Lily, has the war begun?
Yes, Lily replied. She played the vibration of the redwood grove and jumped her army. I’m here.
“She’s here,” Toshi said, his eyes searching past the army at Bower City’s gates and into the distant smudge that was the redwood grove.
“Obviously,” Ivan remarked dryly. He looked down at the orderly ranks of disciplined soldiers. “She didn’t bring enough.”
“That’s not Lily,” Toshi said, frowning with confusion. “That’s the other one. The Salem Witch. Mine is coming.”
He craned his head to look up at the Hive as more of them streamed into the air from the city. The din of their wings rattled his bones. He saw Warrior Sisters rising up from the restricted zone. Toshi wondered whether the antidote had ever made it to his family. Whether it even worked.
“There,” Ivan said, pointing to a figure being carried to the ramparts over the main gate. “That’s Grace. They’re building her pyre right there.”
Toshi stared at Ivan. “They’re really going to burn her?”
“Oh yes,” Ivan replied as a sinister memory stole through him. “I hope that witch of yours is as strong as she seemed. I once saw Grace spend two whole days and nights on the pyre.” He looked down at his hands and Toshi could have sworn he saw flames licking inside Ivan’s eyes. “We chopped down every tree. Burnt all the switch grass. We even threw our clothes on the fire. And through it all she burned. Screaming. Laughing.” When Ivan looked up again his eyes were sunken and haunted. “Grace lives for the pyre.” He clapped Toshi on the shoulder, shaking himself. “I have serum to distribute and you have crossbows to steal.” A thought occurred to him. “This would be a lot easier if we were stone kin.”
Toshi was struck by the offer. “It would be an honor,” he said.
When they touched each other’s willstones Toshi was surprised to find Grace was there at the forefront of Ivan’s thoughts, but not Grace as they both knew her now. Toshi saw a backdrop of dusty mining towns, horse-drawn carriages, homesteaders in broad-brimmed hats and gingham prints, and Grace as a girl with long plaited hair, a buckskin dress, and beaded moccasins.
“That was a long time ago,” Ivan said, drawing Toshi back to the here and now. “Come. We have a lot of work to do.”
They went back downstairs, stopping in the room where Grace had learned to spirit walk in the hopes that they could help Red Leaf, but the shaman was gone. They continued on down to the lab where the forced calm had given way to pandemonium. Mala was nowhe
re to be found. The table she had been manning was tipped over, and vials were scattered all over the floor. People were pushing and shoving their way into the lab to grab handfuls of the serum and rush out. Toshi tripped over something and realized that he was stepping on a body.
Toshi pulled the inert woman out of the main flow of the mob and checked her pulse. There was a welt the size of goose egg on her neck. She was dead from a sting.
He looked out a window. Workers were swarming outside, coalescing into great clouds and descending on the most panicked people. When the cloud flew away and moved on to the next person, the dead body left behind would be covered in stings. One sting would be enough to kill a person in ten seconds, but the Workers were overreacting as much as the people were. Their hive was being invaded and they were turning on anything that was not them.
“Everyone, calm down,” Ivan shouted, holding up his hands, but the mob was past listening.
“I need good climbers,” Toshi shouted amid the rushing, grabbing confusion. Ivan called out two men by name.
“Avery! Michelson! Come with me,” he ordered.
Two tall young men stopped trying to hold back the tide of people and came forward. Ivan had them gather up as many darts full of pesticide as they could carry and led them out the back way and through the twisting passages of the villa. There were no Workers indoors. They were all out on the streets, swarming.
They stopped at one of the many service storerooms. Ivan went to the dusty shelves littered with fishing poles, skis, tennis rackets and all other kinds of recreational equipment. He pulled down a large duffel bag. Inside were ropes and grappling hooks for climbing, which he distributed between them. Toshi, Avery, and Michelson looped the thin, strong rope over their shoulders and put the pesticide in the duffel bag.
“Toshi,” Ivan called after them as they ran. Toshi stopped and looked back. “Good luck.”
Toshi nodded. You, too, old friend.
When they hit the street, they saw that the situation had deteriorated further. Bodies lay here and there in the streets. Swarms of Workers were expanding and contracting in the air in a murmuration. They were chasing people indoors, and anyone left outside would be targeted.
Toshi’s raiding party ran to the nearest watchtower. Storm clouds started forming into a wheel over the city and the sky turned an ominous shade of pewter. Grace was on her pyre, and her power was building. As the raiding party pounded down the streets Toshi felt a sharp sting on the back of his hand.
He started counting to ten.
Lily opened her eyes. She stood among the redwoods. Rowan was still clasping her hand.
Her army shifted out of the shadows of the ancient giants, their faces stark with awe. Jumping was a new experience for most of them, and even for those who had done it before, the sight of the towering redwoods was enough to strike them dumb.
Tell them to calm down, Rowan said in mindspeak.
Lily did her best to explain, and to those claimed that couldn’t understand, she did her best to comfort them.