Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)

If you don’t want me to argue for you, then why do you need me, Lillian? Why did you kill my father to get me to come back here?

Have you been paying attention to anything I showed you? The shaman told me that no one knows where all the bombs are—I don’t even think Alaric knows. But you claimed an army of Outlanders, Lily. Some combination of all those minds must know something. I forced you to come back to this world first to

lead me to Hakan, who is one of the three people who know how to disarm them, and now I need you in this world so you can go into the minds of your claimed and find the bombs that Hakan can’t locate.

Alaric said that he was careful about who he allowed me to claim. He said none of my braves even know about the bombs.

It doesn’t matter what they think they know. Use your claimed to make a mind mosaic. Someone has seen something, even if they don’t know what that something is. Find all the suspicious carriages and tell me where they are. Your claimed don’t even have to know you’re in their minds.

I just have to violate the privacy of thousands of people who trust me. That’s despicable, Lillian.

But it will end the war. Do you want to be the good guy, or do you want to save lives?

I think I hate you more now than ever.

Think of how much you’ll hate yourself if even one of those bombs goes off. Think of all the people who are going to die because you’re too squeamish to do something you find despicable. Haven’t you learned yet? Someone has to be the villain so everyone else can stay alive. Think of the one thing you would never do—that’s what you’ll have to do in order to end this war. It’s what I had to do.

Lily cut off contact with Lillian and stared at the fire, bitterness gnawing at her. Lillian’s version of the future was a dictatorship, while Alaric’s version was a smoking wasteland. Neither of those worlds were acceptable to Lily.

She saw something dart through the underbrush and instantly stiffened, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Lily opened her mouth to cry out and wake the others, but stopped. The thing in the underbrush was running away. She saw only a long, pale tail as it retreated.

Lily sat back, not completely sure why she had let the pale coyote Woven go, and saw Juliet’s big eyes staring up at her from where she lay. Her sister knew her better than anyone. She also knew Lillian better than anyone.

“How do I do this, Juliet? How do I stop this war?” Lily whispered. “Lillian’s still using me. I’m her pawn. She’s always two steps ahead.”

“That’s because you’re in her world, where she’s in control, and you’re still thinking like her,” Juliet whispered back. “Don’t.”

Lily looked at the pale Woven’s trail. The underbrush was still moving slightly where it had run away. “Did Lillian ever think to go west?” she asked.

Juliet propped herself up on her elbow and looked at Lily. “Never.”

Lily looked back at her sister, and they shared a determined smile. “Good.”

* * *

Lily stared at a map of what she still thought of as North America, except in this version of the world, North America ended just a little bit past the Mississippi River. Everything west of that was filled in with nondescript cross-hatching, as if to say, Here, There Be Dragons. Which, Lily supposed, was entirely possible.

“Okay, so all we have to do is follow this trail we’re on and we get to a ferry that will take us across this river?” Lily asked.

Caleb and Tristan exchanged looks.

“Maybe,” Tristan replied. “It was there two months ago. According to some.”

“My cousin said he saw it still functional three months ago,” Dana said. “If the Woven haven’t attacked it, it should be fine.”

“That’s comforting,” Una said sarcastically.

They had been riding west for over a week. About forty braves had joined them, making things both easier and harder. There were more eyes on the lookout for Woven, but there were also more mouths to feed.

Dana was one of the people Lily had found in Lillian’s dungeon. Lily had freed her, and during the battle with Lillian that had followed shortly after, Dana proved herself to be a good general. As soon as she found out that Lily was back, Dana had joined her with fifteen other braves, but not even she could promise that she would go all the way west. Mostly, she and her braves wanted to be on the other side of the mountains if Alaric proved crazy enough to detonate his bombs.

Dana had been a leader among one of the other twelve factions in Alaric’s tribe, and every time Lily regarded Dana for too long, she wondered what would happen if she slipped into her mind. Would she find some bit of information she could pass on to Lillian about the bombs? Lily made herself look away. She’d possessed Dana once to free her sister from the dungeon and had promised never to do it again to anyone. Lily didn’t doubt that Dana would try to make good on her promise to kill Lily if she caught her sifting through her mind without permission.

“Why are you guys talking about crossing a river that’s miles away? What about those?” Breakfast pointed to the Appalachian Mountains looming above them. “We’ve got to get through those first.”

“There are trails and trading posts all through there,” Caleb said, shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal. “And spring’s here. We’ll be able to find food.” He suddenly wrinkled his brow in worry. “The rivers coming down the mountains might be all swollen with melt water, though. That could be a problem.”

“But aren’t mountains, like, high?” Breakfast asked timorously.