citadel soldiers, and they’d had to abandon it and move in with Esmeralda. She brought them supplies and even gave Lily a few of her own dresses to wear. Lily tried to reach out to her, feeling badly about how she had treated her on their first meeting, but Esmeralda was slow to thaw and never really warmed up to her.

  Every day, they went down into the tunnel to rebuild the collapsed passage as carefully as they could. They brought candles and Lily sat close to their lambent light, channeling energy into Caleb and Rowan. With Lily’s assistance, they could pick up huge boulders with one hand and carry them out silently, one by one. It was slow work, not because the earth was difficult to move with so much strength flowing into them, but because they didn’t dare do anything that would disturb the seismic wards above. They couldn’t even talk aloud or tread heavily while they were underground.

  For Lily, it was like living in a grave. There were many times she felt panic steal her breath and she’d have to rush out—back up through the hatch and into the sunlight. Fear of the dark, confined space wasn’t the only thing Lily had to contend with. She was more exhausted every day. The guys got their energy from her, and even though she was the one sitting while they worked, Lily was the one who ended up feeling drained by it.

  The enforced silence of the hideout left Tristan outside Lily’s reach for many hours a day. He could mindspeak with Caleb and Rowan, and they could relay his thoughts to her, but it wasn’t the same. Not only was Tristan unable to work without tiring the way Rowan and Caleb could with Lily fueling them, but he was also cut off from her in a way they weren’t, and when the workday was done, she was usually too tired to spend any time with him. Tristan was getting left out, and tension had begun to build between him and Rowan. By the end of the third day, Tristan had had enough.

  “I want everyone to hear this,” Tristan said, breaking out of mindspeak with Rowan. “I want Lily to claim me. It doesn’t make sense for me to be blundering around down there without her strength.”

  “We’ll be through it in another day. Don’t, Tristan.” Rowan wasn’t pleading, he was ordering.

  “Why not?” Lily asked. “We should have done this weeks ago, when you two first started teaching me. Why are you so against me claiming him?”

  Rowan didn’t answer.

  “Because he thinks we need someone outside your influence, just in case,” Tristan said.

  “In case of what?” Lily asked. Fatigue finally made her lose her temper. “In case I suddenly turn psycho and start hanging everyone else’s fathers?” Rowan looked at Lily, his mouth parted in shock. “Rowan,” Lily began, knowing she had gone too far. He turned and left the room before she could continue.

  She stood very still for a moment, hoping that if she didn’t move she could somehow figure out a way to take back what she’d said, then darted after him, following him upstairs. He’d shut the door to the room he, Tristan, and Caleb had been using as theirs. Lily knocked, but he didn’t answer.

  Rowan. Let me in.

  Get out of my head, Lily.

  No. We need to talk.

  There’s nothing I want to say to you.

  “Open the damn door before I kick it in,” Lily said, her voice louder than it should be.

  The door flew open. Rowan grabbed her, pulled her into his room, and slammed the door behind her. He was so angry he was shaking.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said, meaning it with her whole heart.

  She opened her feelings up to him, the way he had when he’d apologized to her. She showed him a fragment of Caleb’s memory, one of Rowan crying, and she let him feel how ashamed she was for being so careless about something that meant so much. He looked surprised for a moment, and then all his anger left him in a rush.

  “When did it happen?” she asked.

  “Seven months ago,” he replied, his voice low. “I begged her.” Lily felt a flash of desperation and disbelief—his feelings when he pleaded for his father’s life. “But she’d made up her mind.”

  Rowan opened up a memory for Lily to share.

  … A courtroom. This farce of a trial is over and it devolves into a circus of people screaming and shouting around me. At the center of the chaos is Lillian. She just stands there—silent. She won’t let me in her head, won’t answer me, won’t acknowledge if she can feel my hurt. I send it all to her. I hope the hurt goes away soon and turns into hate. I let her know that, too. How I can’t wait to hate her …

  The betrayal Rowan had felt—and how staggeringly empty it had left him when he’d lost both his father and Lillian in one deva
stating moment—knocked the wind out of Lily. It was nothing like what had happened between Tristan and her. There was no comparing their betrayals. “How can you even stand to look at me?” she asked breathlessly.

  “That’s the problem. I should look at you and see her, but I don’t anymore. Not since we spent that night in the tree.” He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “You’d been in shock for days. I woke up the next morning, and you told a joke. You did that for me. To put me at ease so I’d worry less about you. You’re still the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, but you also admit when you’re wrong. You’re thoughtful and kind, Lily.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she said.

  He lifted his hand and touched her face, his fingers cupping the curve of her jaw. “Because I want to trust you. I want you to be everything I loved about her and nothing I hated. I want it so badly that I know I shouldn’t trust myself enough to trust you. But I guess I’m doing it anyway, even though I know you’re not staying.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “You want to go home. And when you’ve figured out how, you’re going to leave us, aren’t you?” Rowan ran his hand down her throat. His fingers slid lightly over her neck and collarbone, just barely touching the platinum edges of her willstones. Every place he touched tingled and tightened. She didn’t have an answer. Rowan suddenly released her and went to his bedroom door. “You need salt,” he said. “And I’m a bad mechanic for ignoring it.”

  Rowan took her hand and led her downstairs. She followed him clumsily, her knees still wobbly, not sure what had just happened between them. Caleb and Tristan were in the kitchen, about to sit down to dinner.

  “Oh good,” Caleb said. “No one’s bleeding.”