The drake came in for a landing, its wings scooping backward and its talons extended to grasp the treetops. It alighted delicately, and then turned to climb down the tree trunk on all fours like a lizard. The huge spruce swayed and cracked under the drake’s massive weight, but thankfully, it did not fall.
Leto dismounted first, and then helped Lily down. She went directly to the emerald-green speaking stone, already feeling the pulse and whisper of the hundreds of thousands of minds that were gathered and amplified inside it.
“Are they haunted?” Leto asked, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself.
“No,” Lily replied. She refrained from laughing at what was, to him, a serious question. “Although I can see how calling them haunted would keep them protected from vandals,” she added.
“The voices,” he said, still angling his thick body away from the softly glowing stone. “They say the disgraced dead who didn’t fulfill their witch’s bidding are trapped inside.”
“It isn’t true,” Lily said gently. “Speaking stones are tools for the living, not the dead.” Lily thought of how she’d tried to reach out to Juliet in the overworld after she’d died. “The dead don’t speak. No matter how much you beg them too,” she said in a gravelly voice.
Leto nodded, accepting Lily’s answer. “She doesn’t deserve to die this way,” he said, switching topics. Lily knew he was speaking of Lillian.
“I know,” she replied. She frowned, thinking of the pain she’d felt when she’d possessed Lillian’s body. “No one does.”
“Can Lord Fall help her?”
“She won’t let him.”
“Stubborn,” he said with gruff affection.
“Willful,” Lily suggested instead.
Leto nodded and looked down in thought. “I guess that’s why she’s as good at magic as she is.” He looked back up at Lily, his expression hard. “Are you going to finish what she started?”
“I am,” Lily replied, surprised to be saying it. “I’m just not going to do it the same way she would.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded once, making a decision. “If her time comes before the battle, Walltop will answer your call.”
“Thank you, Capt
ain,” she replied, sensing the gravity of his pledge. She turned to the speaking stone. “But hopefully what I’m about to do will make a battle unnecessary.” And maybe Toshi can save Lillian’s life, she added silently, keeping that thought to herself.
Lily looked into the scintillating center of the speaking stone and placed her hands on its warm surface. Her mind dove into a fast-flowing stream. It raced green over the mountains, into the valley, and across miles of verdant land. Next, a blue haze diffused across her mind’s eye, and she jumped rivers and sped past plains. Yellow light pulled her up sheer, rocky heights, only to drop her down again into the red-tinged light of the baking desert and scrubland. Her mind’s eye sped over chaparral-covered hills buckled by earthquakes, and finally rested inside the milky white glow of the westernmost speaking stone in the chain.
Millions of threads of light were gathered there. Grace had quite an army.
She called for Toshi, whispering his name, and found a vibration inside the milky speaking stone. It was strong and clear and free. Lily focused on it, and felt his mind push back against hers, like a hand brushing away a tickling hair in sleep. She called him again, this time speaking his name with authority, and she felt recognition douse him like cold water.
She asked: Are you still willing to be claimed?
She couldn’t hear his mindspeak, not without claiming him, but she could feel his assent like a gift being given. She played the unique pattern of his willstone back inside her own and claimed him.
Mine.
Instead of seeing his memories, Toshi’s intense focus on what he was doing brought Lily directly into the moment with him. She joined his perspective and realized that he was struggling to save a life.
Lily looked down at the hands that she now shared with Toshi. They were running over a set of smashed ribs. Blood foamed in the lung under them. Toshi looked at the face of his patient, and Lily recoiled inside his mind. She needed a moment to remind herself that she wasn’t looking at Breakfast.
Red Leaf. He could teach Grace how to worldjump, she told Toshi.
He’s dying, Toshi replied.
For a moment Lily felt relieved. A part of her wanted to tell Toshi to let him die, but even as the thought tiptoed across her mind she felt a surge of denial from Toshi that was akin to hitting a brick wall.
I can’t kill a patient, he told her. It’s against everything I’ve ever believed in.
Of course. No, you must try to save him.