Firewalker

by Josephine Angelini

… Who the hell is this guy telling me I can’t see Lily? After the crap I’ve gone through for her, and he’s saying I can’t come in? I tell him to get out of my way and he stops me. Damn, he moves fast. Wait—did I give him my name? How does he know my name is Tristan? There’s something so familiar about this guy. Rowan Fall. I’ve never seen him before in my life and right now he’s acting like he knows Lily better than I do. I should hit the bastard. How did he just block me? Wow. He’s really strong. Like, impossibly strong. He says something about Lily having been through a lot. He’s not lying. I can tell he really cares about her.

  … Rowan and Lily. I’m staring at how their bodies mirror the other’s movement, even when they aren’t looking at each other. They lean toward each other without even knowing it. They’re totally screwing. Oh my God, I lost her. I lost Lily twice. Once when I thought she was dead, and now because I know she loves him more than me. I can’t believe how much this hurts.

  I’m sorry I hurt you, Tristan.

  I hurt you first. Do I have any chance at all?

  Lily smiled sadly at him and shook her head. She released his willstone and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. Still deeply connected to Tristan, Lily felt an echo of her own lips touch her cheek. She also felt the regret that flooded Tristan as he realized how passionless, how sisterly, Lily’s kiss was.

  “Everyone should rest,” Rowan said gently. “I have a lot to teach you in the morning.”

  I don’t want to dream, Rowan. I’m scared Carrick will be there in the dark.

  I wish I could promise that my dreams will be safer for you, Lily, but I don’t think they will be tonight. The best I can do is promise that I won’t leave your side or let the fire go out.

  Lily stared at the flames in the fireplace, pulling the heat into her skin, as Rowan lay down and wrapped his arms comfortingly around her.

  * * *

  Lily awoke at dawn. She looked around the room at the cozy heaps of blankets and sleep-slackened limbs, listening to everyone breathe. The fire was banked low, but it still burned as Rowan had promised. She eased out of his arms and went to the window. The sky looked like lead, and the flat light seemed to drain hue from neutral tones and add intensity to bright ones, like a black-and-white film that had been painted over with splashes of color-saturated ink.

  She could feel him out there. Carrick was somewhere close by, watching the house.

  She felt Rowan wake up and heard him roll over to look at her. She turned to face him and for a moment saw herself as he saw her. She saw how she glowed ivory white and fire red in his mind. She was a thin thing, like a gleaming razor’s edge—deadly, not delicate.

  We should get started. Your new mechanics need a lot of work.

  Rowan got up and went to Lily first. He ran his hands down her bare arms and rested his lips against the top of her forehead, just below her hairline. He took a moment to pull warmth and energy directly from her skin, rather than using willstones. It was an intimate gesture, and Lily sensed that it had special meaning between a witch and her mechanic. As he soaked in a bit of Lily’s essence, she felt a bit of herself nestle deep inside his body. After only a few seconds he pulled away with a contented smile and went to the kitchen. Deliberately noisy clanks and slams soon followed, waking everyone else.

  “You’re a sadist,” Una groaned loudly in Rowan’s general direction. She and Breakfast untangled themselves from each other and sat up.

  Lily? Are you still there?

  I’m still here, Tristan.

  For a second I wondered if I’d dreamed it.

  Nope. You’re still mine.

  Tristan sat up and smiled at Lily, a wistful look on his face.

  “Breakfast and I have been talking,” Una said. She paused and wrinkled her nose. “Well, not actually talking. Mindspeaking? Anyway, we’ve decided that we want you to claim us, too, Lily.” Una looked down, grimacing bashfully. “I feel like I just asked you to the frigging prom.”

  Lily laughed. “It is a big deal. Bigger than prom, even. But don’t worry, Una. I’ve gotten really good at giving my claimed their space.”

  “And how many have you claimed?” Juliet asked, her expression troubled.

  “Over ten thousand,” Rowan answered. He’d silently joined the group from the kitchen, and everyone turned to face him. “Lily has an army in my world.”

  “Not by choice. It was a do-or-die situation, and out of that ten thousand only seven thousand survived the battle,” Lily said solemnly. “I have a lot to tell you all about what happened while I was gone. The easiest way would be for me to show you some of my memories.”

  Una and Breakfast exchanged a look, obviously engaged in mindspeak.

  “I want a willstone,” Juliet said suddenly. “I want a willstone and I want you to claim me, Lily. I know I probably won’t be much use to you—”

  “You’ll be very useful, Juliet,” Rowan said firmly. “But why don’t we eat first?”

  Samantha joined them, declaring that she felt clearheaded enough to work on her old potter’s wheel. While Samantha tried to get the feel of throwing clay again, Juliet bonded with a willstone and allowed herself to be claimed by Lily. Bonding was easy for Juliet because she would never connect with her willstone the way someone with magic would, but Rowan assured her that there were many things that she could still do with her willstone.

  Juliet’s memories were all familiar, even dear to Lily, and she decided to give back to her sister and share a few of her own memories. The two sisters suddenly burst out laughing over the time they decided to dig a swimming pool in the backyard.

  “We got halfway to China before Dad got home from work and caught us!” Lily roared with laughter.

  “Ooh, he was so mad,” Juliet said, wiping at her streaming eyes.

  “The backyard was trashed!” Lily had to put her hands on her knees, she was laughing so hard. “And there’s still a donut-shaped ditch back there.”

  “Good times,” Juliet said, winding down. Everyone stared at them, perplexed. “You had to be there,” she said.

  The moment of levity seemed to lighten everyone else’s mood. Breakfast grinned and said he wanted to be next, and understanding dawned on Lily.

  You did that to put Breakfast and Una at ease didn’t you, Juliet?

  Juliet smiled and shrugged impishly, refusing to admit anything in mindspeak.

  “Ready, Breakfast?” Lily asked, still smiling at her sister.

  “Let’s do this thing,” he replied, pumped up, like he was about to jump out of an airplane.

  Lily lightly touched his willstone and was swarmed with memories. They came so quickly that she could barely discern them, almost as if the floodgates had opened and Breakfast was completely spilling his guts. Lily could see how he had hidden behind his class-clown persona his whole life, never letting anyone get to know him. But ironically, the only thing he’d ever wanted was to be understood and loved for who he was, not who he pretended to be. His parents paid little attention to him. They didn’t care when he didn’t come home or even notice. Breakfast had always wanted someone to notice him. He wanted to belong.

  You will always belong now, Stuart. Tristan, Rowan, and Una are your family.

  Why aren’t you my family?

  Because I’m your home.

  Breakfast opened his eyes and grinned at Lily. She could feel the giddy playfulness of his nature like a burst of sweetness in her heart.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” he said cheerfully, and stepped aside for Una.

  Una stepped forward and swallowed hard, like her mouth was dry. Her hand shook as she gave Lily her willstone. Lily saw …

  … My mom’s gross new boyfriend. He waits for her to leave the room and then he slides closer to me. Too close. He puts his hand on my knee and pulls my legs apart. He says all he wants to do is look …

  It’s okay, Una. You don’t have to show me any more—ever—if you don’t want to. Is he still around?

  No. They only dated for
a few weeks and then he vanished.

  We can find him if you want. We can find him and punish him. Wait until you see what you can do. Once Rowan is done training you, you’ll never be a victim again.

  Una looked up and smiled at Rowan. “When do we start training?”

  “Now,” Rowan answered. He cleared everything off the floor of the living room and put down a square of black silk. “Tristan. Put more wood on the fire.”

  Tristan did as he was told, while Rowan went to get his pack from the closet. Una turned the pack over in her hands, enjoying the detailing. Lily noticed that Rowan had added some beadwork since the last time she saw it.

  “Lily. Sit in front of the fire. Everyone else sit around her in a semicircle, in the shape of a crescent moon,” Rowan instructed.

  He took the pack from Una and opened it, removing silver knives and laying them out in a pattern. Then he opened a pouch of salt and placed it close to Lily’s right hand.

  “Always offer your witch salt, and always keep salt on you.” Rowan’s eyes flicked up to Lily and he shared a flash memory of him cutting her hair in the woods. They shared a warm smile. “Don’t run out of it.”

  He kept emptying the pack, naming the different elements and herbs as he placed them on the black silk—chalk, iron, phosphorus, feverfew, chamomile, hyssop, and poppy. He only had small samples of each element or herb, but he had many different kinds of them.

  “You’ll all start carrying a pack like this with you wherever you go. Even when you go into battle, you’ll carry your silver knives on a special belt I’ll make you,” he told them. “From now on, you are a mechanic first and foremost. And a mechanic needs a kit.”

  The mechanics exchanged concerned looks at the mention of battle, which Rowan either missed or ignored.

  “Everything here can be ordered online, and you’ll know just by looking at a substance if it is potent. If it isn’t, send it back. Una. Look at these two chamomile flowers and tell me which is more potent,” Rowan said. Una inspected both and chose the one on the right. “Correct. Tristan? Find the most vital poppy seed.” Tristan carefully plucked one of the impossibly small specks out from the tiny pile of hundreds of seeds. “Correct,” Rowan said, smiling. “You will always select the best you have when making a potion before you offer it to your witch. Understood?” They all nodded. “The potions I will teach you one at a time. Today we’re going to start with a basic one that mends cuts.”

  “What? Like, instantly mends a cut?” Breakfast asked disbelievingly.

  Rowan took one of his silver knives and cut a long, shallow gash in the palm of his hand. While everyone gasped and moved toward him instinctively to help, Rowan calmly opened a small jar of salve with his uninjured hand and spread a faint green paste on the wound. He took a rag out of his pocket and wiped away the blood and salve. Underneath, the skin was perfect. It was as if he’d never been cut.

  “Superficial wounds are very easy to heal. As long as there is no damage to tendons, nerve, or bone, the skin cells are designed to mend themselves an uncountable number of times,” he said calmly. The neophytes stared slack-jawed at Rowan. “We start with shallow cuts and move up from there. As a witch’s mechanic, what you will be dealing with the most are burns.” He looked at Lily. “And burns are a bitch.”

  “You are such a badass,” Breakfast said, his timing priceless. Everyone laughed, releasing the tension.

  “Let’s get started,” Rowan said. “Juliet? Fill the cauldron.”

  The rest of the afternoon was spent making salve. The new mechanics only needed to see Rowan do it once to memorize every step in the process and store that memory away in their willstones.

  “This is cool and all, but what I want to know is when are we going to learn how to jump across rooftops?” Breakfast asked as he spooned salve out of the cauldron and into a small jar.

  Rowan looked out the window, his expression severe. “As soon as the sun goes down,” he answered.

  Are you sure they’re ready for that, Rowan?

  Ready or not, we don’t have any time to waste, Lily. Salve isn’t going to protect you from my half brother.

  At dusk, Rowan took them all down to the beach. The shore was cold, dark, and deserted. Right away Rowan placed the square of black silk on a rock and told Lily to sit. Then he had Tristan, Breakfast, Una, and Juliet start gathering driftwood for a bonfire.

  “Pile it up in front of Lily,” Rowan ordered.

  “What I want to know is when does Lily get off her butt and do some chores?” Tristan said, panting, as he dragged a gnarly stump of bleached wood up the beach. “I feel like I’ve been stacking wood and stoking fires all damn day while she just sits there.”

  Rowan gave Tristan a disapproving look. “It’s a mechanic’s privilege to serve his witch. We get back the energy we spend on her a hundredfold.”

  Lily sniffed snootily at Tristan and made a show of getting comfortable on her rock. He stifled a laugh and grumbled something that sounded like “insufferable,” then went back to work. When the fire was high, Lily stood up and faced it. All teasing and playfulness vanished from her demeanor. She held her hands toward the bonfire, sucking heat into her willstones, and a howling witch wind buffeted her on all sides, lifting her off the ground.

  The awed faces of her new mechanics tilted up as Lily soared ten feet into the air, her arms thrown out wide, and her hair streaming straight up in the column of witch wind that shrieked around her suspended silhouette like it was full of demons.

  Don’t give them the full Gift, Lily. They aren’t ready yet.

  For a moment, Lily wavered. She felt the hungry baby willstones tugging at hers, begging to be fed. The Gift was the name for the level of power used in warrior magic, and in Rowan’s world it was the test that separated the crucibles from the witches. Only a witch could give the Gift. Lily suspected the Gift not only fueled her vessels with god-like strength, but that it also filled them with a berserker fearlessness that sent them running, exultant, into battle. Receiving any level of energy from a witch was always a thrill, but the Gift was more than that. It made warfare transcendent, especially for the witch. The temptation to possess her vessels and Gift them—to send them leaping and screaming down the dark beach in chaotic rapture—was almost irresistible.

  Don’t do it, Lily.

  She looked down at Rowan’s face, which was looking knowingly up at hers. A spark of rebellion flared inside her. Who was he to tell her what to do? She was the witch. He was her mechanic. She would do as she pleased.

  With no one to fight, they’ll turn on one another, Lily. They don’t know how to channel it like I do. Gift me alone if you need to feel it, but not them.

  She wanted to tell Rowan that she didn’t “need” anything, but she couldn’t. He was right. She felt a craving for violence, and she hated it. More, she hated that Rowan had found her weakness and called her out on it. Lily fought to control herself and took deep breaths until she was calm enough to feed each of her mechanic’s willstones a moderate amount of power. It wasn’t euphoric like the Gift, but she still reveled with them in the glorious sensation.

  Great bubbles of laughter rose up in the air around her as the mechanics began to chase one another around the bonfire. They threw their arms up and hooted at the stars as they jumped ten, twenty, then thirty feet skyward, waving at Lily when they passed by her in midair.

  As the fuel of the fire was consumed, the witch wind died down, and Lily sank to the ground. Her mechanics started whirling around the pit, throwing more driftwood on the flames, shouting and stomping their feet. They wanted more.

  Lily. Control them so I can teach them how to fight.

  She reached out to her mechanics and gathered the individual threads of their consciousnesses, uniting them. Like separate spokes on a wheel they were joined inside the circle of her mind, and could communicate with one another through her.

  Listen to Rowan, she told them. Do exactly as he says.

  “Tristan. S
tep forward,” Rowan commanded. Tristan met him face-to-face. “Hit me.”

  Tristan looked over his shoulder at Lily, confusion widening his eyes.

  “Do it,” Lily said.

  Tristan threw a punch, and Rowan easily deflected it. “Use the speed and strength Lily is giving you. Come on, Tristan. A witch’s power isn’t just for dancing around bonfires. It’s for fighting. Stop squandering what she’s given you.”

  Tristan circled in, angry at being scolded by Rowan. Rowan used that anger and directed Tristan’s movement, correcting his stance and his balance. Lily heard Rowan feeding instructions to Tristan, Breakfast, Una, and Juliet through her mind. Every blindingly fast combination of punches and blocks was broken down and analyzed by Rowan at the speed of thought. It was a much more efficient way for him to teach the new mechanics than by speaking aloud. Through Lily, Rowan simply placed the fruits of his vast experience directly into their heads, and she finally understood why he was so coveted by every witch in Lillian’s world—why witches and crucibles literally threw themselves at him in nightclubs, and why Nina and Esmeralda had been so jealous when they found out that he’d given himself to another witch. Rowan could tip the balance. With him to teach an army how to fight, any witch could conquer the world.

  “Good,” Rowan said after half an hour of sparring. “Una. Step forward.”

  Una faced Rowan with trepidation. “Not the face, okay? I’ve never done this before and you are scary good,” she said.

  “I’ve had a lot of practice,” Rowan replied, smiling to put her at ease. “But we’re not going to spar. The best strategy for your body type is to get in quick, go for an eye gouge or break a finger, and get out.”

  “I can do that,” Una said easily.

  “I know. You’ve got grit,” Rowan replied. He looked at Breakfast and Juliet, both of whom had turned a little green at the mention of gouged-out eyes. “Everyone will have their own strategy. Tristan is a big guy, bigger than most, so a standup style is to his advantage. Una is little—but not squeamish. There’s an ambush style my people use that I’ll teach her.” To illustrate what he meant, Rowan used Lily to pass on an image of a ninja-like fighter to everyone. They all saw a small, nimble person climb up someone’s back to slit his throat and then jump down and crouch low to spin across the floor, slicing the Achilles tendons of other enemies. “You strike first, strike to disable or maim, and then clear out. It’s not pretty, but it is very effective.”