Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker 3)

“I thought you hated me for siding with Lillian,” Lily whispered, breaking the hum of attraction between them. She thought about the moment he tore her willstones from her neck. They were in such close contact that Rowan saw it, too.

“I never hated you,” he said, shaking his head. “As soon as I learned about the bombs and what they could do, I understood why Lillian started hunting scientists.” He pulled his lower lip through his teeth and continued haltingly. “She worldjumped to a place where the bombs had been used, didn’t she? That’s where she was for those three weeks she disappeared.”

“The shaman called them cinder worlds. There are a lot of them clustered around this world in the worldfoam. Similar universes are closer to one another, which mean most of the worlds like yours—where there are witches and Outlanders and Woven—have already been destroyed by someone who made the wrong decision.”

Rowan considered that, his forehead knitted. “So my world is on borrowed time?”

“As long as Chenoa’s bombs are out there? Yes.”

“When I saw the tunnel women, I knew Lillian had the same thing they had.” A look of pain crossed his face. “Will you tell me why she wouldn’t let me touch her, not even to help her?”

“I can’t.”

“It’s about my father, isn’t it? She didn’t want me to touch her because she was scared she couldn’t keep what she’d seen there from me if she did,” he said. Lily pressed her lips together and pushed away from the edge of the tub. Rowan stopped her from floating away. “Look, I’ve put it all together. Lillian went to a cinder world and something happened to her there, something that had to do with my father because he was the first person she hanged when she got back. Just tell me what it was. What did he do?”

Lily shook her head. “I can’t.” It was Rowan’s turn to pull away from her. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’?” she asked. He shook his head. “Every time I had a seizure and lived through it, I believed it made me a little bit stronger. I still think that being sick so much as a kid gave me the strength to handle this.” She gestured to the fading marks on her wrists. “But when I saw the cinder world, I stopped thinking that saying was true. There are lots of things that can happen to people that make them weaker. Things that break them. That’s all I can say about your father.”

Rowan thought about what she said carefully, but in the end he shook his head. “That’s not good enough, Lily. I deserve to know why she killed him.” Rowan moved to stand up, but Lily put out her hand and stopped him.

“You’re going to see Lillian soon. You have to ask her yourself. But do you want my honest opinion?” He nodded slowly. “Don’t,” she begged. “It happened in another world. Leave it there. Lillian couldn’t leave what happened to her behind in the cinder world where it belonged, and that’s why she killed your father.”

Rowan sat back down next to her. “That bad?” His next question hurt him to ask. “Do you think she was right to kill him?”

“No,” Lily said emphatically. “Lillian thinks the only difference between the different versions of us is our experiences, and if you were to make one version of a person experience what another had, they would react the same. I don’t believe that. Your father was not the River Fall of the cinder world, and I don’t believe he ever would have become him, even if

he went through the same thing. Just like I’ll never become Lillian, no matter how many memories of hers I absorb. Lillian believes our experiences and our worlds make us. I believe our choices make our experiences and our worlds.”

“So you’re saying you would have chosen differently than she did?”

“Not about everything,” Lily admitted, her voice catching in her throat. She reached out and brushed her thumb across his lower lip. Rowan inhaled sharply and Lily saw his eyes darken and felt his mouth soften against her fingers.

But there was a gulf between them. They couldn’t even talk about it because Tristan was inside that gulf, and because of that, Lily couldn’t bring herself to close it. She pulled her hand back and slid it under the water.

“I’ll get you something to wear,” he said hoarsely, and stood without looking her in the eye.

Rowan heard the alarm yips from the sentries before Lily did. He sprang to his knees and peeked out the entrance of the tent. Shapes and shadows sped past.

“Stay here until I send for you,” he said as he pulled on a shirt and slid a knife into his belt.

Lily nodded and scrambled through the sheets to find shoes. She remembered falling asleep alone, feeling cold, and then delicious warmth wrapping around her back. She’d dreamed of turning to Rowan and kissing him. Some part of her must have known he was there. He only came to her now when she was asleep, like he couldn’t stop himself. It hurt her to think that they could only be their true selves to each other in dreams.

Lily finally found her shoes and put them on as Una pulled open the flap to her tent.

“She’s okay,” Una said over her shoulder.

Lily heard Tristan speak to Breakfast behind Una. “Who’s with my mother and sister?” she asked.

“Caleb,” Tristan answered. He motioned for her to come out of the tent. “We’ve got to move you. I’ll have Caleb bring them to you when he can,” he said.

They bundled Lily out of the tent, Una on one side, Breakfast on the other, and Tristan leading the way deeper into the camp. She reached out to her claimed braves along the perimeter and asked what was going on, but she got only confused images from them.

Most of her braves weren’t accustomed to mindspeak, and they had either very little or no innate magical talent. Lily had gotten so used to conversing with her mechanics that she forgot most people in her army had never heard mindspeak before, and weren’t capable of forming full sentences or transmitting entire thoughts. She only got images and fragments from them. She’d have to change that if they hoped to fight as one—the way the Hive did naturally.

“I think they found a spy,” she told her mechanics as they entered the center circle where the one campfire was kept burning all night.

Rowan had his back to them. He turned his head as they approached and smiled at Lily, relieved. As he motioned for her to come and stand next to him she saw that the person he’d been having words with was Alaric. There was a slight hitch in her step when their eyes met, but she recovered quickly, squared her shoulders, and joined him at the fire.

“Good to see you again,” Alaric said, watching her reaction carefully.