Trial by Fire Page 6

  The malice she saw in him was breathtaking. He hated her—really hated her—and he looked like he wanted to hurt her. The dark-eyed boy took one stiff step toward her. Lily turned and ran.

  The monsters chained to the bottom of the green tower roared at Lily as she streaked past. She shied away from them with horror even though they were chained and couldn’t get at her as long as she stayed on the sidewalk.

  Lily could hear the footsteps of the boy with the dark eyes behind her. He was gaining on her easily. Any vestiges of the adrenaline rush she’d experienced when she had found herself surrounded by men with crossbows was long gone. She was still dangerously drained from the seizure and from the fact that she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. After running only a few blocks, Lily’s legs were turning to jelly, her inner ears were burning, and all she could hear was the ragged wheeze of her own breathing. A cold sweat broke out across her upper lip and down her back, but her head still felt unbearably hot. Lily knew this feeling. It meant she was going to faint.

  In a desperate effort to shake off her enraged pursuer before she passed out, Lily darted down a narrow alley, hoping to hide until the dark-eyed boy ran past. She took several sharp turns, ducked into a low niche in the solid wall of stone and crouched down, trying to hide herself in the shadows before he rounded the last corner.

  Her legs shook and she half sat, half fell into what she belatedly realized was a garbage-filled drainage grate. She heard his footsteps pounding past her, then held her breath when she heard the footsteps stop and turn. A pair of black boots pointed into her disgusting niche, blocking most of the light. She heard him sigh.

  “You know you can’t hide from me, Lillian,” said a deep, rich voice. The ringing in Lily’s head turned to clanging, and her ears popped. Two hands reached in and scooped up her spent body. The young man placed her on her feet and examined her sweaty face carefully. Lily’s vision was wobbling in and out of focus, but she could have sworn the dark-eyed boy actually looked worried for a moment.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “You know damn well it’s me,” he said angrily. He searched her eyes, and realized that she truly didn’t recognize him. “Rowan,” he said slowly. Lily shook her head, the action making her wobble unsteadily. His expression changed. “What did you take, Lillian? Belladonna?”

  Rowan ran a hand over her face in a clinical way, checking her for fever like he had been her doctor for years. His hands were warm, but they still made Lily shiver. He trailed sensitive fingertips down the sides of her throat, feeling lightly over her glands. Confusion darkened his face.

  “Where’s your willstone?” The anger and impatience she’d sensed in him earlier were completely gone. He looked afraid now, as afraid and lost as Lily felt.

  “Help me, Rowan? Please,” Lily begged, figuring she had nothing left to lose.

  She saw his dark eyes narrow with suspicion. He hooked a finger into the divot at the bottom of her throat, pressing hard on a sensitive point buried deep inside that U-shaped hollow. A chill swept up Lily’s already exhausted body, and she blacked out.

  * * *

  Gideon pushed his way into Lillian’s chamber. It should have been sealed, impossible for him to enter, but the heavy door swung open with the slightest nudge from his willstone. Lillian must be very ill, he thought. Or dead.

  “What are you doing here?” Juliet asked.

  She stepped in between him and the bed. Her eyes darted behind Gideon to the door as he closed it, her nervousness apparent. The willstone on her neck pulsed, but no power followed it. Juliet was a latent crucible. She carried the gene but not much talent, as if being the sister of Lillian had sapped most of her potential gifts. Gideon brushed past Juliet’s weak intervention and went straight to the bed.

  Fiery red curls snaked up from under the covers and coiled over the white pillow, but the rest of Lillian’s fragile frame was buried in blankets. She was so thin now that her body looked to be no more than a wrinkle in the plush duvet.

  “So she is here,” Gideon said. “The guards said she’d run away. They also said that before she left, they saw her on the beach, wandering around aimlessly. Like she didn’t know where she was.”

  Gideon watched Juliet’s face. It was a pretty face, although she frowned too much. He’d break her of that when they were married. His father had arranged the match, and the Witch didn’t oppose it. It made sense for them to wed, even if Juliet wasn’t to Gideon’s taste.

  “The Witch is sleeping,” Juliet replied in a lowered voice. “Please get to your point quietly.”

  “Fine. Is she going crazy like your mother did?” he asked bluntly.

  “No,” Juliet replied, offended even though she shouldn’t be. It happened every now and again in families that had true power. The dark side of great talent was often madness. It went hand in hand with genius, and it was nothing to be ashamed of. It meant the Proctor family had true power in its bloodline. Power that Gideon wanted for his own offspring, even if it meant he had to get them from Juliet.

  “Then why was she wandering around on the beach—dressed very strangely, the guards said—and without her willstone? How’d she even tolerate being separated from it?” Gideon leaned close to Juliet. He saw her lips pinch together with distaste and considered slapping her, but the Witch would punish him for that. Soon, Gideon promised himself. She’d learn her lesson soon. “We all know the Witch has been struggling with a sickness of some kind for the past few months,” he continued. “If she would let me—or any another competent mechanic of her choice—look her over, we might be able to help.”

  “I know her behavior must have seemed strange to the guards,” Juliet said, ignoring his request to lay hands on Lillian for what seemed to Gideon the thousandth time. “But Lillian has her reasons.”

  She was hiding something for her sister, something other than the cause of Lillian’s mysterious illness. Gideon was sure of it now. “Well, when she wakes, let her know that both me and my father would love to know what those reasons are.”

  Juliet’s colorless face blanched an even paler shade at the mention of Thomas, and Gideon repressed a pleased smile as he turned and left. The Witch might rule, but she still had to deal with the Council and its leader. His momentary triumph was marred by the nagging feeling that something important had just happened. Something huge. And it was being kept from him.

  Gideon was tired of being pushed aside. He was the Witch’s head mechanic in name only, and that fact was not lost on the rest of the Coven. If Lillian wouldn’t give him responsibility, then he’d just have to take it.

  * * *

  Lily woke, but not to the sterile bleakness of a hospital or to the familiar four walls of her bedroom. It was dark out—dark and cold. She could smell loamy earth under her and wood smoke on the air. Flickering firelight revealed crisscrossed wooden bars all around her. She tried to move her arms, only to discover that they were tied in front of her. She was a prisoner. Leather creaked as she tried to twist her wrists out of their bonds. There was writing on the leather straps. Lily squinted in the low light and tried to make out the unfamiliar shapes. They looked like something carved on the side of a standing stone, or engraved on the cover of a leather book. Runes, Lily thought, recalling the description from an old movie she’d seen once.

  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—mushro
oms, 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.”

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

  “Are you crazy?” she managed to reply through 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, then she beli
eved 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 farfetched—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.”