Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)

Lily looked around her. They’d been brought down the tracks to another abandoned station—but this one was full of people. She wondered briefly why this station was occupied when the other one wasn’t, but kept her questions to herself.

It’s like they’re hostages. Why doesn’t the city do something about this?

Because they all make money off it, Lily. Ranching is extremely lucrative. Ranchers donate money to the Council’s election campaigns, and the city conveniently ignores the people who live down here.

What about the Covens? Didn’t Lillian try to do something about this?

She could feel Rowan cringe inwardly. Just the mention of Lillian’s name made something inside him recoil.

Yes, she did. The Covens used to have limited power. Remember, the Covens aren’t elected—witches are born with their power, like aristocracy, but the Council is elected. They used to be the only branch of government that could write laws, but Lillian said that the Council was corrupted by the need to raise election funds, and she campaigned to make it possible for witches to write laws, too. At first she used that power to help the tunnel people and the Outlanders. But later, when she changed, she used it to draft legislation that allowed her to hang scientists.

Lily didn’t ask any more questions. Somehow, the answers she got from Rowan always seemed to lead back to Lillian and her hangings. Her curiosity flared again. How could anyone go so quickly from being a hero of the people to a tyrant?

Lily heard Breakfast’s voice take on a particularly jovial tone and picked up her head. He had begun conversing with three middle-aged women, and from the way the rest of the tunnel denizens seemed to defer to them, Lily supposed they were the leaders of this underground gang. The exchange had started out amicably enough, but their voices began to rise. A pale, blond woman with a stout body and thick, meaty hands stepped away from the group and marched toward Lily and Rowan.

“These two,” the woman said angrily, glancing back at Breakfast. “You can’t tell me they’re not Coven. No one with a willstone that active would have been left untrained. And her? The little witch? She even smells like magic. The whole lot of you are her claimed or I’ve never seen a coven in my life.”

“I don’t belong to any of the Thirteen Covens, but I am a witch,” Lily snarled back at her. She felt Rowan put a hand on her upper arm, but she shook it off. Lily didn’t like this woman, and being underground where she felt cut off and endangered, she didn’t feel like playing nice. Something told her being nice wouldn’t help anyway—not with this woman. “Now, who are you?”

“Queen of the Fairies,” the woman said sarcastically. “What do you want?”

“To trade and to get the hell out of here,” Lily replied.

The woman actually smiled. “That’s all I wanted to hear, witch.” She looked Rowan up and down, her eyes rounding with worry when they regarded his willstone. Her own willstone was small and vaguely pinkish in hue, although Lily had noticed that people with little or no magic tended to have nearly colorless willstones that resembled white quartz or dull opals.

The woman spun on her heel and stormed away, shouting orders as she went. “Outfit them fairly, and show them where to jump a train out of town. Then make damn sure they get on it.”

“Hey!” Lily shouted after her. The woman stopped and turned, her lips pinched thin, showing she was at the end of her patience. “We’ll get out and stay out on one condition,” Lily said.

“I’m listening,” the woman replied.

“If you tell anyone we were here, I’ll come back for you.”

“Never laid eyes on you in my life,” the woman said, and then disappeared down the curving tracks.

Lily’s coven was taken to what appeared to be one of the larger barrel fires. Some of the older teen lookouts brought food, and then they laid out an array of trade goods. Rowan sorted through the wearhyde clothes, blades, and bundles of wovensbane—an herb that smelled like citronella when burned that sometimes managed to repel the Woven.

“Some of these jackets look warm enough,” Tristan said, trying to make the best of it. “And I’ve noticed that even though everyone here wears leather pants and jackets, they still wear some sort of cotton or linen tops. We can use our own shirts at least.”

“It’s not leather, it’s wearhyde,” Lily corrected. “It’s grown from a culture, not skinned from an animal, and I think it’s even nicer than leather.”

“You would, Your Vegan-ness,” Una said, smiling.

“These are probably the best-quality supplies they have,” Rowan whispered to Breakfast. “I wouldn’t haggle too much.”

“I wasn’t going to haggle at all,” Breakfast said. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “In fact, I think they need our help more than they need to trade.” Breakfast waved one of the older teens closer. The grubby kid balked for a moment. He didn’t want to come anywhere near Rowan.

“It’s alright, Riley,” Una said, rolling her eyes. “He’s not going to bite you. Tell him what you told us.”

“Are you really a witch?” Riley asked Lily cautiously.

“She is,” Rowan answered for her. Lily could tell his answering for her was a reflex. No one was allowed to speak directly to a witch unless she addressed them first, and now that Lily and Rowan were back in his world, some of his old habits with Lillian were seeping back into his b

ehavior.

“Tell them about the babies being born strange,” said a high, piping voice from the shadows. A little boy, no older than five, stepped forward.

“Quiet, Pip.” Riley reached out and put his hand on the little boy’s head and then turned back to Rowan. “It’s not just the babies. A lot of women have fallen sick and the witches in the city say they can’t help them.”