Trial by Fire (30 page)

Lily stared at the dark windows, and imagined the horror of that last day of school. She could nearly hear the sound of marching boots and screams echoing through the now vacant rooms.

Tristan stood, ending the conversation. “Come on. He’ll throw a fit if you stay out here any longer.”

The fire was high, the cauldron bubbled and steamed, and the sun blazed through all of the windows and skylights in Rowan’s apartment. The great room was already swelteringly hot when Lily joined Tristan and Rowan on the black square of silk in front of the hearth.

“It’s a sauna in here,” Lily complained. She flapped her hands, trying to wave a breeze into the robe Rowan had told her to wear to this afternoon’s ritual instead of the silk slip. “What are we making today? Deep-fried witch?”

Rowan and Tristan smiled at her joke, but neither of them laughed. Their eyes were hazy and their breathing slow. Their willstones heaved with sluggish light, indicating that they were in a half trance. Lily had seen Rowan and Tristan in a trance like state before. Every day at dawn, they did a series of exercises that Lily insisted was a form of yoga, even though they’d never heard the word. At the end of their exercises, they both sat cross-legged and meditated deeply. But this was different. They’d never put themselves in a trance for a ritual before.

Today, they were both wearing white shorts, and sweat slicked their nearly naked bodies. Lily wished she could focus on Tristan alone, but her eyes always seemed to wander back to Rowan. In front of his folded legs was a small wooden bowl, filled with a bright red paste, and next to it, a paintbrush. Tristan sat behind Rowan and to his right. In front of him was a long strip of gauze folded into a large pile.

“What are we making today?” Lily repeated, seriously this time.

“We’re moving away from small magic and into the second level. Healing magic,” Rowan replied, his hazy eyes focusing on Lily. “Sachem needs anti-infection tabs. There’s been an outbreak of fever and lots of Outlander children are dying.”

“Okay,” Lily said with a firm nod. “What do I do?”

“Take off your robe and lie down in front of me,” Rowan said.

Lily balked. She was only wearing panties under the robe. After a bit of hemming and hawing, she met Rowan’s level gaze and sighed.

“Well, it
is
for the children,” she said, and shimmied shyly out of her robe, covering as much of herself as she could with her hands. Rowan couldn’t seem to help himself and cracked a smile, which helped to ease some of Lily’s nerves. She lowered herself to the floor and stretched herself out in front of him, arms still draped over her breasts.

Even though it was unbearably hot in front of the fire, Lily’s skin puckered with goose bumps. She could feel Rowan’s breath falling on her from above. His gaze felt like touch, skimming over her like the downy edge of a bird’s wing, over her belly, her breasts, and her thighs. Gently, he lifted one arm and then the other, and lay them by her sides, then picked up the wooden bowl and the paintbrush and positioned himself at her feet. Tristan stood and went to the fire, throwing a large cord of wood onto the flames. The fire roared. Lily’s willstones echoed the power of the fire, and the rose stone flashed with a bright light. Lily felt herself fill with heat.

“Boil out the fever. Sweat out the sickness. Burn out the rot,” Rowan chanted. He dipped his brush into the wooden bowl and began painting runes onto Lily’s skin.

Lily’s body flamed and roared like the fire. The cool touch of the brush made her shiver. The paint sizzled when it hit her feverish skin. Every stroke of Rowan’s brush sent cooling waves through her, and her sweating body rose up to meet the touch of the bristles. She could feel the paint oozing into her system, mixing with her sweat and changing. Growing strong.

Tristan followed behind Rowan, winding Lily’s painted flesh with the strip of gauze as if he were wrapping an injury. Sweat and paint and magic soaked into the wrappings, becoming medicine. Rowan painted all the way around one leg up to the thigh and stopped. Then he painted the other and stopped. The wrappings were removed and hung by the fire. Tristan lit a bundle of sage, flamed it out, and let the clarifying smoke waft up into the growing web of damp, red-blotted gauze. Rowan painted her arms in the same spiraling manner, with Tristan following in his wake with yard after yard of gauze. They stopped only to hang the saturated wrappings in front of the fire and to stoke the flames. Rowan eased Lily up to a sitting position and began painting her back. She could feel his breath on her drenched neck, could feel the paintbrush sliding and sizzling across her skin. More gauze was pressed into the design Rowan had drawn on her back, and then he laid her down again.

Rowan’s hands shook when he started the spiral out from her navel. His brush traveled up, across her fluttering ribs, wrapping around her breasts. Lily could feel the tight coil of the spiral sinking into her, the heat settling low in her belly like a knot of want. The teasing touch of the brush became unbearable. She reached up and brought Rowan’s lovely mouth down to her. His lips were so cool against her fire-bright skin that she sighed, drawing from them deeply as if she could drink him. Tristan’s hands lifted her, wrapping her, brushing against her body while she kissed Rowan. Both of their eyes slid closed, and their willstones glittered on their chests.

Rowan broke away and paused, swallowing hard. Lily’s hands were in his hair. He untangled them gently and moved determinedly to Lily’s throat. Concentrating, he painted a small design around her willstones. The spell sank into her lungs, filling them with fluid and cutting off her breath. Gauze followed before she had a chance to panic, soaking in the sweat and paint, and lifting the heavy spell off of her. Her skin cooled. Her lungs cleared. She took a deep breath.

“It is done,” Rowan said. His and Tristan’s willstones darkened. Rowan stood and got Lily’s robe, covering her immediately.

Lily sat up. The sun was down. The yards of gauze needed to dry before they could be cut into tiny tabs no larger than Lily’s pinkie nail. Just one tab under the tongue could clear all infection out of a sick or injured person’s body. Lily sighed, knowing that thousands could be healed by what they’d done in a few hours. The city sparkled in the darkness outside Rowan’s huge windows. Instead of feeling tired, she was energized, her body humming with the adrenaline of two kinds of hunger.

“Let’s go out,” she said. “I want to go out. Actually, I think I
need
to go out.”

Rowan and Tristan shared a look. “A crucible’s craving is her mechanic’s mandate,” Tristan said. “You’ve already ignored that once tonight.” There was a scolding note in Tristan’s tone, like Rowan had done something they both knew was wrong. Rowan dropped his head.

“I know I did. But I still think it’s too dangerous. Gideon has a man stationed right across the street, watching us,” Rowan said.

“It’s dark. I can use a camouflage spell, and he won’t even see me,” Lily said, standing.

“It doesn’t matter if you get past that one guard,” Rowan countered. “There are spies all over the city looking for the Outlander girl hanging out with me.”

“So I’ll bleach my hair blonde and go with Tristan,” Lily replied, as if offering the simplest solution in the world.

You’re not going to a bonfire without me!

Lily could sense that Rowan hadn’t meant to initiate mindspeak. The thought had flown out of him in desperation, breaking three weeks of silence, but he closed himself off before she could sense anything more.

“So. Who wants to help me dye my hair?” Lily said through a grin. “I’ve always wanted to go platinum.”

Tristan and Rowan were chemical geniuses. That, coupled with the fact that they also knew how to do magic, meant that two hours later Lily had white-blonde, pin-straight hair.

“I never thought anything could take the curl out,” Lily said, fluffing her short, silky locks. “If you guys ever came to my world, you could make a fortune as hairdressers, you know.”

“Here. Put this on,” Rowan said, ignoring her frivolous comment and holding out a dress.

Lily pouted. “I like my wearhyde. It makes me look tough.”

“Rebels and Outlanders wear wearhyde,” he said, handing her the frothy pile of chiffon and ribbons. “Witches wear dresses.”

There was no style in Lily’s world to describe the dress, except maybe half-naked wood nymph meets couture, and she struggled with the complicated design for a good twenty minutes before she admitted defeat and called Tristan to help lace her up. The dress ended up being much skimpier than she’d thought. There was a lot of skin involved.

“I hope I don’t catch a cold,” she said jokingly.

“That’s what the gloves are for,” Tristan joked back, handing her a pair of opera-length gloves.

The dress, while complicated, kept her cool, and Lily had to admit it made a lot of sense. Crucibles and witches ran hot, and the dress managed to be sexy and structured but still airier than wearhyde.

“What are the gloves really for?” Lily asked Tristan as they went to join Rowan in the great room. Lily remembered from the walk through town the first night back from the woods that most of the women wearing dresses also wore gloves. It seemed to be more than a style or a trend.

“They’re so you don’t accidentally touch someone else’s stone,” he said, sliding a smile in her direction. “Bonfires can get a little wild.”

Tristan’s smile warmed, and Lily’s eyes dropped to the willstone hanging at his throat. She was acutely aware of the fact that she hadn’t touched it yet. It wasn’t half as lovely to her as Rowan’s stone, but she still wanted it. Lily realized she was staring and tore her gaze away.

Lily had spent the last few weeks trying to piece together the politics of the claiming ceremony. Apparently, a mechanic could assist with lower-level magic without being claimed by a witch, but in order to assist with warrior magic—the third-level magic she and Rowan had wielded against the Woven—he had to allow himself to be claimed. Lily had learned that even though Tristan had assisted Rowan with Lillian, he’d never been claimed by her. Lily didn’t know why, but she did know it was up to Tristan to offer himself to the witch. Lily didn’t want him to feel pressured to move any faster than he was comfortable. Until then, Tristan would be more of an assistant to Rowan than Lily’s mechanic. He would assist in the preparation of the rituals and add his energy to Rowan’s when they made a brew or wove a spell, but he wasn’t pledged to Lily in the same way Rowan was. Tristan could still move on and offer himself to another witch for claiming if he chose.

Lily knew that if Tristan gave himself to her, it would be a lifelong commitment. And with that much responsibility hanging over her, Lily didn’t know if she really wanted to claim Tristan yet anyway. It was a big step, and Lily was wary of it. It certainly hadn’t worked out too well for her and Rowan. And now they were stuck with each other—unless he wanted to go through the agony of smashing his stone. Lily swallowed down the lump of hurt that formed in her throat at the thought. If things continued to carry on as they had been between them, Lily didn’t doubt that Rowan might consider smashing his stone an option.

When she and Tristan came back out into the main room, they saw Rowan sitting at the table, drinking a clear liquid from a short glass. He looked up at Lily and his mouth went rigid. “You’re going to need to take two of the stones off your necklace,” he reminded her, dropping his eyes.

“I think you should wear the rose stone,” Tristan advised. “The smoke one is too big to go unnoticed, and the little golden one might get you teased.”

Lily nodded and worked the clasps at her throat. She turned her back to the guys while she tucked the two stones into her bra, aware of the fact that they’d spent the day staring at her half-naked body and not caring that it made no sense to act modest now. Some standards had to be maintained or Lily might as well just walk around in her birthday suit all day long.

The guys put on their coats and turned. Their eyes darted all over, looking for her. She’d already cast the camouflage spell.

“Pretty good, right?” she asked. Tristan agreed enthusiastically, but Rowan only nodded and busied himself setting the wards on his apartment.

They had walked about seven blocks when Tristan finally spoke. “Ro. He’s not following us,” he said. “We can’t get into the bonfire with her camouflaged. Their wards will show someone is with us.”

“Alright,” Rowan said shortly, his eyes scanning for witnesses. “Drop the spell, Lily.”

Lily allowed herself to reappear, and slowed down to walk alongside Tristan.

“Don’t forget your face glamour,” he reminded her quietly.

Lily gave herself a slightly more triangular face, something pixieish to go with her new hair. That small change, along with all the make-up she was wearing, meant even Rowan had to admit that no one would recognize her. Tristan took Lily’s hand and pulled her close.

“You look gorgeous,” he whispered.

Lily smiled at him, wishing she felt more. This was the perfect opportunity to start over with Tristan. It was a gift, handed to her in what was otherwise a terrible situation, but now that she had his attention, she didn’t want it. He’d broken the part of her heart that she’d given to him, and no matter how much Lily tried to convince herself that he was a
different
Tristan who deserved a fresh chance, she couldn’t get the pieces to fit back together again in the same way.

She looked ahead at Rowan, walking in front of them. His shoulders were stiff and his back straight—every inch of him as unyielding as she was. They were so alike. How could she expect him to see past his distrust of Lillian and trust her when she couldn’t do the same for this other version Tristan?

Lily didn’t feel like going out anymore, but she knew she couldn’t change her mind now. They joined a group of people waiting outside a large warehouse-like building. Bass thumped through the walls. They didn’t wait long. A female bouncer spotted Rowan and waved them over before they’d even joined the line.