Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker 3)

They’d been shopping half the day and stopping at cafés for cool drinks and tapas. Now, nearing the end of the day, Lily found herself alone with Toshi. Una was getting the pedicure she’d been longing for, Juliet a massage, and the guys sat for proper haircuts that were done with scissors instead of belt knives.

Rowan wasn’t with them. He’d said he’d had a witch shower him with gifts before and that it hadn’t ended well. Then he wandered off on his own, leaving the rest of them to take a little less pleasure from the pampering.

Lily looked down at her packages with an odd detachment. After months on the road, saying no to new clothes was not practical. It felt wrong to be out shopping, but if the clothes were a little less fine, or the surroundings a little less opulent, it wouldn’t make the dead come back to life. Lily looked out the window at the sparkling day. It was easy to forget about death here. Bower City didn’t do gloomy or rainy or sad. It didn’t dirty its head with the ashes of mourning. It had one bright cheery note, and everyone was forced to sing it.

Toshi and Lily stepped off the trolley and he led her into a scent bar. Lily figured if she was expected to wear perfume, she might as well pick out something she liked enough to wear every day. An elegant woman, dark skinned and dressed in a sari, stood behind the bar waiting to be of assistance but too refined to inject herself into their browsing.

“Do you have those a lot?” Toshi asked as he slid a glass rod out of a crystal bottle filled with a honey-colored liquid.

“A lot of what?” Lily asked.

“Strange dreams.” He dabbed one drop of the liquid onto a strip of paper, let it dry, and waved it under Lily’s nose. She breathed in bergamot and blood orange.

“All the time.” She shook her head at the scent. “Too sweet.” Toshi moved down the bar and lifted a glass rod from another jar.

“After what you’ve been through—” He broke off. “I can’t imagine it. To go out among the Woven, into the unknown. No map. No idea of what’s out there—mountains, deserts, uncrossable rivers.” He waved the strip under Lily’s nose. Lemon and verbena quickened her thoughts.

Ah, actually, we sort of knew how to get to California. I’m not exactly Sacajawea, she thought, suppressing a grin. But there was no one to tell that joke to. Tristan would have gotten it.

“You’re sad again,” Toshi noticed.

Lily didn’t reply and moved down the row. She lifted the next rod for herself. It was a powdery grandma smell. She dropped it immediately and decided to follow Toshi’s cues instead.

“Have you always been adventurous?” he asked, dabbing another strip of paper with scent.

“Not at all! In fact most of my life I couldn’t go anywhere. The most exciting thing that happened to me was a trip to the hospital.” Lily breathed in Christmas. Gingersnap and snow. “I like this one,” she said about the scent, “but it’s not for me.”

“What’s for you?” he said musingly. “You’re a woman who goes from happy to sad in a second. A woman who claims to be unadventurous, who’s just had the adventure of a lifetime. You’re a powerful woman who I could toss into the air with one hand.” He shifted closer, his face dipping toward hers. “What’s for you?”

Lily looked down and shook her head. “I’m not who you think I am, Toshi.”

“No one’s who we think they are,” he said, waving a dismissive hand in the air.

He drew a rod out of a tiny glass jar that had only a few drops of a dark and unctuous liquor. The sales woman stiffened, about to say something, but Toshi smiled and nodded at her.

He didn’t waste any of the precious liquid on a strip of paper, but waved the rod under Lily’s nose. Smoke and spice. Bruised-to-sweetness sap bled from a young tree. Salt. And something underneath it all—something animal and almost revolting that she couldn’t place and couldn’t stop smelling. She inhaled it over and over, unable to pull herself away.

“Now tell me why you’re sad.”

Lily opened her eyes and saw Toshi watching her with concern. She swallowed. “I lost someone.” The grief and guilt trembled right behind the words, which she spoke as plainly as possible to keep herself from bursting into tears. “He died to protect me.”

“Did you love him?” Toshi whispered.

“Of course.”

“Then lucky him.” He tore his gaze away from Lily and looked up at the saleswoman. “We’ll take a twenty-fourth of this,” he said crisply.

Lily cocked her head at him. “You do that a lot,” she remarked.

“Do what?”

“End the moment before it gets old. Or out of your control.”

Toshi nodded pensively. “I’ve learned not to wait for applause. For anything.”

“You’ve got a story,” Lily said, half smiling.

“Some other time,” he replied, his expression darkening.