Trial by Fire (Worldwalker 1)

“No. Non-magical people aren’t as connected to their willstones as we are. They just feel a presence in their minds when they touch each other’s stones. Sometimes they can share thoughts and memories if they are emotionally close, and physical sensation if they are attracted to each other,” he said quietly. “But they don’t feel anywhere near what we do. They aren’t as vulnerable as we are.”

“And what about between magical people? Is it always that intense?”

Rowan smiled and shook his head. “Mechanics can bond with each other, but that’s different from being claimed by a witch. We call it stone kin—like Tristan, Caleb, and I. The bond is for life, but it’s not nearly as overwhelming as a claiming with a witch. The rule of thumb is the stronger the witch and mechanic are magically, the stronger the shared experience.” Rowan broke off suddenly, carefully considering his wording. “You and I are uncommon, Lily. The next time you claim someone, even if it is another mechanic, it won’t feel like that. I don’t want you to be afraid of it, okay?”

Lily nodded, frowning, and looked away. Her emotions had inexplicably flipped again, and she didn’t want to talk anymore. She wanted to be alone. Rowan sensed that Lily had mentally checked out of the conversation and secured his mask over his nose. “I’ll be right outside,” he said reassuringly, and left.

She stripped down and stood in the bucket of icy water. It chilled her to the bone, but she didn’t care. She washed herself from head to toe, marveling at how tender she was. How soft and small her body felt in comparison to Rowan’s. She splashed water on her face repeatedly, trying to rinse away the memory of sharing his skin. She shouldn’t want to wear Rowan like a pair of pants, or swallow him like a mouthful of chocolate. It just wasn’t right.

She brushed off her wearhyde clothes and boots as best she could, giving them a good shake. Luckily, wearhyde seemed to be not only durable but also capable of staying fresh even after several days of hard use. Her linen shirt was limp and stained, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. She finished dressing and tidied up the cabin while she let her hair dry. It still seemed strange to feel the ends of her hair touching the top of her neck and brushing against her jawbone, but she tried not to think too much about how it looked or lament its loss. Instead, she concentrated on folding and putting things away.

“Lily? Are you okay?” Rowan called from outside.

“Yeah,” she replied. “You can come in.”

He ducked under the flap and pulled his mask down, looking around. Lily had pretty much everything packed up and ready for them to go.

“Oh. You cleaned up,” he said, surprised. Lily smiled at him, and looked away quickly. Everything he did seemed to make her blush. She felt ridiculous.

“I didn’t know what to do with the empty jars of preserves and pickles so I washed them and left them to soak in the bucket of water you brought me.”

Rowan pulled the jars out and left them on a windowsill to dry, then went to the chest, closed it, and sealed it with a shimmer from his willstone.

“I’ll empty this and we can go.” He picked up the bucket and gave Lily a puzzled look. “Thank you.”

She nodded and shifted on her feet. “Well, I can’t let you do everything for me. Even though it is tempting.” He stared at her for a moment longer than usual. “What?” she asked when the moment dragged past the comfort point.

“Most witches expect their mechanics to do everything for them. They don’t even think twice about it.”

“I guess I’m not like most witches, then.”

They stared at each other again with nothing to say. Lily edged past him and went outside.

The fire had burned itself out, but the mound of blackened bodies still smoked in the center of the clearing. Lily noticed that Rowan had dug a shallow ditch around it to contain any stray embers. She covered her mouth with her hand and stared at the jumble of mismatched body parts in the pile. She still had no idea how to classify the Woven in her head. Not one was exactly like another. Some were the size of a small dog, and others were twice the size of a man. Some stood upright, while others had no legs and had to slither. The majority of them resembled giant insects with claws and teeth, but there were some that seemed more mammalian or serpentine. It was the sheer wrongness of them that disturbed her the most.

“How many did we kill?’

“I don’t know. Thirty or forty.” Rowan threw the used water onto the smoldering remains, making them hiss. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t want to remain there a second longer than he had to. Lily didn’t blame him. She followed him to a water pump. He hung the bucket on the spout, adjusted his pack, and started into the woods without a backward glance.

They didn’t speak for a while, but Lily could feel Rowan stealing glances at her whenever she wasn’t doing the same to him. She kept imagining that there was a string connecting them—as if they’d been tethered together like two paper cups and something in each of them whispered to the other in the dark. The connection wasn’t clear, but she could still feel something inside Rowan speaking to something inside of her. She didn’t know how to initiate mindspeak yet, but she could tell there was something he needed to say.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“What happened between you and Tristan?” His voice was tight and his hands wrung the strap of his pack.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just, I know him really well. Tristan and I have been stone kin since we were kids.” Rowan watched Lily carefully, but she didn’t look up at him. “We share mindspeak. So I know a lot of girls have forgiven him when he’s—”

“Cheated,” Lily finished for him. “Which means he isn’t faithful in this universe either,” she said, more to herself than him.

She expected to be disappointed about that, but she wasn’t. Fair or not, she didn’t feel the same way about Tristan. Things he did that used to seem unbearably charming to her now seemed staged—phony even. Lily knew she shouldn’t judge the Tristan in this world by what her Tristan had done to her, but she couldn’t help it.

She remembered Rowan’s distrust of her when he first met her, and she wondered if he would always see Lillian when he looked at her. Something clenched inside of her at the thought. She wanted him to see her. She wanted—well, she didn’t know what she wanted, but she couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the time when he hated her. They’d shared too much.

“It’s not that,” Rowan said vehemently, bringing Lily out of herself and back to the conversation. “Tristan is the most faithful friend you could ever ask for.”