Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)

owan down. “Can’t we heal her?”

“Without a fire? Not completely,” Rowan said. “We’ll either have to break into one of the private cars to do it, or wait until the train stops.”

“I’ll make it,” Lily said, gritting her teeth. She felt her mechanics exchange another rapid conversation in mindspeak. Being left out, coupled with the pain of her shoulder and her still aching head, annoyed her. “It’s too risky,” she snapped. “We’re lucky there isn’t a conductor up here as it is. We’ll have to wait until the train stops.”

Rowan tilted Lily’s face up to his. “I still have to put it back,” he said grimly. “Your shoulder. We can’t leave it dislocated all night or it will set like that.”

Lily swallowed hard and met his eyes. “Just do it.”

Without another word, Rowan pushed Lily onto her back and pressed his knee into her sternum. With both hands he took her injured arm and held it in front of her, bent at the elbow. He then pushed it down in an L shape next to her head. Lily kept her lips pressed together and screamed behind her teeth while Rowan pulled her arm swiftly up alongside her ear. She heard a grinding pop, and the pain was so intense she felt nauseous with it.

Rowan eased off her chest and she saw his willstone flare with light. The pain slackened, and Lily rolled onto her uninjured side, moaning quietly to herself through tight breaths. She saw Tristan’s stone glow, and the pain lessened some more. She heard Rowan giving her mechanics instructions in mindspeak.

Encourage the fluid to circulate. Keep the blood moving to help heal the site of injury. Repress the pain signals from the nerves. Easy. We don’t want her to go numb, we just want to block the pain. Use your own stores of energy and take nothing from our witch. It will make you tired, but not as tired as she is.

Lily took a deep breath and sighed it out, tears tracing a hot path into her hairline.

“Damn,” she heard Una murmur. “Are you okay?”

Lily laughed unevenly, catching her breath. Her shoulder was still a mess, but at least she couldn’t feel it anymore. “I’ve been through worse.”

CHAPTER

11

Carrick followed their trail through the woods. At one of their camps he found blood in the snow. He tasted it just to make sure, and spit it out when he confirmed it was Woven’s blood. They’d made good time on their journey. His little brother had pushed the pace, almost as if he knew they were being followed. Maybe Rowan did know, somehow. As Carrick came upon the end of the forest and the edge of Providence’s Killing Fields he imagined his brother running in front of him. Hounded.

Carrick licked his lips and looked out across the Killing Fields of Providence, thinking of the glory days when the Killing Fields had earned their name. Every one of the Thirteen Cities was surrounded by a huge meadow where many had died. Witches loved nothing more than fighting a bloody battle right in front of their cities. In the Age of Strife, when witches regularly sent out their armies to slaughter each other, the Killing Fields were soaked with so much blood that the buildup of salt from that blood left the soil sterile for decades. Even now, trees would not grow.

Rowan’s trail led Carrick to an exhumed metal plate at the edge of the forest. His little brother had gone into the train tunnels for shelter. Carrick knew that if he followed, the tons of earth might cut him off from his witch, giving his quarry the advantage.

Lillian. I have to go underground to continue following Lily and her coven.

Go, Carrick. Stay close to them, but don’t be discovered.

As you wish, My Lady.

* * *

Lily slept very little that night. Her mechanics tried to help, but they had to use their own faltering stores of energy to do it. Until she was healed and the injury dealt with, her mechanics could only mask her pain—and they couldn’t keep that up for long. They were all tired, cold, and hungry.

After only an hour Lily demanded that they stop, and she gutted it out alone for the rest of the night. Every bump on the tracks brought pain, jarring her out of whatever doze she managed to fall into and the night turned into one long half sleep that was more torturous than it would have been if she’d simply stayed awake. Her mechanics tried to give her comfort by smoothing her hair and holding her hand, but as Lily had already learned, pain builds a barrier between the hurt and the whole. It leaves the sufferer isolated, with nothing but an ocean of time to cross.

Lily could feel herself rising up on her raft, and she could hear Lillian calling to her from the Mist. Lily didn’t want to go back to the barn. She fought it, but Lillian was better at directing the currents in the spirit world, and like it or not Lily felt her raft being drawn into Lillian’s memory.

… I stay in a huddle all night. I back myself into a corner, knees drawn to my chest, watching the lambs watch me. They keep their distance—too beaten down to approach me. Or maybe I just make them sad. Seeing me, they’re probably all reminded of their own first night in the barn.

I hear the sounds of the Woven outside. The chittering noises they make in the dark. My skin crawls. Dawn comes and light seeps through the cracks in the roof, illuminating shafts of dusty air. The feeble sun is not enough to warm anyone in this never-ending winter. I am so low on energy that even I’m shivering.

One of the lambs creeps forward—a little boy no older than seven or eight. He holds out the edge of his shawl, offering to share half. I know it’s awful of me, but before I accept I check him for bloody stumps.

“It’s okay,” the boy says, understanding my hesitation. “The doctor hasn’t caught me yet.”

I look down, ashamed of myself. The boy is sweet and I smile, gratefully accepting his company. “The doctor?” I ask.

“He takes our arms and legs in a way that doesn’t kill us,” he whispers. His eyes are blank with terror and he presses against me, trying to warm his emaciated body. “He’s the most scary of them all.”

“How often does he come?” I ask, my own fear feeding off his.