Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)

“He should be torn apart,” Una growled.

“Who is he?” Breakfast asked, his face stony.

“My half brother, Carrick,” Rowan answered, looking down at the sand. “All I know of him is that he was raised by a vile man. Carrick knows just about everything there is to know about torture. And he’s here for Lily.” Rowan looked Tristan in the eye. “Can I count on you? Can I count on you to never leave her?”

Tristan nodded. Rowan looked at each of them in turn, waiting until they all nodded in silent agreement.

“Wait. There’s something else you need to know. Carrick has a witch fueling him,” Lily said. She turned to Rowan. “You know her better than I do.”

“I’ll explain through you,” Rowan said quietly.

Rowan allowed everyone to view a few of his memories of Lillian. He showed them how she started out idealistic and progressive, then how she disappeared for three weeks and came back terribly sick and inexplicably changed. Finally, he showed how she started hunting scientists with a maniacal single-mindedness. He let them all see one moment of his father’s body, dropping through the trapdoor on the gallows while Lillian stood no more than two steps away, before he abruptly ended the flow of images.

“We’re fighting you?” Una asked disbelievingly.

“A version of me,” Lily answered. “You need to understand that no matter how strong I may seem to you, our enemy is just as strong and she’s had years more practice. She’s mastered things that I’m still struggling to understand. She brought me to her world—something that had never been done before—and now she’s sent Carrick here to bring me back to her.”

“Why?” Tristan asked. “Why does she want you?”

“She wants Lily to replace her as the leader because she’s sick. From the way she looked in Rowan’s last memory, I’d say she was dying,” Juliet answered. Everyone turned to her, surprised that she could guess this. Juliet smiled warmly at Lily. “You wouldn’t trust anyone but yourself to rule the world. So why would she?”

Lily stared at her sister, hurt.

Am I really like that, Juliet?

You tend to think you know better than everyone else, Lily. Please don’t think I’m judging you. I know it’s just the way you are.

“Come on,” Rowan said, his eyes on Lily’s troubled face. “It’s late and you all have to be alert tomorrow.”

He started shoveling sand onto the last embers of the fire.

Breakfast groaned as he hauled himself up to help. “I haven’t done any of my homework. Maybe I’ll skip school tomorrow.”

“No,” Rowan said firmly. “I need all of you to stay with Lily.”

“Give me your homework, Breakfast. I’ll do it for you,” Tristan offered as they headed up the beach.

“Thanks, but I don’t think that’d do me any good,” Breakfast said despondently. “My teachers would know I cheated because of all the right answers.”

As they walked back to Lily’s house, she could hear Tristan and Rowan speaking quietly to each other at the back of the group.

“In that last memory—that was your father?” Tristan asked.

There was a long pause. “Yeah,” Rowan replied.

“I was there. I saw my face in the crowd,” Tristan said, shaken.

Rowan laughed under his breath. “You were there for me. In my world, you and I have been stone kin since we were kids. You’re my best friend, Tristan.”

“No, seriously,” Tristan said disbelievingly.

“We fight all the time,” Rowan said.

“Constantly,” Lily chimed in, looking at them over her shoulder. “When I first got to Rowan’s world, you two bickered for hours.”

“Really?” Tristan said, cracking a smile. “About what?”

Rowan shrugged, like the answer was obvious. “What we always fight about. Her.”