Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)

“What was she doing?” He pushed her hair back from her sweaty forehead, his face so open and trusting she had to look away.

“Killing people. Draining the energy right out of their bodies.”

Rowan nodded. “It’s a gruesome death. But if anyone tries to take you—if you’re ever cornered and have no choice—” he began.

“I know,” she said, resting her forehead against his. She felt him go still, his body tensing.

“How do you know?”

“I was going to do it to Gideon or Carrick when they had me in the oubliette. I figured it out on my own, but I never got a chance to lay a hand on them,” Lily said, reminding herself to keep her voice even.

Rowan sensed she was holding something back, something that might be about Lillian. It troubled him, but she was telling the truth about this, at least, and he could sense that. She felt Rowan relax. He held her tightly, smoothing her hair, his heart sore from sharing what she’d been through.

“Where is everyone?” Lily asked.

“They’ll be back soon,” he said. “Do you want to try and reach Caleb and Tristan this morning?”

“Yes,” she said, suddenly smiling. “I miss them.”

“Me too.” Rowan leaned back to really look at Lily. “Don’t think about Lillian,” he said, his forehead furrowed with worry. “We’re back in her world now, and the more you think about her, the more you open yourself up to her influence. She’s had a lot more practice manipulating minds than you have, and she knows how to do things you haven’t even dreamed of.”

“Like what?”

“Like making a mind mosaic, for starters.” Lily raised an eyebrow in question. Rowan pushed a hand through his hair, thinking of how to explain. “When you’ve claimed hundreds of thousands of minds like she has, you can use the perspectives of your claimed to build a bird’s-eye view of any particular moment. And as long as you don’t try to control them or communicate with them, you can do it without your claimed even knowing. Only trained mechanics can tell you’re looking through their eyes. Everyone else just believes they’re thinking of their witch at that particular moment. It’s really subtle.”

“Apparently, because I don’t get it,” Lily said, feeling a little stupid.

“Come on,” he said, standing up. “I need to get you out of the cave to show you.”

They climbed down the cliff and stood facing each other. Lily saw Rowan shiver from the cold, and she offered him her wrist. He grasped her wrist lightly between his thumb and forefinger like he was feeling her pulse. Lily fed him some of her ever-fever.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling with pleasure. She got the feeling he wanted to stand like this, warming himself with her heat for hours, but he forced himself to break away and concentrate. “I’m going to use something from your world to explain this, so you understand. Think of your claimed as thousands of different cameras all on the same movie set, filming the same scene but from different angles.”

“Okay.”

“Now gently reach out, barely brushing their minds, and look through the lenses.”

Lily thought about Tristan, Breakfast, and Una and ever so softly looked. “Oh my God,” she gasped, sticking out her arm and grabbing on to Rowan’s jacket to balance herself. What she saw was a sweeping, panoramic 3-D view of one particular place in the woods. It was bobbing up and down as the three of them walked.

“Okay, stop,” Rowan said, trying not to laugh. “You don’t know how to integrate what you’re seeing yet, and I don’t want you to throw up.”

Lily disentangled her mind and regained her balance. “That was freaky.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said, his eyes momentarily darkening as they usually did when he referenced Lillian.

“Can you do this with your stone kin?” Lily asked.

“No. Only witches have enough control over the minds of their claimed to make a mosaic. And you can make one for any moment in time. You can skip through the minds of your claimed at”—he waved a hand, making it up as he went along—“noon two weeks ago, and watch one person run through a crowd of them, like you’re following alongside that running person. All you need is for that person to keep running past people you have claimed.”

“I can spy on people who I haven’t claimed by using my claimed like surveillance cameras?” she asked, starting to feel uncomfortable with this ability.

“Yes. Your claimed don’t even have to be aware of the person running past. They don’t need to actively remember an incident—it could be background noise to them—but as long as they were there at noon two weeks ago, an imprint of it is somewhere in their willstones, and you can find it.”

“I can access memories people don’t even know they have?”

“Yes.”

“That’s—” Lily broke off, stunned. “The word ‘wrong’ doesn’t seem to be strong enough in this instance.”