“Really?” Gideon said doubtfully. “You know, I was convinced you’d never give yourself to another witch. She must be quite powerful to claim you.”
“Hey, back up,” Rowan said, laughing. “We just met. Nobody said anything about claiming anyone. I’m just having some fun.”
“I don’t believe that,” Gideon said, shaking his head. “There isn’t a witch in the Thirteen Cities who hasn’t tried to claim you, and you’ve turned them all down. You’d never settle for less than Lillian. So whomever you’ve got in your bed is someone special. Someone powerful.” His voice dropped conspiratorially. “Who is she?”
“I hate to break it to you, but she’s not a witch. She’s just some Outland girl I met.” Rowan shrugged. “It’s been a long time, okay? Would you go more than a year without a woman?”
Gideon smirked at Rowan. “Don’t try to compare us. You’re nothing like me, Rowan. You never have been,” Gideon said, and realizing he’d get nothing out of Rowan, he turned and left.
Stay there, Lily. I have to strengthen the wards.
Rowan closed the door. His willstone sent a pulse of rippling magelight across the room. Every crevice in his apartment was touched by the undulating wave of oily light, and then it faded.
Following the strange string that connected her to him, Lily could sense a trace of Rowan’s awareness lingering on everything that his magelight had touched. She took a moment to consider what he had done and understood that the windows and the walls were as sealed as the storage chest in the cabin had been, just on a much larger scale. Nothing they said or did could be seen or heard by anyone outside Rowan’s ward of protection, and if anyone tried to disturb the barrier, he would know it as certainly as he would know if someone placed a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay. You can come out now,” he said out loud. Lily stepped away from the wall and stood facing Rowan. He was biting his lower lip, thinking, while he considered her with worried eyes.
“He was the kid I saw in your memory,” she said. “One of Lillian’s mechanics, along with you and Tristan.”
“Yeah,” he replied, his eyes far away. “He’s her head mechanic now. He was the only one willing to do her dirty work when she came back so changed.”
“He beat that old man to death,” Lily said, shrugging his robe up over her shoulders.
“He’s done worse to others,” Rowan said quietly. “I’ve been inside his mind. Gideon doesn’t feel things the way normal people do.” Rowan shook his head like he couldn’t believe it. “And now he’s after you.”
“Do you think he knows who I am?” Lily asked.
“He might. I don’t know,” Rowan replied.
“So why is he after me? Why does he care?”
“Why does he care?” Rowan repeated, frustrated. “You have no idea what you mean, do you?” His eyes searched hers.
Lily shrugged. She supposed her importance must have something to do with her being a copy of the Salem Witch. But Lily had no idea how to do anything even remotely witchy, at least not without Rowan telling her how to do it, so she didn’t really see how that could benefit anyone except maybe Rowan. In Lily’s estimation, she was just an odd glitch in the cosmological equation. She wasn’t important. She was weird.
“Gideon’s coming for you, Lily,” Rowan continued in a hushed voice. “He’s not going to stop just because I wouldn’t let him into my apartment.”
Rowan was scared of Gideon—as scared of him as he was of the Woven.
“Can you hide me from him?” she asked.
“Not forever. You need to be able to hide yourself. To defend yourself.” Rowan’s shoulders slumped and he seemed to give up. He suddenly moved to the kitchen. “I didn’t want to do this. But I can’t leave you helpless.”
Lily followed him. He took a velvet jeweler’s envelope out of his backpack, untied the strings and unfolded it, revealing a few dozen ovoid stones of varying sizes. They were such a dull gray color that at first Lily didn’t recognize them for what they were.
“Willstones,” she said, frowning. “But they look … I don’t know. Dead.”
“Because they’re unkeyed. There’s no mind inside them yet. Do you still want one?” Lily nodded, and Rowan regarded her seriously. “There’s no going back after this. It will change you forever.”
Lily was imagining herself back home, trying to explain her glowy necklace to Tristan, when she realized she hadn’t thought about her own Tristan in days. Their failed attempt at a relationship seemed so far away after what she’d been through. She met Rowan’s eyes. “I’m already changed forever,” she said.
Rowan looked away, his mouth a grim line. “Okay.”
He took a butter knife out of a drawer, picked up the velvet envelope, and led Lily down the hall to his bedroom. Straightening the mussed comforter, he directed Lily to climb onto the bed and get comfortable. Rowan sat opposite her and used the butter knife to separate the willstones on the velvet between them.
“Hold your hand about a foot over them, palm down,” he directed. “Pass your hand over them slowly, one at a time. The stronger your talents are, the more this ritual affects you. This is going to be very hard, but whatever you do, don’t pull your hand away.”
Lily did as he said, and immediately felt a thrumming in her hand. “I feel something.”