Trial by Fire (11 page)

Without another word, Tristan turned and started scraping off tiny bits of the phosphorus, iron, and chalk. He began grinding them down to dust with the mortar and pestle while Rowan plucked bits of the herbs and put them in a small pot of water he’d set to boil on the edge of the fire. Their actions were quick and precise, as if they had been trained to do this. After a few moments of orchestrated movement, Rowan held out his hand to Tristan, who poured the ground minerals into his palm, like a nurse handing a surgeon a scalpel.

“Here. Inhale this,” Rowan said, holding his hand under Lily’s nose.

“What’s it for?” she asked, already inhaling. Rowan gave her a quizzical look.

“You’re just going to inhale it without waiting for an answer?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at her. Lily squinted back at him. His face had started to blur.

“Please don’t tell me I’m going to pass out again,” she pleaded.

“Focus,” Rowan said. He brushed his hands together in the direction of the fire, sending the leftover particles into the flames. The fire shot up, changing color as it burned the phosphorus, calcium, and iron. Lily’s vision cleared.

She had no idea what Rowan wanted her to focus on, so she just stared at him and Tristan. The two of them sat cross-legged next to the fire, waiting. Rowan stared at the little pot of water, absentmindedly touching his willstone with the tip of his middle finger. The pot boiled, and he wrapped his hand in the sleeve of his jacket to remove it from the flame. He turned to Lily.

“Drink,” he said, offering the red-bottomed pot for her to take.

“But … it’s burning hot,” she said, not understanding what he wanted her to do.

“Heat is energy. You are a crucible. Take this cauldron, drink this brew, and use the energy to change the elements I’ve given you into blood, marrow, and bone.”

Lily gaped at him.

“Do it now, Lily.” He shoved the small cauldron into her hands, and tipped the rim toward her face. Left with no other option, she gulped the liquid down rather than let it splash over her face and hoped that if she got if over with quickly she’d suffer less.

Lily didn’t feel a thing. The hot brew didn’t scald her tongue or mouth. Her hands weren’t singed. She turned the ashy cauldron around in her fingers, feeling pulsing warmth, but not pain. She saw Rowan’s willstone flare as he moved closer to her.

“I’ll help you guide it,” he murmured, his eyes half closed.

Rowan reached out and took her shoulders, slowly drawing her closer to him until they were nearly pressed against each other. The slippery, silver light of his willstone pulsed in the scant inch that was left between them. Rowan pushed her back until she was lying down, and leaned over her. The light from his willstone began flashing over her body and arcing down in little tendrils, like lightning.

Lily felt a tingling storm in her body that drew the heat from the brew in her belly down to her ankle. When it reached her injury, the heat burst into life and crawled like fingers of fire under her skin.

Suddenly, Lily could
see
the damage. She saw the smashed bone, the torn ligaments, the shredded blood vessels, and she knew what she had to do. She told the fingers of fire to put the broken bits back together, to use the free elements that she’d inhaled to mix with the collagen, proteins, and minerals that came from the brew to knit her body back together. In seconds, Lily’s ankle reassembled.

“Now. Call out the fluid—the swelling and the blood. Remetabolize it,” Rowan whispered, his soft mouth brushing against her jawbone as he spoke. Lily saw what he meant and released the pressure, calling all the fluid back to her organs to be recycled.

The light from Rowan’s willstone went out, and he sighed, drooping on his elbows for a moment before he pushed himself away from her. Lily sat up. She turned her ankle around effortlessly, drawing a circle with her big toe. It was as good as new.

Lily pressed her foot against the ground, testing whether or not it could handle weight. There was no pain. She stared at her perfect ankle, not really believing that five minutes ago it had been swollen and broken.

“Magic,” she whispered, not convinced that she could handle this.

“Of course,” Rowan said, looking at Tristan. Again, Lily got the feeling that they were communicating without words.

“What?” she asked defensively.

“We’ve decided that you don’t need to be locked up. You can sleep in a tent tonight,” Tristan said. He crossed to Lily and helped her up off the ground. “This one behind you should be fine. Rowan and I will be in that one,” he continued, and gestured to the tent next to hers. “Are you tired?”

“Of course I’m tired,” Lily said in a quavering voice. She was trying to stay calm, but too much had happened. She’d been teleported, kidnapped, tied up, raided by monsters, frogmarched through the woods in the dead of night, and now this.
Magic
. And she’d been the one to do it. Before she lost it completely, Lily whirled around and dove into her tent.

“There should be a canteen of water in there if you get thirsty,” Tristan called after her. “Goodnight.”

Lily didn’t answer. She pulled the flap down over the entrance and stood in the dark tent, panting hysterically. When her eyes adjusted, Lily saw what looked liked a rolled-up sleeping bag in the corner. She went to it quickly and laid it out on the ground. Her breath was coming in and out of her in fretful little gulps, and her hands were shaking. Kneeling on her makeshift bed, Lily cupped her hands over her mouth and tried to slow her breathing down.

She wanted to go home. She wanted her sister to come into the tent and tell her everything was going to be okay. Lily crawled onto her bag, tears spilling down her face. All she could think about was that Juliet must be worried sick about her. Lily had disappeared into thin air, abandoning her without warning. Lily laid her head down and wished with her whole heart that Juliet could hear her.

Help me, Juliet!

Gideon heard a furtive knock on the door of his personal suite of rooms at the Citadel. It was late, so late it was almost early morning.

The girl across from him stiffened with fear at the sound. She was an Outlander who’d tapped on his window out of desperation. Or stupidity. Gideon didn’t know which yet. He didn’t think she had the right papers to allow her inside the city walls after dark, and she certainly didn’t have permission to be inside the smaller circle of the Citadel walls. If she were caught by one of the guards, she would end up in prison for sure. She looked at him pleadingly and Gideon smiled. He liked her better when she was scared.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

“Carrick,” answered the man on the other side of the door.

“Give me a moment.”

Gideon flicked his head toward the window. “Get out,” he said to the girl.

“My brother?” she whispered, her eyes downcast.

“That depends on you,” Gideon replied, “and on how nice you are to me.”

She looked up at him, her mouth tight. She wasn’t an idiot, or pretending to be so virtuous she didn’t understand what Gideon meant, which was good for her. If she’d tried to play the shy violet after climbing in his bedroom window, he’d have hung her alongside her wretched brother just for wasting his time.

The girl swallowed. “Then you’ll let him go? He’s not a scientist or a rebel. Really.”

Gideon was surprised she had the nerve to ask him for a promise. He wondered how old she was. Thirteen? Maybe fourteen. Some of those Outland girls had smart mouths and seemed older than they were. After a lifetime of being passed over by the high-and-mighty Salem Witch herself, Gideon did not find female spunk endearing.

“Ask me again and he’ll hang for sure,” Gideon said, watching a choking hatred rise up in her throat. Good. Now she knew where she stood. He smiled at her. “Get out, drub. For now.”

She wasn’t crying, which could be a problem. If he hadn’t broken her spirits completely, she could come back demanding something. If she wanted her brother to live, she’d have to learn patience. And manners. Gideon decided it might be fun to teach her both.

While the girl scurried out the window, Gideon put on a robe and crossed through his suite to the main entrance. He opened the door and led Carrick, his Outlander spy, into the sitting area. He marveled, as he always did, at how drubs seemed to walk without stirring the air. A necessary ability, Gideon assumed, for those stuck down precarious mine shafts all day and surrounded by roving bands of Woven all night. It made them good fighters. That, coupled with the constant near starvation of their poverty-stricken lives, gave them a survivor’s mastery of all the herbs and animals of the forest. Strength and knowledge of herb lore—those were two of the reasons Rowan had been chosen to be Lillian’s head mechanic, rather than Gideon himself.

An Outlander, a drub no better than that piece of rubbish he’d just kicked out of his room, was head mechanic to the Salem Witch. Or he had been until she sent him away.

“Set the wards,” Carrick whispered.

Gideon shook off the all-consuming swell of irritation that always accompanied any thought of Rowan and concentrated so that he could cast a ward spell around the room to be neither heard nor felt by anyone else inside the Citadel. A pulse of silvery blue light throbbed around the room as Gideon’s ward formed a bubble of protection around them.

“The room is sealed,” Gideon said, moving his hand away from his willstone. “Speak freely.”

“Minutes ago, I saw Lady Juliet leave the Citadel,” Carrick responded, the words bursting out of him urgently. “She seemed distraught—frantic, even. I sent a team of guards to shadow her, of course.”

“Why so many? Where was she going?” Gideon replied, already on his way to the clothespress to dress.

“The forest.” Carrick sounded pleased. “She left the city and went into the Outland.”

Gideon stopped momentarily. First Lillian was found wandering around the Citadel, half crazed, and now dependable Juliet was behaving like she’d abandoned all sense. What was going on? Gideon needed Juliet alive—at least, for a little while—to get children out of her. “Did she have her bodyguard with her? A weapon?”

“She stole out the southwest gate with nothing but a cape and a small handbag. I have horses ready,” Carrick said, his wiry shoulders already tilted toward the door.

“Horses,” Gideon said resignedly.

Gideon hated riding the damn things, and growing up in the city like a civilized person he’d rarely had reason to. He much preferred his luxury elepod, or even one of the trains that connected the Thirteen Cities underground, but unfortunately electric vehicles were nearly useless in the woods, and the whole idea of above ground trains had been abandoned when the Woven were accidentally brought into being. Horses it was, then.

“I have a tracking ward set to the guard captain’s willstone,” Carrick said, his own willstone flaring slightly with the touch of its master’s mind. He raised his eyes and met Gideon’s. “We have to hurry. Juliet is going deep into the Woven Woods.”

Gideon finished pulling on a pair of pretty but stiff riding boots and turned to Carrick. “Lead the way.”

Lily felt a hand shaking her awake. She would have jumped at the touch, but she smelled a scent that was as familiar to her as her own.

“Juliet?” Lily called plaintively into the dark.

“Shh. Yes, it’s me,” Juliet replied. She was half in, half out of the tent. Lily sat up and saw that her sister—or, rather, her sister’s long-haired other self—had lifted up the backside of the tent and scooted only part of the way inside. Her luminous eyes were wide and wild. “What happened? Are you injured?”

“No. Well, I was, but not anymore,” Lily replied, still struggling to kick-start her exhausted mind.

“You’re healed?” Juliet asked, her face frozen.

“Yeah.” Lily tried to tug Juliet into the tent with her, but Juliet resisted.

“Come
on
,” Juliet whispered angrily, tugging back at Lily to draw her out. “We need to go! Anyone could walk by.”

Lily crawled out of the tent wondering if she could trust this woman. She looked like Juliet, but that didn’t mean that she was Juliet. Every instinct in Lily screamed that Juliet would always be on her side, no matter what universe they were in, but Lily didn’t know if she could trust herself anymore. After all, it had been another version of herself that had kidnapped her to begin with.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” Juliet said, her voice quavering with fear, but her delicate jaw set with determination. “You have no idea how dangerous these woods are, even in the middle of an armed camp like this. You’re not safe out here, Lily.” She clasped Lily’s hand in hers and crouched down, making a beeline for the trees.

“How did you know where to find me?” Lily asked, ducking down like her sister did.

“Seriously?” Juliet whispered, glancing back at Lily as though she didn’t believe what she’d been asked. “You were
screaming
for me to come and get you!”

“In my head, yeah, but…” Lily stopped talking as soon as she saw that look in Juliet’s eyes. It was the same
I can’t believe you scared the crap out of me for no reason
look that her sister had given her about a million times before, and it confused Lily even more. “Wait. How did you hear that?”

“Close blood relations like sisters can mindspeak without willstones,” Juliet answered automatically.

“But I’m not Lillian.” Lily replied. She didn’t understand willstones yet, but she did know one thing: her whole life she’d felt as if she and her sister, and her mom sometimes, could read each other’s minds—without glowing magic necklaces. And now she knew that it was true.

“I guess even if you’re not exactly Lillian, you’re still my little sister. Not that I ever asked for two of you, but there it is.” Juliet nibbled on her lower lip and then nodded her head once, as if she was making a final decision. “I’m not leaving you out here in the Woven Woods. I can’t. You don’t know how important your being here is yet, but please believe me. You’re in terrible danger.”