Of course, Lily. It’s amazing.
Rowan? Are witches addictive?
I don’t know. Is being close to someone addictive?
No. It’s necessary. Everyone needs to feel close to someone else.
Then witches are necessary.
Lily knew there had to be a flaw in his thinking—people got on just fine in her world without witches—but she was too taken with the idea to pursue it. In her world, she’d been loved—by her sister, her mother, and even her Tristan—but Lily had never been necessary.
As the night wore on, Lily felt the tons of rubble moving under the hands of her mechanics because she fueled them, felt the circle of minds wrapped around hers because she was the touchstone, and she knew that Rowan had been right. In this world she was able to contribute things that really mattered to people, like clean water and antibiotics. She was important. Just as Lillian had said she would be.
* * *
Lily? We’re through to the other side. I’m coming back for you.
Lily stirred. She realized that she was lying on her side in the dark, and she couldn’t breathe.
Hurry, Rowan. The candles have burned out.
Why didn’t you tell me sooner?
I think I passed out. There’s no air in here.
Esmeralda was supposed to leave the hatch open for you.
It’s shut. Please hurry. I’m cold, Rowan.
Cold?
Lily could feel a thrill of urgency race through Rowan. It pierced past the haze of fatigue that pressed down on her. Lily sensed Tristan and Caleb responding to Rowan’s alarm. They chased after him as he ran down the tunnel. Lily didn’t have the energy to give them any extra speed.
Lily heard a distant boom and the ground above her shook. Earth fell from the ceiling in a sheet. She felt rocks hitting her, cutting her. Then everything went silent.
Lily felt someone grab her. She screamed.
Rowan!
Lily, we’re cut off. There was an explosion aboveground that triggered a cave-in. We’ve been betrayed. I’m digging.
A strange man hovered over Lily in the dark.
She could feel rough hands on her bare arms and legs. She was so weak she couldn’t even draw magelight from her stones.
“Lillian,” oozed a voice. It wasn’t totally foreign to her. She recognized it from Rowan’s memories.
“Carrick,” she whispered.
Rowan, help! Carrick—
Lily felt a web of ice wrap around her heart. Her body went rigid, her limbs wriggling with agony as Carrick ripped her willstones off her neck.
CHAPTER
12
Gideon took the steps in his father’s keep two at a time. The Danforth Keep, much like the Citadel, had been built hundreds of years ago when the first witches rose from their pyres after the Salem Witch Trials and took over the continent. If only the witches had been hanged and not burned, they would have been wiped out, but apparently the constables of Salem hadn’t known that a rare breed of witches known as firewalkers had recently emerged. Since Carrick had explained to him how parallel universes worked, Gideon often wondered what his world would have been like if that one choice, burning over hanging, had been made differently.