Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker 3)

“He insisted,” Rowan said. “We’ll pay him back and be out of here by tonight.”

She went to the glass door again, pulled it open, and looked out at the shoreline. Bower City had changed it to enlarge the port in a place that had only a small natural cove, but she recognized some of the features. Using the perfect recall that her willstone afforded her, she laid one view on top of the other, making a palimpsest of the two shorelines in her mind. They were hauntingly similar, yet each one was unique.

“Lily? Oatmeal or pancakes?” Rowan asked. “You need to eat.”

Lily startled and turned to see Rowan standing close to her. “Do you think a place can create a unique vibration? Something no other place in no other universe quite matches?”

Rowan breathed in, smelling the clear air blowing in through the open door, and shut his eyes. Lily saw his willstone flicker as thought ran through the crystal and became energy. She followed those fairy lights, weaving closer to him until she could feel the heat of his skin and smell the spice of his body. He opened his eyes and Lily leaned back. His face softened.

“When I first met you I kept scanning you over and over. Everything was the same. Every cell in your body was Lillian’s, but you weren’t her.” Rowan frowned. “In the cabin, right before you claimed me, I wondered if by letting you claim me, would Lillian be claiming me through you? But no, it hasn’t been that way. Maybe every person has their own vibration, regardless of how many versions of us there are, and if every person does, maybe every place does, too.” His brow furrowed. “Because you can feel it. You can feel that this place is different from any other, and it’s not just the way it looks or smells. It just is different somehow. Like you were different somehow.”

Lily looked out at the water and felt the pulse of the ocean as it battered the shore. She felt the heat of the sun hitting the earth and radiating back in waves. She felt the wind press and push, lift and swirl, random and rhythmic all at once.

“I can’t find it,” she said.

“You will,” Rowan replied confidently. “Now, oatmeal or pancakes?”

Lily smiled at him. “Pancakes. Please.”

Rowan moved away from her to go back to the stove, and Lily found herself following as if every step he took tugged her along behind him.

A few more people stopped in while the coven waited for Breakfast and Miller to return, and Rowan fed them, too. One of the guys might have even been the owner of the house, but he didn’t seem too concerned that a stranger had commandeered his kitchen. He wandered in, ate, and wandered out saying, “Thanks, Robert. Excellent hollandaise, by the way,” to Rowan, as if he was accustomed to having someone else prepare his meals.

“Yeah, thanks, Robert,” Una said, snickering.

“Should we tip you?” Tristan asked, stretching out the joke.

Rowan grinned and took his ribbing happily. Slowly, in increments, they were accepting him back.

Breakfast and Miller returned with the rental car before noon. Breakfast rolled up, arm hanging out of the driver’s side window and bass thumping from the tinny speakers of the doublewide soccer-mom minivan.

“Hey, fancy lady. Want a ride in my precision automobile?” Breakfast catcalled to Una.

“How can I resist,” she deadpanned. “The color tan gets me all worked up.”

Breakfast parked and jumped out of the car, chasing Una around lecherously. Miller got out of his truck and came over while the rest of the coven checked out the rental.

“Seating for seven,” Caleb said, and then checked himself. They were only six now.

Lily felt heat race through her—the ear-burning, voice-thickening kind that comes before tears. She cleared her throat and smiled for no reason.

“I go to Yosemite all the time,” Miller said, looking disturbingly hopeful at Caleb’s mention of an extra seat. “There are so many hidden spots I could show you. Really special stuff.”

It took a second for Lily to catch up, but she assumed that Breakfast had told Miller that they were going to Yosemite as a cover story.

“Well, unfortunately we have to leave today,” Lily said. “Now, actually.”

“I could leave today,” Miller said, his optimism increasing. “I could have a bag packed in ten minutes.”

Damn it, Lily said to her coven in mindspeak. Doesn’t anyone have a real job in this state? Someone help me get rid of this guy.

“Look, Mills. My man,” Breakfast said, putting a hand on Miller’s shoulder and pulling him aside, “this is a hard time for us. A friend died. It’s sort of a memorial trip, you know?”

While Breakfast let Miller down easy, Lily took the keys to the car. “I’ll be back with the cash,” she said.

Rowan got in the passenger side and buckled himself in before anyone could tell him not to, and they drove to the Walmart off Route 1. Lily waited in a short line at the money center. She did not tilt her eyes up at the surveillance camera behind the

counter, but as she picked up the cash Juliet had wired to the money center, she knew. They were on borrowed time now. She and Rowan took to the aisles to shop as quickly as they could without seeming suspicious.