“Professor Longshadow?” I say, nearly shouting. “Head of the department of Fundamental Laws of Nature at my college?”
“She’s been using your laboratories, your resources, and your students at the school to develop what I’ve stolen. She has two students in particular—acolytes, really.”
“Who are they?” I ask, my lips twisting into a snarl.
“I don’t know their names. Alaric keeps the particulars compartmentalized—even from us who are most involved. We each just know bits. All I know is that Chenoa has two students who’re special. They know everything she knows, just in case something happens to her.”
I’d never interfered with the science department at my college, and in fact, I’d never even met Chenoa. Never toured her labs. Never took the time to concern myself with anything except student enrollment. I thought it was my job to bring as many of the disenfranchised to my school as possible, and to fight for their right to an education before the Council and in the Coven. The actual schooling I left to the professors.
“I trusted them to teach,” I say feebly.
“She did teach. She taught Outlanders to hate the Covens,” he says. “And for the past two years she’s been using your money and your laboratories to make and store parts of the bombs.”
“But I was trying to help.” My eyes dance around frantically, not really seeing anything. “How could they?”
“Did you really think one little school was going to erase centuries of injustice?” he asks, an eyebrow raised. “Too many Outlanders have watched their children starve to death or die in the mines or be torn apart by the Woven for too long. That kind of bone-deep hatred doesn’t just disappear because one witch builds a school.”
I’ve never felt such a weight pressing down on me. I feel so sick I’d vomit again if there were anything left in me but bile.
“I won’t let her,” I whisper.
“How can anyone undo what’s already been done?” The shaman shakes his head sadly. “The only way to stop the Outlanders now is to give them another way to get rid of the Woven. If we do that, I know Alaric will abandon elemental energy.”
“Alaric Windrider? The sachem who has sworn to destroy me?” I say incredulously.
“He’s not a madman,” the shaman insists.
“But he can’t use elemental energy against the Woven,” I object, confused. “He’d have to bomb the whole continent. I understand this energy—every witch knows what powers the sun and the stars—and I tell you it causes more damage than the enemy you would use it against.”
“He doesn’t want to use the bombs against the Woven. He wants to use them against the Thirteen Cities.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“What choice do we have? The Covens won’t allow Outlanders to own property and build walled cities of our own. If we continue having to fight both the Woven and the laws of the cities, the Outlanders will die out. Our very existence is at stake, Lillian. What would you do if you were caught between hammer and anvil as we are? If we can’t get rid of the Woven, Alaric will get rid of the cities.”
“I can’t make the Council and the other twelve Covens change the law!” I shout defensively. “I’ve tried! I only have so much power, shaman, and quite frankly too many people make too much money off the mines that the Outlanders work.”
“The mines the Outlanders die in,” the shaman corrects quietly. “You need us to be poor so you can get rich. Is it any wonder some of my people want to see every single one of the cities burn?”
“So what’s stopping them?”
“The bombs aren’t finished,” the shaman admits. “We need to find a way to get rid of the Woven before those bombs are complete or Alaric will blow you to hell.”
Seconds crawl by, each getting heavier than the last. I’ve never thought of time as having mass before, but it does. When time slows down it takes on so much weight that even one second could drag a star down into darkness.
“Are the bomb parts still in my school?” I ask calmly.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He makes a frustrated sound. “You’re focusing on the wrong thing. No one person knows where all the bomb parts are except Alaric. You gotta focus on finding the world that got rid of the Woven to end this.”
“Getting rid of the Woven isn’t going to stop Alaric and Chenoa now,” I reply. “They’ll just wait until after I deliver the Woven solution, and then they’ll use their bombs. Not because it makes sense, but because they hate us. You said it yourself. They want to see the cities burn. I’ve seen what elemental energy does to cities. I’ve lived it, and I know there’s only one way to keep the Outlanders from detonating your stolen poison.”
“What are you talking about, girl?” the shaman asks fearfully. But he knows. He’s not naive. “Look, there’s no telling how many students, teachers, and science-minded folk Chenoa has shown a little bit of this and a little bit of that over the years. It could be hundreds of people.”
I am dead inside already. I’ve let go, like a child letting go of a beautiful birthday balloon. It was only ever full of air, anyway. All that’s left for me to do is clean up the mess.
I’ll save as many as I can by killing the rest.
CHAPTER