Trial by Fire

by Josephine Angelini

  “I’m not Lillian. I’m Lily! She tricked me and kidnapped me!” Lily choked out, her frustration and desperation nearly bringing 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, then 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.

  “Quiet,” Tristan commanded nervously, his head snapping around. He stood up from the edge of the fire and came toward her quickly, watching her lips the whole way. “Don’t even try to cast a spell on me.”

  He was genuinely afraid of her. Lily thought she knew every expression on Tristan’s face, but she had never seen him like this before. For the first time in their relationship, Lily sensed that she was the one in charge. It made her brave.

  “Tristan,” she said, smiling ruefully. “If I ever knew how to cast a spell on you, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  He paused with a bemused half smile on his lips, like he was trying to decide if she was flirting with him. This Tristan was much more humble than hers. “Rowan said you didn’t recognize him at first. But you recognize me?” he asked, intrigued.

  “Oh yeah,” Lily replied. “You’re my best friend. Or you were my best friend before last night.”

  Tristan came toward her. He thought about it for a moment before deciding to sit down next to her.

  “What happened?” he asked, resting his elbows on his knees.

  Lily knew that he wasn’t her Tristan, but she needed a friend right now, and the way this Tristan sat, the sound of his voice, even the way he rubbed the pad of his thumb across the tips of his fingers when he was anxious were all the same.

  “We had a fight.”

  “What did I do?” Tristan winced, automatically assuming that their fight was his fault.

  “You cheated on me. Well, sort of.” Lily rubbed her forehead tiredly. “It’s complicated.”

  Tristan looked like he didn’t believe it. “Are you sure?”

  “I saw you with another girl.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. It was really horrible actually.” Lily looked at him, momentarily taken aback by the weirdness of the situation. “I’m sorry, but this is freaking me out a little. I’m explaining to you how you cheated on me.”

  “This is pretty weird for me, too.” He flashed her one of his brilliant smiles. “So we’re lovers?” he asked. He tilted his head toward her slightly, a smile melting on his pretty lips. It was an inadvertently seductive gesture—yet another thing he had in common with her Tristan even if the phrase he’d used was not something a seventeen-year-old guy from Lily’s world would ever say. Lily regarded his smile carefully. She didn’t trust it anymore and that made her sad.

  “No. We’re not lovers,” she said, and then breathed a silent laugh. “I think we were on our way to that eventually, but—”

  “I ruined it.” He grimaced. “With who? Someone special?”

  “No.” Lily felt sad all of a sudden. Now that she wasn’t angry, she felt the hurt much more deeply. She cleared the thickness from her throat and continued. “You don’t even like her.”

  Tristan nodded, like that made sense to him somehow. “Sounds like I ruined things between us on purpose.”

  “Yeah,” Lily mused, surprised that he was so perceptive. This Tristan seemed older than hers, somehow. Wiser. “You didn’t decide to hurt me, but I do think you did it on purpose to get away from me.”

  “And what about the Rowan in your Salem?” he asked in a subdued tone. “What does he think about you and me?”

  Lily shrugged. “There is no Rowan in my Salem.”

  “Oh,” Tristan said, almost as if he were disappointed. “That explains it then.” Before Lily could ask him what he meant by that, he continued. “So. In your world, I’m an idiot.”

  Lily laughed and nodded. “Yes, you are,” she said, not unkindly.

  The firelight, and the harsh shadows it cast, seemed to cut Tristan’s face into confusing halves. But even in the unforgiving light, Lily saw a drowned spark rising up out of the well of shyness in him.

  “You really aren’t her,” Tristan said, his voice full of awe. “You’re not Lillian.”

  “No. I’m not her.”

  He stared at her, the silence stretching out between them.

  Tristan’s head suddenly pricked up in alarm. Lily heard whipping sounds surrounding them. It took her a moment to identify the noise as bodies running through the brush. Eerie howls filled the air. L
ily tried to jump up to her feet but hit the roof of her low, dome-like prison. Wrenching at the rune-engraved bonds holding her wrists together, Lily looked around for Tristan.

  He was already up by the fire and digging into the dirt with a spade. He threw the earth onto the flames, smothering the smoke in a few quick shovelfuls. Instantly, their little camp, a distant satellite of the main group, was plunged into darkness. Peering through the bushy conifers, Lily could see motion and hear shouts from the main settlement. A desperate fight was taking place. Flashes of light and shadow blinked in the distance as fast-moving shapes struggled around the campfires. She could hear strange yips and growls blending with the screams of men and women.

  “What’s out there?” Lily whispered into the dark, thinking of the monsters at the bottom of the green tower.

  “The Woven,” Tristan whispered back, his face pale with fear. He shucked off his jacket and pulled something out from behind his back. “Hold up your hands.” Tristan cut the leather bindings with one flick of his blade. He pulled off his dark shirt and threw it at her.

  “Your hair is too bright, and they’re attracted to bright colors. Cover it completely. If something happens to me, stay down and hide your face as best as you can. Play dead, and they might not try to get at you through the cage.”

  Lily nodded numbly, too frightened by the look on Tristan’s face to ask questions, and started wrapping up her hair with his shirt. Tristan circled around to the other side of her cage, facing out toward the dark forest, and stood firm. He was guarding her, Lily realized.

  The distant shrieks and howls piercing through the darkness pinned Lily down with fear. Tristan paced around her cage, obviously anxious to join the battle, but his orders to guard Lily kept him at his post. They both watched, helpless, as the screams turned to groans and the frenetic flashes of light from the fires died down. It was impossible to guess which side had won.

  A long silence followed the burst of noise and motion of the raid. Lily strained her senses into the darkness. Something moved out there.

  Tristan changed position, facing the sound of approaching footsteps, and crouched down into a braced stance. The underbrush shook. Lily saw Tristan’s bare back striate with tensed muscles, his knife ready in his hand.

  CHAPTER

  4

  “Lady Juliet.”

  Juliet looked up from her writing desk. “Yes?”

  “The Witch is awake.”

  “Thank you.” Juliet nodded at the footman, dismissing him, then stood, taking the hastily scrawled note she’d been reading. The other Lillian—Lily—had been spotted by one of Juliet’s informants outside a nearby café. Rowan had been inside the café, and he’d seen Lily, too. Apparently, he’d chased after her. Juliet’s man had lost them both in the winding streets, but he had written in the note that he believed Rowan had caught her. Juliet threw the paper in the fire on her way to the door. She’d learned the hard way that Gideon wasn’t above riffling through her private documents.

  It was late. Long past sunset. The thought of Lillian—Lily, Juliet reminded herself again—out there in the dark was enough to make her ill. It comforted her some to know that Rowan had most likely taken her off the streets, although it probably shouldn’t. Rowan had more reason to want Lillian dead than just about anyone.

  And how were they going to keep this quiet? The Outlander shamans—whom even most Outlanders thought were insane—were right. There really were an infinite number of worlds on the other side of every shadow, and Lillian had found a way to access them. They had to keep this a secret, above everything else, but Lillian had allowed Lily to go running off into the city. Alone.

  Juliet noticed she was wringing her hands. The thought of how Lily must be feeling—kidnapped and surrounded by strangers in a strange land. Juliet stopped herself and opened the door to her real sister’s bedroom, trying with little success to convince herself not to worry.

  Lillian was sitting at the tea table in front of the fireplace. She was looking out the window, her gaunt face frozen. Sometimes, like now, when Juliet looked at her sister, she could see flashes of terror in her eyes, as if she were screaming on the inside.

  Juliet had tried to get her sister to talk, to tell her anything about what had happened to her during those three weeks when she’d disappeared a year ago, but Lillian had never said a word. For days, she didn’t speak at all or let anyone touch her. When she finally did start talking again, the only thing Lillian had said was that she had a plan and she needed Juliet to trust her. And Juliet had trusted her, supported her, and defended her when nearly everyone in her inner circle began to speak out against her ever-crueler laws. Juliet had even stayed loyal to her sister when she had started hanging people. To her growing shame.

  “Are you going to explain why you let her go, Lillian?” Juliet asked, without much hope for a response.

  Lillian shook her head in answer, her blank face hardly registering that she’d heard Juliet at all.

  “She’s lost,” Juliet persisted, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. “People saw her, and if anyone figures out what you’ve done, it will change everything. Nothing about our world will stay the same. The possibilities are just…” Juliet broke off and shook her head, overwhelmed. “Gideon’s already poking around, you know.”

  “Oh, Juliet,” Lillian said tiredly. “Let him. It’s not like anyone would see her and think the truth. It’s too fantastic for anyone to just assume.”

  “And what if they ask her where she came from?”

  Lillian laughed. “They’d think they were talking to me and that I’d lost my mind. Like Mom.”

  “Even Rowan? He found Lily, you know.” Lillian gave her sister a flat-eyed smile, and Juliet sat back in surprise. “You led her to him, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did,” Lillian said, her voice cracking with fatigue. “She’s from a world that’s so mind-blind that she still thinks my nudging her this way or that is intuition. She has more to learn than I thought.” Lillian frowned and reached for the glass of water in front of her, barely wetting her lips with the smallest of sips. Juliet had noticed months ago that too much of anything seemed to make her vomit these days. Even water.

  “Why, Lillian?” Juliet pleaded.

  “To train her.” Lillian looked out the window again. “Without Rowan, she’d never be strong enough in time. We need him as much as we need her, or this won’t work.”

  Juliet leaned forward, reaching across the table for her sister’s hand. “What won’t work? Please tell me.”

  Lillian took Juliet’s hand but didn’t turn her head to look at her.

  * * *

  Lily nearly screamed bloody murder when something burst through the underbrush, but she found herself strangely comforted when she realized that it was Rowan. She saw Tristan’s tense back relax a bit as he recognized his friend.

  “Caleb?” Tristan asked, searching behind Rowan.

  “Tracking the Woven’s trail, looking for their nest,” Rowan replied tersely, making his way to Lily’s cage. “We have to move her.”

  As Rowan got close enough for her to see him clearly, Lily recoiled. He was covered in blood. Sweat-slicked skin peeked out from under his shredded shirt, and his face was stamped with the grim hollows of violence. His breath gusted out of him as steamy clouds in the frigid night air.

  “Where are you taking me?” Lily asked, backing against the far side of her cage. Rowan ignored her and touched the lock on the door. His large silver willstone glowed, and the lock sprang open. He reached in for Lily, grabbing her arm and pulling her out forcibly.

  “Easy, Ro,” Tristan protested. “You’re hurting her.”

  “Then you take her.” Rowan shoved Lily in Tristan’s direction. “But if she bolts for the woods, her death is on you.”

  “Fine. It’s on me,” Tristan replied. He took his shirt from Lily and pulled it back on angrily.

  “No, it’s not, Tristan. I’m responsible for me.” Some
thing snapped in Lily. She whirled on Rowan, her anger finally overpowering her fear. “Why the hell would I run into the woods when it’s crawling with monsters? I’m not a frigging moron. And I don’t appreciate being ignored, Rowan whatever-your-last-name-is. Where are you taking me?”

  “Like I’d tell you that,” Rowan said, offended, as if she’d asked him for his bank-account number. He turned to Tristan with a sardonic smile. “She’s all yours.”

  Lily sputtered impotently at Rowan as he busied himself, collecting useful tools and supplies from the camp. She wanted to scream that she wasn’t his to give away, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that she was a prisoner—Rowan’s prisoner, apparently—and therefore without much say in the matter. And if she were to be completely honest with herself she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be freed—at least not yet. She had no idea how to get back home and even less of an idea how to protect herself in this strange and dangerous world.

  They marched through the near pitch dark of the forest for what seemed like hours. The only light Rowan permitted were the stars whirring overhead, and that feeble illumination seemed to be all he and Tristan needed to move silently through the forest.

  Not so for Lily. She could barely see her own hand in front of her face and crashed blindly through the dark. Every time she stumbled over the uneven ground, she could hear Rowan chuff with displeasure. As the night wore on Lily could sense Rowan growing more and more impatient with her, like he thought she was intentionally trying to break every twig and fall down every gopher hole in the damn state. More than once Lily laid herself out flat, landing hard on the heels of her hands in the brittle, frost-covered leaves on the forest floor. After a few hours of this, she was cut and bruised in a dozen places, and by the time she twisted her right ankle so badly it made her cry out loudly, she was already on the verge of tears.

  “Quiet, or you’ll get us all killed. You’re not fooling anyone,” Rowan growled as he tugged her roughly up off the ground. “And I won’t tend to that ankle for you so you’d better drop the act.”