Witch's Pyre

by Josephine Angelini

  For defying Grace.

  Toshi stared out the window at the people on the street. Heads that used to be held high were now bowed with fear and suspicion. The entire city seemed to know. Maybe they had always known deep inside that Grace was behind the Hive, and it only took someone else to say it in order for them to believe it. Toshi knew he had accepted it quickly, as had Mala. And the Hive had been quick to sense the change in the populace.

  He jumped off his trolley, crossed the tracks, and caught one going in the other direction back home to the government center. He felt more relaxed now that the exchange was over and opted to take a seat rather than stand. Back at the Governor’s Villa, Toshi ran up the stairs to his apartments to change before meeting Ivan in the lab.

  Grace was waiting for him in his sitting room, idly thumbing through some of his papers. She looked up from the formulas he’d been working on the night before and smiled.

  “This is a very powerful insecticide,” Grace said, eyes sparkling.

  He opened his mouth and let the first lie he could think of spill out, knowing that any pause was death. “That’s what we’re hoping. It should sell well in France and Germany.” Toshi unlocked his spine and forced himself to cross to the bar. The note he carried in his pocket weighed on him. “Would you care for a drink?” he asked, trying to think how he could destroy the note that undoubtedly had instructions for his next drop. His hands shook.

  “No. And none for you, either. You’re going to need to be completely sober for what’s coming,” she replied.

  Heat began to build under his arms. Toshi felt a Worker alight on his forearm. “And what is coming, Grace?” he asked quietly.

  Grace stood and crossed to the balcony. She opened up the double doors and took in a lungful of fragrant air. “Isn’t it a glorious day?” she asked.

  Toshi stayed just inside the doors. He could see a cluster of Warrior Sisters approaching and knew it would be pointless to run. He felt strangely calm, as if the real torture had been waiting to be found out rather than whatever it was Grace had planned for him now. He was considering whether or not he had enough time to write a letter to his family when he noticed something strange about the approaching Warrior Sisters. They were carrying someone—someone who seemed to be unconscious. They weren’t coming to take him away, but rather to leave someone behind.

  Toshi ran to the railing of the balcony and saw that the young man suspended between three supporting Sisters was badly injured. Fear for himself dissolved, and his medical training took over. He dashed back inside, gathered up a healer kit from his closet, and started pushing furniture out of the way just as the Warrior Sisters landed.

  “Tell them to bring him in here,” Toshi ordered. He kicked aside the coffee table and spread out one of the throw blankets on the ground. “Gently! It looks like his shoulder is dislocated.”

  “This is why I had them bring him directly to you,” Grace said fondly. “You’ve always been the most gifted healer.”

  “There’s a basin under the sink in my kitchen. Fill it with hot water, and set it down here,” Toshi instructed. Grace didn’t do it herself, of course, but after the barest of pauses one of the Warrior Sisters strode out of the room on her ostrich-like legs. “He has hyperthermia, hypoxia, broken ribs, multiple contusions.” Toshi listed just a few of the injuries he recognized as his willstone flared to life. He ran a hand through his hair. “Get me more bandages. In my bathroom . . . the linen closet.” Another Warrior Sister bounded out of the room. Toshi looked up at Grace as he began loosening the young man’s clothes. “He’s an Outlander.”

  “A shaman,” Grace said, nodding.

  He rolled the half-dead shaman over and got a better look at his face. “Breakfast,” he said. He couldn’t keep the dismay from his voice.

  “Not exactly,” Grace said, excited. She sat down on the edge of Toshi’s couch as if she were at a luncheon and had juicy gossip to dish. “I just pieced this all together. As near as I can figure, he’s one of the versions of the individual you know as Breakfast. Isn’t that fascinating?” Toshi didn’t reply. “He’s going to teach me how to get to those other universes.”

  Toshi repressed a shudder at the thought. “If he lives.”

  “Oh, he’d better live, Toshi,” Grace said, her voice dropping dangerously low. He didn’t need for her to say “or else.”

  Lily lay next to Lillian, her spirit hovering over their bodies.

  In the overworld, Lillian’s spirit was as strong as ever, but in the real world her body could barely survive the separation. Lily’s spirit looked down on the two bodies below, and saw that Lillian’s breath was faltering.

  That’s enough, Lillian, Lily told her. Go back into your body.

  I’m almost there, her spirit called across the overworld. I can see the redwood grove. I can feel its vibration.

  You’re suffocating. Come back.

  Lillian’s eyes snapped open and she drew in a gasping breath. Lily’s spirit rejoined her body and she sat up next to Lillian.

  “I can do this,” Lillian said defiantly.

  “I know you can,” Lily replied. “But maybe we should have Rowan monitoring us? He can take much better care of you than I can.”

  Lillian shook her head and sealed her lips, still unwilling to let Rowan touch her.

  “I really hope I’m not as stubborn as you,” Lily snapped.

  Lillian laughed. “Oh, you are.” She sighed in frustration as the two of them got off the ground. “I need to learn this. Now,” she said.

  For the past few hours the three armies had made a tenuous camp on the side of the mountain while the leaders of the factions talked to their people. Raptors were picking off pack animals from above and the Pride was taking the rear-flanking battalions, but there was no help for it. Lily had given Lillian the vibration she needed to get to the redwood grove, but she still had to learn how to jump before she could move herself and her army.

  Captain Leto appeared at the entrance to Lillian’s tent. Chenoa and Alaric were behind him and he escorted them inside.

  “Sit,” Lillian said stiffly, making it clear that although she had saved Chenoa’s life, there would have been no love lost if she hadn’t. She gestured to a small camp table and chairs that were set up in the middle of her quarters.

  “There was one Woven attack on our eastern flank while you were occupied,” Leto informed her. He helped her into her chair at the head of the table and stood behind her.

  “Casualties?” she asked.

  “Five killed, seventeen wounded,” he replied. His lips tightened as he looked at Alaric. “And there have been several brawls that have broken out since the arrival of . . . them.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Lillian said.

  Lily called to her coven in mindspeak. Rowan, Tristan, Caleb, Una, and Breakfast all entered the tent and arranged themselves behind Lily’s chair at the other end of the table, opposite Lillian.

  Chenoa narrowed her eyes at Breakfast. “I know you, boy,” she said.

  “No, you know Red Leaf,” Lily corrected.

  “Does he have the gift?” Chenoa asked. When Lily nodded, Chenoa cackled. “Watch that he doesn’t go crazy.”

  Crusty old bat, Breakfast whispered in mindspeak.

  Lily stifled a smile as Mary bustled into the tent with a grim look on her face and Riley in her wake. After Lily quickly introduced her to Lillian, Alaric, and Chenoa, Mary took the final seat at the table. Riley stood behind her as her second.

  “The long and short of it is this,” Mary said with no preamble. “The below folk won’t go west if you’re just going to blow it up.”

  “Many of my braves won’t go either. Not unless it’s for a home,” Alaric said.

  Captain Leto made a dismissive sound as his eyes flicked away. Alaric’s nostrils flared in barely contained ire.

  Lillian held up a hand to stave off an argument between them. “We can’t fight the Hive soldier to soldier. We’ll lose,” she said.<
br />
  Mary and Alaric looked to Lily. “She’s right,” Lily said reluctantly. “They outmatch us in numbers and in strength. We can’t beat them.”

  “Maybe not with the kind of soldiers you’ve provided,” Captain Leto said. “Walltop soldiers are different.”

  “The only way to destroy the Hive is at its source,” Lillian said, defusing another argument between Leto and Alaric. “Bower City. Once we do that, the rest of the country is anyone’s for the taking.” She turned to Chenoa. “How much land would be lost if one of your bombs was detonated underground?” she asked.

  “Depends how deep you go, what kind of bedrock we’re talking about,” Chenoa replied, palms up. “I could give you some estimates if you could give me some more facts about the terrain.”

  “Whoa, wait,” Una said, waving her hands in the air. “You want to detonate underground?”

  “From what Lily showed me, that’s where the Queen and the actual hive is. That’s where the bomb will be most useful,” Lillian replied.

  “But isn’t Bower City, like, right above the San Andreas Fault?” Una gave a semi-hysterical laugh. “Someone please tell them why they can’t do that.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Lily said. She quickly explained what she knew about the unstable geology of the western seaboard and the positioning of Bower City. “Detonating aboveground or belowground is insanity. This should be a nonissue, everyone.”

  Chenoa made a thoughtful sound deep in her throat. “I’d have to see some data before I’d advise against detonating,” she said. “Earthquake zones aren’t ideal, but in some cases it could be better if the contaminated land broke off and slid under the sea.”

  “And then it would be safe to live on the land that was left?” Mary asked. She shifted in her seat and planted one of her thick fists on a hip. “The bald truth is that if I can’t tell my folk that they’re going to get a piece of land out of this, they’re not going to fight.”

  Again, Captain Leto made a disparaging sound, and this time he went so far as to turn to Lillian. “My Lady, you don’t need to pander to them. Walltop’s loyalty doesn’t need to be bought. If you decide to bomb the city—”

  “Easy to say when Walltop soldiers have a place to live,” Alaric said scathingly.

  “We can’t do this,” Lily pleaded. “There are over a million innocent people living in Bower City. They don’t deserve to die.”

  “Neither do we,” Alaric reminded her gently. “You’ve said yourself that we can’t win in a straight fight.”

  “Not with the numbers we have,” she admitted. She turned to Lillian. “You, of all people, should be against this. Please, Lillian. What you saw in the cinder world—”

  “One bomb won’t make a cinder world,” Lillian said loudly, as if she were trying to drown out a conflicting voice shouting inside her own head. “One bomb, detonated all the way out there, isn’t going to poison the Thirteen Cities or bring on a never-ending winter for the rest of the world. The only thing one bomb will do is destroy the Hive, end Grace’s dominion over the Woven, and bring the rest of us out of the dark ages. With Grace gone, the Woven won’t be driven to attack humans anymore. The whole country will be up for grabs.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Lily said, rolling her eyes in exasperation. Instead of ending the argument, all she’d done was give Lillian a platform from which to draw more people to her side. “There’s another way,” Lily began.

  She looked around at them and debated telling them what she had in mind, until her eyes rested on Caleb. He would smash his willstone and leave her rather than agree, and so would thousands of others. Lily knew the only way for her idea to work was for everyone to already be on the battlefield when it was revealed. Give them no choice but accept her decision or die.

  When Lily remained silent, Rowan spoke up on her behalf. “Maybe there’s a way to infiltrate the Hive and kill the Queen without using a bomb,” he said. “We got in there before. It was easy.”

  “Yeah, too easy. There’s no way we’re getting back into the Hive now,” Tristan said.

  “Lily could jump a small team of us in,” Rowan suggested.

  “I can’t,” Lily said, shaking her head. “The Queen is deep underground. There’s tons of silicone in that land, and it blocks me as well as quartz.”

  “Then something else,” Rowan said, frustrated.

  “Are you so sure that killing the Queen is enough?” Lillian asked quietly. She didn’t look at Rowan as she spoke. “That might disband the Hive, but Grace controls all the wild Woven. She’s the one who has to die.” She turned to Lily. “Is there any way you can jump someone into the city to assassinate her?”

  “It’s a big city. There’s no way for me to know exactly where she’s going to be at any given time,” Lily answered. “And if I can’t jump someone directly to her, whoever I send will most likely be chewed up by the Hive in a matter of moments. Grace has every inch of Bower City covered with Workers.”

  They were all silent for a moment, trying to think of some alternative.

  “But I might be able to use someone already inside the city to kill Grace for us,” Lily said in a small voice.

  “Who?” Rowan asked.

  “Toshi. I’d have to claim him first, but I know he’s willing. And he’s close to Grace.”

  “How could you claim him?” Lillian asked, narrowing her eyes at Lily. “You’re here and he’s there.”

  “Remotely. Through the speaking stones,” Lily replied. She sent Lillian the memory of how she used the speaking stone above Lillian’s rooms to claim the ranch hands and the below folk.

  Lillian gasped. “I didn’t know you could use it to claim.”

  “I didn’t think of it. Grace did, actually. She’s been using a line of speaking stones to claim each new generation of wild Woven that hatches in the east. She’s been doing it for over a century now. I can use the same line to claim Toshi. But—” Lily broke off.

  “But what?” Alaric asked.

  “We’re calling it assassination. It’s just another name for murder,” Lily said.

  Mary humphed. “Honey, war is just another name for murder.”

  Alaric turned to Lily. “Think about it, Lily. If Toshi can get to Grace, no one else has to die.”

  Lily nodded, knowing this was the smartest choice. She looked up at Lillian and saw her staring back.

  Think of the last line you’re unwilling to cross. That’s the line you must cross in order to win.

  Like you and the bomb?

  Exactly.

  I’m not like you, Lillian. And murdering Grace is not my last line.

  After the meeting, Lily made her way to the tent she had been assigned, hoping that there was something clean for her to change into. Just outside her tent, Breakfast and Una caught up with her.

  “So what are we doing?” Breakfast asked, holding open the tent flap.

  “What do you mean, what are we doing?” Lily asked, not getting it. She ducked inside and Una and Breakfast followed her.

  “What are we going to do to stop those crazy bastards from nuking a million innocent people,” Una clarified, looking a little wild around the eyes as she closed the flap behind them.

  “Well, I’m going to try to claim Toshi, and once I see what’s going on in Bower City . . .” Lily began. Una waved a hand in the air to cut her off.

  “Uh-uh. Not good enough,” she said. “Even if you do manage to assassinate Grace, the Hive will still be alive, and you know the batshit brigade is going to want to exterminate them with that bomb.”

  “We need to make the nuke go away,” Breakfast rephrased a bit more calmly. “As long as it’s out there, someone is going to be threatening to use it.”

  Lily sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I know,” she said. “I have someone on that problem.”

  There was a pause while Breakfast and Una decided who would be the one to speak.

  “Who?” Una asked.

  Lily twisted her han
ds. “Carrick.” They stared at her, too shocked to speak. “I know, I know,” Lily continued, agonizing over her decision, “he’s probably going to murder about a dozen people to fulfill my order, and those deaths are going to be on me.” Lily’s stomach soured and her mouth warped into a sickly smile. “But if I don’t use Carrick, than I only have one other option. My last line.”

  Breakfast paused and then inhaled sharply through his teeth. “I’m almost too scared to ask,” he said, turning to Una with a grimace.

  “I’ll make a mind mosaic to find the bomb, and then steal instructions for how to dismantle it from Alaric’s memories,” Lily said.

  “Come again?” Breakfast said, confused.

  “A mind mosaic is when I use my claimed like an array of cameras. I look through all of your eyes to find what I’m looking for. Sometimes I have to look through your memories, too, sort of like fast-forwarding through recordings on a surveillance camera,” she explained. “You don’t even know I’m there, but I’m spying through you.”

  Una looked horrified. “Please tell me you’ve never done that before,” she said.

  “Once. When I was learning, and only for about a second,” Lily admitted. “Rowan told me that witches do it all the time,” she said, becoming defensive at their accusing looks.

  “But not you,” Breakfast said hopefully.

  “No. Not me,” Lily said. “At least, not yet. But if Carrick doesn’t find the bomb or doesn’t dismantle it for whatever reason, I’ll have to try it.”

  “Yes, you will,” Una said, looking at the ground. Breakfast turned to argue with her but she continued before he could say anything. “She’ll have to, Stuart. A million people . . .” She trailed off, the scope of it overwhelming her.

  “It’s wrong,” he said quietly.

  “I know that, Breakfast,” Lily snapped. “I asked a man who tortured me—who tortured and murdered my father—for help in order to avoid it. Is that the right thing to do? I don’t know. I’m trying to do what’s right, but I don’t know if there is such a thing as a right option anymore. Just different kinds of wrong.”