Trial by Fire (Worldwalker 1)

Witchcraft had done amazing thing in this world because manipulating the natural world was second nature to witches. It was, quite simply, what a crucible’s body was meant to do. Because of that they’d achieved just about every scientific milestone a couple of hundred years before the scientists of Lily’s world had. Witches had harnessed electricity, cloned animals, cured congenital diseases like cystic fibrosis and Down syndrome—and they’d being doing this for centuries. When witches needed a machine—like the trains, elepods, or lamps that lit the rich neighborhoods—they had their mechanics build them. Witches supplied the discoveries, and their mechanics made the gadgets they needed.

Scientists had always lagged behind. They had access to the knowledge that the witches supplied, but they had to come up with different methods for reaching the same goal. A scientist had to dream up a microscope and build it first, only to see something that a half-grown crucible could look at without even trying. Not a lot of glory in that job.

The one thing that the witches didn’t have, but Lily’s world did, was the driving curiosity that came built in to the culture of a well-respected scientific community. In Lily’s world, scientists had the need to figure out for themselves how things worked, precisely because it did not come naturally. For some reason, Lily was strangely proud of the clumsy, sometimes downright destructive path of progress that her world had traveled as they fumbled toward the understanding that came maybe a little too easily to witches.

“Yeah? Well, you and your snooty, all-knowing witches have never been to the moon. My people have, because it was there and it was a good thing to do,” Lily said in her best Boston accent. “So bite my scientist-loving ass.”

Rowan and Tristan just stared at Lily for a while. The two young men looked nothing alike physically, but they’d spent so much of their lives together that they shared similar gestures and facial expressions. Right now the perplexed looks they gave her were practically identical.

“No John F. Kennedy in this world, I take it?” she guessed. “Culture shock really sucks.”

“I think she needs a break,” Tristan said.

“I think you’re right,” Rowan replied.

“What I need is fresh air,” Lily said sullenly. “I want to go up to the roof.” She looked at Rowan pleadingly.

He only allowed her to go up to the roof every few days, and always at random times. While his rooftop terrace was covered by one of his superstrong wards of protection, Rowan constantly worried that his ward would falter for a moment, and one of Gideon’s goons, who were always watching his apartment, would get a glimpse of Lily and recognize her.

“Please. I just want to sit outside for half an hour,” Lily begged.

“Fine,” Rowan said, albeit reluctantly. “But wear a hat. And change out of that dress and into some wearhyde so you don’t look so much like a witch.”

Lily practically ran to her room, unlacing her dress on the way. Covering up wasn’t exactly what she had in mind when she wanted so desperately to soak up what was left of the waning autumn light, but it was still better than nothing.

They had been training her for three weeks straight, and in that time she’d nearly perfected the water-purifying potion, a food-preserving charm, and a spray that cleaned soiled bodies, clothes, and hair with only one squirt of fine mist. “Kitchen magic” still drained Lily to exhaustion, and from what Rowan intimated, it probably always would. Small magic, while necessary, was definitely the grunt work of the magical realm, and it was the bulk of what Lily was learning.

She slept a lot, which served three purposes. Mostly, she needed the rest, but sleeping also killed a lot of time while Alaric tried to locate the shaman, whom Lily was desperate to finally meet. The sooner she started learning how to spirit walk, the sooner she stood a chance of figuring out a way to get home.

Lastly, sleeping a lot kept Lily from spending downtime with Rowan. She didn’t want to watch him reading, or cooking, or sitting at the table talking with Tristan and Caleb. She didn’t want to enjoy the way his voice sounded or how capably his hands managed to do the fiddliest little tasks. She didn’t want to admire him or fool herself into thinking that there was something more between them than there was.

He seemed to be avoiding her as well. Despite the fact that he’d made such a big deal about being allowed access into her mind whenever he wanted, he hadn’t once asked her questions about her loyalty. In fact, apart from when they needed to touch each other’s minds during a ritual, they hadn’t even shared mindspeak. Lily didn’t want to miss sharing mindspeak with him, but she did. She remembered touching Rowan’s stone for the first time. She’d never felt that close to anyone. And now that this closeness was gone, she’d never felt so alone.

The longer she and Rowan went without talking to each other, the more Lily wanted to be near him. She started to miss him, even though she saw him every day. The craving for any kind of intimacy with him drove her to sneak into the spare bedroom he’d been using one morning when he was out.

As soon as she walked in, she could tell the room had belonged to someone other than Rowan. It was a large room, but the bed was small and narrow, as if the owner had never adjusted to having so much space. The coverlet over the bed was a faded handmade ikat quilt of many colors. Lily trailed her hand over the dresser, lightly touching the trinkets neatly placed on top—a pair of glasses, a hand-carved comb, and a plain gold ring that Lily was certain was a wedding band. They were old items, scuffed, worn, and heavy with the memories of an entire life. A lost life.

There were no handy photographs announcing whose room this had been, but Lily didn’t need them. She knew the room must have belonged to Rowan’s father, but she didn’t know how or why his father had died. Lily ached to ask Rowan about it, to exchange confidences with him again like they had in the cabin.

The longing for Rowan that was building in her and the energy it took to push it down was exhausting and made her intense workload harder to bear. When Lily wasn’t sleeping, playing cards with Tristan, or making potions to supply Alaric’s never-ending list of needs for the rebels, Rowan had also insisted that she learn camouflage magic. This type of magic would make her seemingly disappear in low light, as Rowan had when they’d been in the woods.

One of the camouflage spells she learned was how to cast a glamour, which worked on the same energy field principles as ordinary camouflage but didn’t make her blend into the background. Instead, it shifted the way light hit her face, subtly altering the way she looked. Since Lily had learned how to cast a glamour, she’d been harassing Rowan and Tristan to let her leave the apartment and take a walk outside in the fresh air, which, considering they had her working double shifts and the fire was burning day and night, was getting harder to come by.

“You coming or not?” asked Tristan’s voice outside the bedroom door.

“Yeah,” Lily said, rushing to join him.

When they crossed through the living area, Rowan was sitting on one of the sofas, reading. Lily caught a glimpse of the book cover as she and Tristan passed on their way to the stairs.

“Was that a geometry book he was reading?” she asked when they got to the roof.

“Uh-huh,” Tristan replied.

“Why? Rowan’s way past geometry. I know he knows calculus.”

“Yes and no,” Tristan said, dodging an explanation. Lily stared at him with a cocked eyebrow until he continued. “You’ve noticed that your memory is crystal clear now that you have willstones, right?” Lily nodded. “That’s because willstones are like extra memory space—not infinite, but really big. When Rowan smashed his first stone to get away from Lillian he lost a lot. It’s not that he doesn’t understand geometry anymore.”

“But he doesn’t have it memorized anymore,” Lily finished for him. She thought about it for a bit, imagining what it would be like to make that kind of sacrifice, and desperately trying not to feel everything that touched Rowan as deeply as she did. Sometimes Lily thought that if someone were to pinch Rowan, she’d be the one to say ouch. “So that’s why he’s always reading.”