Trial by Fire (Worldwalker 1)

“He was a faithful friend to me for years,” Lily said, agreeing with Rowan.

Rowan was silent for a while. She could tell something was eating at him.

“What is it?” Lily asked.

“I was wondering if you’d forgiven your Tristan. That’s all.”

“No,” she admitted. “The next morning we had a terrible fight, and then I let Lillian take me.”

“Because of him?”

“Because of a lot of things.” She glanced over and saw a muscle jump in Rowan’s jaw. She was torn between being ashamed about what had happened to her and grateful that someone knew exactly how she’d felt. Rowan hadn’t been just a spectator to Tristan’s infidelity, and his anger wasn’t just for Lily’s sake. They’d shared more than memories the night before. What they’d experienced was a communion. For a few brief moments they’d literally become one. He’d felt just as hurt as she had in that moment.

But communion worked both ways. Lily had felt skin under her hand when they’d touched Lillian. And she’d felt their shared body swell when they’d climbed on top of her. Lily didn’t know how to deal with that just yet.

“You showed me a gallows,” she said quietly. “What happened?”

Rowan’s face turned slightly away from hers. She hated not being able to see his expression, but she didn’t push. Eventually, he changed the subject. “When you enter a mechanic, yo

u don’t have to give back, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t have to delve so deeply into him, or share anything of yourself if you don’t want to. You’re the witch. You’re in charge. It doesn’t have to be that intimate. You can keep your experiences to yourself.”

“And what about the mechanic?”

“It depends on how strong he is and how strong the witch is. Sometimes, he can fight her off if she tries to view things he’d rather keep to himself.”

Lily stopped walking and stared at Rowan. “Fight her off? That’s awful, Rowan.”

“None of this happens without the mechanic’s consent. He has to let her in first.” Rowan’s lips twitched with the hint of a smile. “And a kind witch controls herself when she’s in there.”

“Like I didn’t?” Her voice grated with guilt.

Rowan put his hand on her elbow, tilting his head down closer to hers. “You had no warning about how it would make you feel. It was your first time.” He dropped his hand a little too quickly, and eased away from her. “I’m lucky you didn’t eat me alive,” he joked.

Lily’s smile was forced. Did he know that she’d wanted to eat him alive? That she still wanted to? She cast around for something other than eating Rowan to talk about, and a thought occurred to her. “Wait. You’ve been calling me witch all morning.”

“After what you did last night, you’ve definitely earned the title. Healing your ankle was medicinal magic. That’s easy stuff—any crucible, even mechanics, can do it. But what we did last night was warrior magic. The highest level there is, save one. A simple crucible can’t possess a body like that and fill it with the Gift.” Rowan started walking again. “You’re a witch. And you did it with no training and no willstone of your own.”

Lily thought she heard him whisper the word “scary” to himself, and rushed to catch up with him.

* * *

“That’s utterly ridiculous,” sputtered Councilman Roberts.

Gideon shifted in his seat and swallowed the retort that caught in his throat. Councilman Roberts was a dried-out old fool as far as Gideon was concerned, but he had been serving on the Council for more years than anyone—even more than Gideon’s father, Thomas Danforth. If Gideon and his father were going to get the rest of the Council to hear them, they’d need his support.

“I’m not quite sure we understand what you’re saying,” interjected Councilman Wake. He leaned into the round table and crossed his hands neatly in front of him. Wake was a younger man, barely thirty, but he had a reputation for being a shrewd tactician, which was why Gideon and his father had included Wake in this small and secret gathering. “Are you trying to say that the Salem Witch has created a copy of herself out of thin air?” Wake asked.

“Not created,” Gideon interrupted, shaking his head. “We think she found another version of herself in another universe and brought that other self here.”

A stupefied silence followed.

“What my son means is that there is the possibility that something impossible happened,” Thomas Danforth said. He laughed nervously. “After all, you can’t account for Lillian being in two places at once in any other way besides the impossible.”

“Rumors,” Roberts spat. “A bunch of drubs in the dungeons claimed they saw another Lillian gadding about the woods with Rowan Fall, when we could all attest that the Witch was in the Citadel. That doesn’t make it true.”