The shaman nods, but he won’t look at me or reply.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I ask, unable to accept his indifference. “If we keep seeking a miracle solution for the Woven on other worlds, we could end up a cinder world like them. That’s how it happens, and I think that’s how it always happens on the cinder worlds. They start off thinking they’re doing good—”
“I understand what you’re saying, but it’s too late,” he says, cutting me off. “We must press on.”
“No,” I say, my brow furrowing with dismay. “I won’t do it. And I forbid you from continuing this madness with another witch. I’ll imprison you if I have to. I’ll throw you in the deepest oubliette I can find—don’t think I won’t just because I care for you.”
“I’ve never doubted your ferocity. Your will to do what’s necessary. Will is what makes a great witch, and I believe you’ll prove to be the greatest witch in history, Lillian,” he says softly, finally meeting my eyes. I don’t think he’s ever used my given name before and it startles me, as does the look in his eyes. There is as much death in his face as I suspect there is in mine. “But it’s too late. I’ve already stolen from other worlds.”
I stare at him. The room seems to fall into a hole. “What did you steal?”
“Equations. Plans. Schemes for building devices and power plants. Everything I could see or read on a spirit walk and then copy down later on the subject of elemental energy,” the shaman said in a dull voice. “It took decades. And it turns out it’s much easier to build bombs with this kind of energy than it is to build a power plant, like I’d originally hoped.” He swipes a weary hand across his face. “I started stealing to find another power source for the Outlanders so we could drag ourselves out of poverty. So we could have electricity and build cities of our own—anything to sever our dependence on the witches who treated us like we were less than human. I didn’t mean for them to turn it into a bomb.” He turns his eyes on me, pleading. “You believe me, don’t you? I never meant for them to make bombs.”
My hand shoots out and I slap him, trying to knock the words back into his mouth. It doesn’t work, but I slap him again anyway. He takes my wrists in his hands, gently pushing my arms down.
“If that would help, I’d gladly let you beat me to death,” he says.
“Who else knows?” I demand, my voice low and shaky. “Who have you told?”
“For years I’ve been giving all the numbers and drawings to a woman of my people who understands them. Her name is Chenoa Longshadow.”
“Professor Longshadow?” I say, nearly shouting. “Head of the department of Fundamental Laws of Nature at my college?”
“She’s been using your laboratories, your resources, and your students at the school to develop what I’ve stolen. She has two students in particular—acolytes, really.”
“Who are they?” I ask, my lips twisting into a snarl.
“I don’t know their names. Alaric keeps the particulars compartmentalized—even from us who are most involved. We each just know bits. All I know is that Chenoa has two students who’re special. They know everything she knows, just in case something happens to her.”
I’d never interfered with the science department at my college, and in fact, I’d never even met Chenoa. Never toured her labs. Never took the time to concern myself with anything except student enrollment. I thought it was my job to bring as many of the disenfranchised to my school as possible, and to fight for their right to an education before the Council and in the Coven. The actual schooling I left to the professors.
“I trusted them to teach,” I say feebly.
“She did teach. She taught Outlanders to hate the Covens,” he says. “And for the past two years she’s been using your money and your laboratories to make and store parts of the bombs.”
“But I was trying to help.” My eyes dance around frantically, not really seeing anything. “How could they?”
“Did you really think one little school was going to erase centuries of injustice?” he asks, an eyebrow raised. “Too many Outlanders have watched their children starve to death or die in the mines or be torn apart by the Woven for too long. That kind of bone-deep hatred doesn’t just disappear because one witch builds a school.”
I’ve never felt such a weight pressing down on me. I feel so sick I’d vomit again if there were anything left in me but bile.
“I won’t let her,” I whisper.
“How can anyone undo what’s already been done?” The shaman shakes his head sadly. “The only way to stop the Outlanders now is to give them another way to get rid of the Woven. If we do that, I know Alaric will abandon elemental energy.”
“Alaric Windrider? The sachem who has sworn to destroy me?” I say incredulously.
“He’s not a madman,” the shaman insists.
“But he can’t use elemental energy against the Woven,” I object, confused. “He’d have to bomb the whole continent. I understand this energy—every witch knows what powers the sun and the stars—and I tell you it causes more damage than the enemy you would use it against.”
“He doesn’t want to use the bombs against the Woven. He wants to use them against the Thirteen Cities.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“What choice do we have? The Covens won’t allow Outlanders to own property and build walled cities of our own. If we continue having to fight both the Woven and the laws of the cities, the Outlanders will die out. Our very existence is at stake, Lillian. What would you do if you were caught between hammer and anvil as we are? If we can’t get rid of the Woven, Alaric will get rid of the cities.”
“I can’t make the Council and the other twelve Covens change the law!” I shout defensively. “I’ve tried! I only have so much power, shaman, and quite frankly too many people make too much money off the mines that the Outlanders work.”
“The mines the Outlanders die in,” the shaman corrects quietly. “You need us to be poor so you can get rich. Is it any wonder some of my people want to see every single one of the cities burn?”
“So what’s stopping them?”
“The bombs aren’t finished,” the shaman admits. “We need to find a way to get rid of the Woven before those bombs are complete or Alaric will blow you to hell.”
Seconds crawl by, each getting heavier than the last. I’ve never thought of time as having mass before, but it does. When time slows down it takes on so much weight that even one second could drag a star down into darkness.
“Are the bomb parts still in my school?” I ask calmly.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He makes a frustrated sound. “You’re focusing on the wrong thing. No one person knows where all the bomb parts are except Alaric. You gotta focus on finding the world that got rid of the Woven to end this.”
“Getting rid of the Woven isn’t going to stop Alaric and Chenoa now,” I reply. “They’ll just wait until after I deliver the Woven solution, and then they’ll use their bombs. Not because it makes sense, but because they hate us. You said it yourself. They want to see the cities burn. I’ve seen what elemental energy does to cities. I’ve lived it, and I know there’s only one way to keep the Outlanders from detonating your stolen poison.”
“What are you talking about, girl?” the shaman asks fearfully. But he knows. He’s not naive. “Look, there’s no telling how many students, teachers, and science-minded folk Chenoa has shown a little bit of this and a little bit of that over the years. It could be hundreds of people.”
I am dead inside already. I’ve let go, like a child letting go of a beautiful birthday balloon. It was only ever full of air, anyway. All that’s left for me to do is clean up the mess.
I’ll save as many as I can by killing the rest.
CHAPTER
9
Lily had a vague sense that she was moving. She felt a steady flow of air rushing over her singed skin and the occasional jolt of a misstep. She was having trouble catching her breath and, as she wiped away the
cobwebs still connecting her mind to Lillian’s memory, she realized she was having trouble breathing because she was slung over someone’s shoulder.
“I think she’s coming around,” Breakfast whispered frantically.
Lily peeled her eyes open and saw a chaotic mix of upside-down limbs and woodland landscape bouncing around as if someone had thrown her in a dryer. She propped herself up against Rowan’s back and saw Breakfast’s panicked face huffing and puffing as he ran through the milky light of a snowy dawn.
The world righted itself as Rowan swung Lily around and looked in her eyes. “There you are,” he said, relieved. He was still running and he suddenly ducked, careening to his knees as he clasped Lily painfully to his chest. “Everyone down,” he ordered.
The little group huddled together against the rocky side of a cliff. The trees were bigger here, and the air crisper, but even with these differences Lily recognized this cliff. They were at the Witch Caves—they just weren’t at the Witch Caves in Lily’s world. It always stunned Lily how quickly a memory exchange could happen when the memory itself seemed to last ages. She felt like she had been inside Lillian’s memory for at least half an hour, but only minutes had passed.
“Shh,” Rowan breathed. His eyes went up to the treetops. Lily huddled close to his chest and looked at the faces of her coven, wild-eyed and bleached white with cold and terror. Rowan’s head snapped around, and then Lily heard it—a hooting, bellowing sound echoed through the forest. “Woven,” he whispered. “Simians.”
Lily saw the trees shake. She heard the crack of brittle branches as the animal calls rose to a frenzied chorus. They were surrounded.
“Breakfast, get a fire going,” Rowan said. There was no point in whispering now. “Lily, we need your strength. Can you handle this?”
“I’m okay,” she lied. “Light the fire.”
Rowan nodded once and looked at Tristan and Una. “Take off whatever clothes you don’t want torn to shreds,” he said, shucking off his jacket and shirt. Too confused and frightened to question him, Tristan and Una did as he said.
Breakfast led Lily back into the boulders strewn about the bottom of the cliff. He tucked her among the stones as deeply as he dared, trying to provide as much cover as he could without hemming Lily in with so much granite that it would block her connection to her mechanics. Tristan, Una, and Rowan took position between them and the Woven. Breakfast kicked the snow aside with the edge of his boot and gathered what leaves and twigs he could and put them in a pile. He cussed a blue streak as match after match fizzled in the icy tinder.
“Breakfast?” Tristan said uncertainly over his shoulder as he watched the shadows in the treetops loom nearer.
Breakfast’s f-bombs rained down on the tinder with more fervor, and somewhere between the matches and his explosive language a spark managed to catch as a dark body dropped from the trees and swung on huge knuckles toward Lily’s three warriors.
“Sweet jeezus,” Tristan whispered, his mind struggling to come to grips with the monster in front of him.
Lily had never seen a simian Woven before, either. It looked mostly ape-like with its hulking shoulders, long arms, and short legs, but snake scales flashed between the clumps of longhaired fur and a forked tongue spilled out of its fanged mouth as it roared. Two more dark shapes thudded to the ground and barreled up behind their leader, hooting with excitement.
“Oh, please,” Lily begged, staring at the tiny flame Breakfast was nurturing, wishing she could make it grow faster. It still wasn’t large enough for her to harvest any strength from it.
The simian Woven roared again, and Rowan charged out, howling like a wild animal himself, to meet it. The Woven balked. Lily felt intelligence inside of it as it knuckled around Rowan in a circle, sizing up this smaller but fiercer opponent. Rowan didn’t back down or show even a flash of fear, although Lily could feel how terrified he was. Four more Woven dropped from the trees and crashed forward through the snow and underbrush to flank Lily’s pitifully outnumbered coven.
Tristan and Una managed to gather themselves after the initial shock of seeing their first Woven and charged forward, trying to mimic Rowan’s battle cry as bravely as they could. Rowan never took his eyes off the leader.
“Stand back, Breakfast,” Lily whispered. If the fire wasn’t large enough by now, it would be too late anyway. Lily took a deep breath, pulling heat into her already-singed skin. A clap of air threw Lily skyward and kept her there, suspended in a pillar of moaning witch wind while she transmuted heat into force and fed it to her mechanics.
Their willstones gorged on the full power of the Gift. Breakfast rooted himself staunchly under Lily’s dangling feet while Rowan, Tristan, and Una swept forward and attacked the Woven in a blur of flashing knives and bloodlust. A part of Lily went out with them. She could feel their bodies moving, leaping, and stretching as if she were wearing their physiques over hers like a cloak. She could feel her strength filling them up and spilling over into an ecstasy of rage. They slashed, tore, and crushed the Woven beneath them in seconds.
And right on the edge of her mind was that creeping temptation to take over her claimed completely—to possess every bit of them, even their dreams.
Rein it in, Lily. You must be strong and control it, or we’ll turn on one another.
Lily’s insides squirmed with guilt.
I will. I’m sorry, Rowan.
I understand—I really do. But you must not let it swallow you whole.
Lily released the loop of power and dropped into Breakfast’s outstretched arms, limp as a rag doll. She was so tired and injured from the pyre that she could barely lift her head. Her mechanics gathered around the fire while Breakfast gently laid her on the ground. Tristan and Una were stark white under the livid streaks of blood painting their nearly naked bodies. They shook with shock over what they had faced, but more so over what they had done.
“Tristan. Una. Start gathering all the body parts and pile them away from the cliffs,” Rowan said gently. “More Woven will come to scavenge the dead.”
Tristan and Una blindly followed Rowan’s order. Rowan turned to Breakfast. “Well done,” he said. “It takes a strong man to resist and stay behind. Not many can do it.”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Breakfast replied, a watery smile tilting his lips.
Rowan laughed under his breath while he rubbed his bloody hands in the snow to clean them. “Climb the cliff and scout out a cave for us to sleep in tonight. Light a fire when you get up there. Watch out for Woven along the way.”
“Breakfast, wait,” Lily said. She transmuted a little more energy for him to take with him on the climb. “Be safe.” He gave her a shaky look, then vaulted up the icy cliff face.
Rowan took his cauldron from his pack and started scooping snow into it. He put the snow-filled cauldron on the fire and stared at it while he rubbed salve onto Lily’s singed skin. Luckily this time she was not too badly burned.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, staring at the melting snow in the cauldron. “You need salt.”
“Not yet,” she whispered, every muscle relaxing under his hands. “Too tired.”
“They did well.”
“They’re scared out of their minds.”
He paused before responding, the fire popping and sending sparks and smoke up into the early morning light. “They should be.”
When Tristan and Una returned, Rowan told them to drink from the cauldron first, and to the use the rest of the water to wash before they put their outer clothes back on. Blood would attract scavengers. They silently obeyed him, relieved to have someone to take charge and tell them what to do. Lily could feel that they were on the edge of losing it, and the last thing they needed was too much time to stop and think. The group struck camp, climbed the cliff, and joined Breakfast in one of the Witch Caves. They piled into one big heap and fell into an exhausted sleep together.
When Lily awoke, she could hear urgent whispers. Tristan and Una were sitting by the
fire in the mouth of the cave, talking. Lily could feel that Rowan and Breakfast were not with them.
“They’ve been gone too long,” Una said.
“Rowan knows what he’s doing,” Tristan replied. “He’ll look out for Breakfast while they hunt. I guess we’re all going to need to learn how to hunt and gather now.”
“Yeah. This is our life now,” she said, incredulous. Una sighed. “I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe what I did,” she said.
“I know,” Tristan replied in a leaden tone. “I tore one of them apart with my bare hands.”
“Me too.” Una pulled her knees against her chest, hugging herself tightly. “And it felt so good,” she said, her voice small.
Tristan nodded. “If it had been a person in front of me I would have done the same.” He groaned. “I’ve never felt anything like that. Never felt so”—he paused, searching for the right word—“fulfilled. And I hate this about myself, but I want more.”
“I know. I’m disgusted with myself, but I crave it, too. All that power. Tristan, are we sick?” she asked tremulously.
“No, you’re not sick,” Lily said, sitting up. She stood and joined them by the fire. “The Gift is what it is. It’s always a struggle not to give in to it.”
“What’s it like for you?” Tristan asked, a curious smile narrowing his blue eyes.
Lily swallowed. “I feel what all of you feel combined,” she replied, leaving out that she also felt the temptation to possess every one of them.
“So what’s it like fueling a whole army?” Una asked.
Lily thought about it, seeking the right way to put it. “Like being a mighty river, I guess. I could grind down mountains or wash whole cities out to sea. It’s a lot to take in.”
“If you’re the river, are we the fish?” Tristan guessed, smiling. Lily smiled back vaguely, not really agreeing or disagreeing. “You could show us, couldn’t you? You could share your memory of it with us,” he pressed.
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