Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)

“I’ll make you some tea, Samantha,” Rowan said, already reaching for the kettle.

“Oh, that’d be lovely,” Samantha said with a relieved look. “I love your teas.”

“I’ll bring it up to you as soon as it’s ready,” Rowan replied cheerfully.

Juliet brought Samantha to her room, leaving Lily and Rowan to speak in tense undertones.

“We need to come up with a name for that clinic,” Lily said. “Simms wants to know exactly where I’ve been for three months.”

“Juliet and I are working on a phony Web site. It’s nearly done. Look, let me worry about that,” Rowan replied. “You focus on settling back into your life.”

Lily laughed mirthlessly. “Like that’s ever going to be possible.”

“It better be,” Rowan said sharply. “Or what was the purpose of coming back here at all?”

“I didn’t come back to fulfill a purpose. I came back because—”

“Because you were dying, and if you were to go back to my world it wouldn’t take long before something else would be threatening your life,” he said, cutting her off. “We’re here so you can live a long and normal life. There’s nothing for you to do, except move on and be happy. That’s it. You need to put my world behind you and rejoin this one like a regular person or your family is going to suffer for it.”

Lily was taken aback by his vehemence. She didn’t know what to say, only that she felt hollow and cut off from him. The adventure was over, and Lily had to accept that.

“You should sit. The skin on your feet isn’t completely healed yet,” he said, softening his tone.

Her feet were hurting her. Lily took a seat at the table and gingerly lifted a foot to look at the bottom. Blood had seeped through her sock. The sight of blood reminded Lily of Carrick.

“Could you tell if Carrick was inside your mind, spying on us?” Lily blurted out, changing the subject.

“Of course I could,” he said, coming to her. He saw the blood on her sock and pursed his lips, back in angry mode again. “You can’t be running around yet, Lily. You have no calluses on your feet anymore.”

“Just before Simms showed up, Mom told me that Lillian claimed Carrick. Lillian made him her head mechanic,” Lily replied through her teeth. Now that she was sitting down her feet had started throbbing.

“Here, let me do it,” Rowan said.

He left the room and came back with a leather pack very similar to the one he’d carried when they were hiding in the Woven Woods. Lily assumed that he’d made himself a new one. Inside were the silver knives he’d worn into battle the last night they were in his world and all kinds of small jars and vials of potions.

“Lean back,” he said. He pulled Lily’s feet into his lap and began applying one of his tingly skin creams. His face was dark with anger, but his tone was gentle. “I’ve been trained to recognize it if someone tries to sneak into my mind. The only time I’m vulnerable is when I’m asleep, but I never sleep without casting a ward of protection around myself, which would wake me as sure as a hand shaking me if someone tried to steal into my thoughts. Didn’t I teach you that?”

“Yes,” Lily admitted.

He had taught her how to manipulate the finely knit fields of energy that make up what seems to be empty space. Field magic—wards and glamours—had several different uses. Wards operated like a bubble of security around a small area, and glamours distorted light and air to slightly alter the way things appeared, sometimes making things disappear entirely in dim light. Both were

low-energy magic and not very hard to do; Lily just hadn’t remembered to cast a ward around herself when she was half dead. And since then, maybe she hadn’t wanted to remember to do it. A ward would have kept Lillian from contacting her, and whether she liked it or not, Lily needed to understand what had made Lillian the way she was and why she had made the choices she did, or Lily knew she’d be damned to repeat them. It was more than just curiosity or a perverse desire to view Lillian’s memories. Lillian was Lily, and if Lily ever wanted to understand herself she had to understand Lillian.

“Lily?” Rowan was staring at her, worried.

“Sorry. I freaked out,” she said, lying automatically. “I started thinking about Carrick and I freaked out.”

Will you show me what he did to you in the oubliette?

Lily recoiled at the thought. To show him would be to go through it again. “I can’t.” Her voice sounded robotic and strangely disconnected, even to her.

You don’t have to hide anything from me.

“I can’t,” Lily repeated, her face blank.

“Okay,” he said, looking down.

Rowan stood and left the room, his face sad. As soon as he was gone, Lily felt empty. She wanted to call him back, but she knew if she did she’d have to open that dark box in the corner of her mind and show him what had happened in the oubliette. She couldn’t share that with him. It would change the way he felt about her. There was only one person Lily was certain wouldn’t judge her. Lily momentarily dropped her guard, just to see if Lillian was there.