Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)
“We’ll only have what we take with us into the caves. She won’t be able to give us more. And we’ll be unable to mindspeak if we separate,” Rowan said. “But while he’s in the caves, Carrick won’t be able to get energy from Lillian, either. What he’s counting on is that if he can take witchcraft out of the equation, he can beat all of us.”
“Really?” Tristan said, insulted. He looked at Rowan. “I don’t know about that.”
Rowan smiled back at him. “He’s a murderer, Tristan. I know you’re a good fighter, but you’ve never killed a man. Are you sure you’re up to this?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Tristan replied.
Rowan looked at Breakfast. “You’re never to leave Lily’s side. Understand?”
“Yeah,” Breakfast said grimly.
“Una, I want you in the fight with Tristan and me,” Rowan said.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
“Juliet, you’ll stay here with your mother,” Rowan said. “There’s a slim chance Carrick might circle back for her. You’ll always be able to reach Lily in mindspeak because you’re sisters. If there’s a problem, she can get clear of the granite and give you some power to d
efend Samantha.”
Juliet pursed her trembling lips and nodded resolutely.
“When do we go?” Una asked.
Rowan looked out the window. It was still early afternoon. “Tonight. Until then we should get some sleep.”
The group broke up slowly. Una and Breakfast spent some time outside talking with Tristan. Lily hugged Juliet, checked on her mom, and dragged herself to the bathroom to wash off the sand and salt of the night before. When she got back to her room, Rowan was waiting in her bed. She closed the door behind her and went to him, already crying. He wrapped her up tightly in his arms.
“I’m so angry with you,” she said into his neck.
“I know,” he whispered.
“And I’m angry with my father for never being a father.”
“I know.”
“I feel like I can’t really be sad about losing either of you because I’m so angry. It’s like you both robbed me of any chance I had at getting over you, because even when I’m done being sad, I’m still going to be angry.”
Rowan squeezed her to his chest and brushed her cheek with his fingers. “I know.”
He didn’t try to cheer her up or tell her that she was going to feel better in a few months—he just let her feel whatever she needed to feel until she was done. Lily cried herself out and fell asleep on Rowan’s shoulder. When she woke up, he was staring at the ceiling.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
“No,” he replied.
Lily propped herself up on an elbow, her head miraculously clear. It struck her that Rowan was just as angry as she was, and even more sad about having to leave her. Her anger fell away when she really allowed herself to feel his sadness.
“I wanted to travel with you,” he said, his voice breaking. He pulled Lily down until she was resting on his chest again. “I’d even started imagining what it would be like. We’d drive all the way to California and when we got out there, I’d take cooking classes to be a chef someday. We’d get a stupid dog, not because it could hunt or guard anything but because we love it. We’d live in a place with a swimming pool. There’d be no walled cities. No Woven. And we’d never be afraid again.”
Lily could see the whole thing in Rowan’s mind. She saw the rolling hills of Napa Valley, and the utterly useless mutt Rowan wanted running blissfully around their yard. She saw the turquoise pool and the wide-open spaces that he didn’t have to constantly scan for danger. She could nearly smell the outdoor grill and hear their friends’ laughter as the sun set on another perfectly golden California day. But mostly, Lily saw herself. She was happy, always happy, in his mind’s eye.
“But every time I’d almost let myself believe in that fantasy,” he continued, “I’d remember something.”
“What?”
“While my life was perfect, every person who I owed that life to would be fighting and dying.”
Lily saw the bright, sunny dream inside his mind’s eye hollow out and bleed away and understood what the big, gray emotion she sensed in him was now. It was his dream dying.