Trial by Fire (8 page)

Lily heard the snap and crackle of a campfire and wind buffeting the tall trees above her. She caught a glimpse of a thick tree trunk a few yards away from her cage and realized that she must be in a deep, dark forest. Some place old and full of wildlife. She could hear all kinds of rustles and scratches from what she hoped were just small, furry animals in the forest—preferably animals that didn’t have too many teeth.

Long shadows, cast by legs standing around the campfire, reached into her primitive cage and darkened her view. Lily swallowed hard to moisten her throat and stifle the hacking cough that threatened to burst out of her. She could smell all kinds of fecund things in the ground beneath her—mushrooms, pulpy woodbark, and leaf mold. Mold spores could kill her. She had to get out of this world, but she needed more information. Her heart pounding and her eyes and nose watering, Lily stayed very still and listened to the conversation by the fire.

“I don’t trust her,” Rowan said, his voice heavy with hatred.

“That’s nothing new,” replied an unfamiliar man sardonically.

“No, something’s wrong with her, Caleb. Off.” Rowan’s deep voice was nearly a growl of frustration. “And it’s not just because her willstone’s gone. Her body felt different. Clogged and neglected. Like it had never performed magic.”

“An imposter?” Caleb asked in a lowered voice.

“No. It’s her,” Rowan replied passionately. “Down to the deepest parts of her cells—that’s Lillian.”

“Well, no one knows her body better than you.” Caleb sighed. “A genetic copy then?”

Lily swallowed again, trying to suppress another cough. Wherever she was, they talked about human clones as if they were easy to make. What kind of a world was this? The hybrid monsters tied at the base of the greenhouse flashed across her mind’s eye, and Lily wondered if they’d been grown rather than born. Rowan’s urgent tone interrupted her frightening thoughts.

“How, Caleb? They’re the same age. I can read it in her body. Someone would have had to copy Lillian on the day of her conception. I knew Samantha well, and she would have rather died than let anyone copy her daughter. That’s Lillian. It has to be.” Rowan’s shadow paced restlessly.

“We’re not arguing with you,” Caleb said, trying to placate him. “There have been rumors that the Witch is ill. Maybe that’s why her body felt ‘clogged’ or whatever it is you mechanics call it when a crucible gets sick.”

“It’s not just her body,” Rowan continued.

“What, then?” Caleb said patiently. Rowan exhaled a shaky breath and paused.

Lily’s throat clenched. She stopped breathing in order to suppress a coughing fit. She needed to hear the rest of what Rowan would say. She needed to find out how he knew that she was different. It might give her some clue as to how to get out of here.

“I know this sounds like such a little thing, but … she said
please
.” There was another long pause. Lily’s eyes streamed irritated tears. She wished Rowan would hurry up and get to the point. “Until last year, I’d spent nearly every day with Lillian since she was six and I was seven. Not once in that entire time had she ever said please for anything.”

“She’s the Witch,” said a third and intimately familiar voice. “She wasn’t supposed to be polite to us, Ro.”

It was Tristan. He sounded exactly the same. Any thought of being angry with him fell away. Just knowing he—or some version of him—was there made Lily feel safer. It didn’t matter what universe this was, or what had happened between them, Tristan would never let anyone hurt her.

“Tristan, help!” Lily yelled. “There’s mold everywhere!”

Coughs racked her body. She scrambled up onto her knees and leaned against the latticed wood and leather cage as the three men rushed to her. Lily coughed so hard she gagged.

Rowan knelt down, slinging a pack off his back as he did so, and pulled out a few leaves. While Lily continued to cough, she heard Rowan light a match. “Mold hasn’t bothered her since she was eight,” he growled.

“Well, obviously it’s bothering her now,” Tristan growled back. “She’s really weak, Ro. You laid hands on her. You should have known that.”

“She’s not
weak
,” Rowan began to argue back.

“Enough bickering you two,” Caleb said impatiently, and Tristan and Rowan fell silent.

Lily smelled fire, burning, and then smoke. She scrambled away from the fragrant smoke, hacking and gasping, convinced that Rowan was trying to kill her.

“Tristan,” she gasped. “Please. Don’t let him.”

“Breath in the smoke, Lillian,” Tristan said, cutting off her plea.

“Are you
crazy
?” she managed to reply though her rib-rattling coughs.

Rowan’s dark eyes narrowed. Just as she sucked in a pained breath, he waved the smoke in her direction, making sure there was no way she could avoid it. Lily prepared herself for a terrible fit, but instead she felt the burning in her throat ease and the itching in her lungs begin to subside. She breathed again, and the urge to cough went away. After a few moments, she felt her chest open up completely as she inhaled the tangy, scented air.

“How did you do that?” Lily asked.

“Sage,” Rowan replied, holding up the smoking bundle. “It purifies the air. You know that.”

“Lillian knows it.” Lily slid off her knees and sat cross-legged in the dirt while the three men exchanged baffled looks. She felt better, but she was still so spent that she could barely hold herself up. She slouched over her lap tiredly. “May I have some water?”

“Water!” Caleb called over his shoulder. A canteen was brought immediately, and Tristan passed it to Lily through a little slot at the bottom of the cage. “Start explaining, Lillian. And don’t get any funny ideas. You don’t have your willstone. Try to cast one spell against me or my men and women, and I’ll let Rowan kill you.”

Lily swallowed and regarded Caleb’s earnest face. He was older—maybe in his mid-twenties—and dark-skinned. His face was painted with streaks of red and white. Lily couldn’t put a finger on his heritage, but he was definitely a mix of several races. He was also enormous, and Lily could tell from the level way he looked at her that he didn’t make idle threats.

She didn’t have many options. She could pretend to be Lillian and try to escape later, or tell the truth and hope they would let her go. If they knew she wasn’t the girl they all seemed to hate, then maybe they would realize that they had no reason to keep her locked up in the first place.

“I’m not Lillian. Please, you have to believe me,” Lily begged. She heard Rowan make a scoffing noise and desperately raised her voice to be heard over him. “I’m a
version
of Lillian.”

They all stared at her blankly.

“Lily. That’s what I like to be called,” she continued, trying to sound as calm and as rational as she could even though she still couldn’t believe what she was saying. “I know this sounds crazy, but I’m from another world—another Salem, Massachusetts.”

“Another world? Really?” Rowan said mockingly. “And how did you get here?”

“Lillian brought me,” Lily said. Rowan started shaking his head before Lily had even finished that short sentence. He didn’t believe a word of it.

“What are you doing?” Rowan asked. “How can you sit there and expect me to believe this?”

“I don’t know,” Lily replied quietly. The way he was looking at her was so raw it shook something inside her. “Juliet was with the two of us, me and Lillian. We were all standing together in the same room, and she didn’t believe it right away, either. How am I supposed to make you believe it?” She frantically tried to recall the conversation that had convinced Juliet. “There was something about a shaman.”

“Hold on,” Caleb said. “What about the shaman?”

“Juliet said something about Lillian studying with a shaman in secret. She said it like it was something really important. And that’s what made her finally believe that I was from another world, like Lillian was saying.”

“Is this true?” Caleb looked at Rowan, like he couldn’t believe it. “Did a
shaman
go to the Citadel?”

“He was there to help Samantha,” Rowan said impatiently. Tristan looked at Rowan sharply, and Rowan continued. “Lillian didn’t want anyone to know about it. Not even you, Tristan. The shaman said that Samantha wasn’t crazy. He said that she was like him—a spirit walker—and that she just needed to learn how to control it. But who believes that nonsense anyway? Caleb, you and I both know only old-timers and children believe in other worlds. It’s a tall tale shamans use to comfort the weak.”

“If Lillian brought a shaman to the Citadel than
she
believed it. And Lillian is anything but weak.” Caleb’s brow creased with conflicting thoughts. “Did she study with the shaman too?”

“No,” Rowan said vehemently. Then his face changed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But even if there is such a thing as spirit walking and multiple universes—which we all know is pretty far-fetched—that doesn’t explain this.” Rowan gestured to Lily. “It’s impossible. Universes are closed systems. You can’t get matter or energy in or out.”

“Conservation of energy,” Lily muttered, nodding her head. She desperately wished she were back in Mr. Carnello’s class talking about this, rather than living it.

“What did you say?” Rowan asked sharply.

“It’s the first law of thermodynamics,” Lily replied miserably. “Energy can be transformed, but it cannot be created or destroyed.” She slumped against the bars of her cage, accepting that they were never going to believe she was from another world. “So, basically, my being here makes this universe
not
an equal sign. It goes against a fundamental law of physics—the most fundamental law, actually.”

Tristan looked at Rowan, and then back at Lily. “Thermo-what now?”

“Thermodynamics.” Lily looked at their puzzled faces. “You guys
do
study physics in this world, right? You know—science class?”

Tristan and Rowan shared another look. “Not exactly,” Tristan said. He looked her up and down. “Where did you say you were from?”

“Are you falling for this, Tristan? She’s playing us,” Rowan said bitterly.

“Ro. She doesn’t have her willstone. How can she be parted from it and just sit there?” Tristan asked plaintively. “If that were Lillian, she’d be screaming in pain.”

“I don’t know how she’s doing it.” Rowan’s dark eyes burned with hatred. “But I know her. I know every cell in her body. That’s Lillian.”

“I’m not Lillian. I’m Lily! She tricked me and kidnapped me!” Lily choked out, her frustration and desperation nearly brining her to tears. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought any place would be better than—” Lily broke off before she said more than she wanted to. She took a shaky breath and swallowed down a sob. “All I want is to go back to my own world and forget this ever happened to me.”

“Fine. You’re not Lillian? Then prove it.”

“Just look at me,” she pleaded, her eyes skipping from Rowan to Tristan to Caleb. “Look at how I’m dressed. Obviously, I’m not from around here.”

“She has a point,” Caleb said.

“If other worlds exist, like the shamans say, and if Lillian studied with a shaman, than she would know how they dress in parallel universes because she can spirit walk into them,” Rowan replied stubbornly.

“Will you just
stop
it?” Lily asked, her voice breaking with frustration. “I can’t argue with you, because I don’t even know what’s going on. How am I supposed to prove to you I’m not the evil witch I look exactly like?”

“You know how, Lillian.” One corner of Rowan’s mouth twitched up in a bitter smile. “Let me in your head.”

“Ro. Be serious,” Tristan said with an uneasy chortle, like he was hoping that Rowan was kidding.

“I am serious,” Rowan replied, his eyes never leaving Lily. Tristan took Rowan’s arm and pulled him around to face him.

“If that is Lillian, and you let her into your head, she could kill you with a thought. Or worse,” Tristan said in a low, warning tone. “Even without her willstone, she’s powerful enough to work you like a puppet.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Really? Are you also aware of the fact that getting control over your new willstone might have been her plan all along?”

“Then you monitor our mindspeak,” Rowan said evenly. “If she tries to key into my willstone, smash it.”

A stunned silence stretched out between the two young men.

“Hold on,” Caleb said, stepping between Rowan and Tristan. “The shock will incapacitate you for weeks.” He fingered the golden stone around his neck nervously, like the thought of smashing anyone’s willstone made him cringe. “I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

Rowan looked over his shoulder at Lily, who glared back at him. His lip curled. “It’s worth it to me.”

“I can’t authorize this,” Caleb said with a shake of his head. “You’ll have to talk to the sachem.”

“Then bring me to him,” Rowan demanded. “The sooner we find out what she’s really doing here, the safer we’ll all be.”

A tense silence passed as the three of them searched each other’s eyes. “Tristan, stay here and watch her,” Caleb ordered softly. “And be careful.”

“I will.”

Tristan walked over to the edge of the fire with Rowan and Caleb. They exchanged a few words that Lily couldn’t hear before Rowan and Caleb left, sinking silently into the shadows outside the dim glow of the campfire. Tristan stayed where he was, his back turned to Lily, pointedly ignoring her.

For the first time since she’d regained consciousness, Lily looked out beyond the small bubble of light that immediately surrounded her. She saw halos cast by other fires. They seemed to be clustered together, hundreds of yards away from her handmade cage. Lily realized there must be a large group out here in the woods, holding her captive, but apart. Like she was a threat.

Muted voices softened the silence of the thick forest around her—a forest so dark it seemed to eat the light out of the air. Lily looked up. Stars, more stars than she had ever seen, left a milky streak across the deep black of the night sky above her, like a pearlescent river of light.

“So that’s why they call it the Milky Way,” Lily sighed to herself, awed by the sight.