Trial by Fire

by Josephine Angelini

  What a terrible liar she was. “Sweet Juliet,” Gideon said, with something approaching true affection, “you must have the purest heart in this universe.”

  Gideon pivoted away from her distressed face and went to go find his father. They had plans to make. An infinite number of worlds had just opened up before Gideon, and he’d barely had a chance to imagine what those other worlds could offer. Or what he could take from them by force if they didn’t offer it.

  But first, he had to find this other Lillian.

  * * *

  Lily finished washing up as best as she could by a small, muddy stream and joined Rowan back by the fire. Bubbling away in the flames was the small cauldron he’d used to make Lily her ankle-healing brew.

  “What’s for breakfast?” she asked dubiously.

  “Acorns. I have to boil them first, though. Too many tannins for you.”

  “I didn’t know you could eat acorns,” Lily said, sitting cross-legged by his side.

  “White oak acorns are the least bitter,” he said, stirring the pot with a small stick.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Lily said with a little smirk. She had no idea what a white oak tree looked like, let alone one of their acorns. Rowan caught the look on her face and interpreted it correctly.

  “Not a lot of woods in your world, I take it?” he asked.

  “We’ve cut most of them down so we could build houses and stuff,” she said, wondering how Rowan could read her so easily. “I don’t know exactly where we are right now, but I’m pretty sure in my world it would be someone’s backyard. Some sleepy little neighborhood in Nowhere, Massachusetts.”

  “Without the Woven, I’m assuming people spread out wherever they wanted?” he asked. Lily nodded. “Are there still large cities?”

  “Huge ones. There are people everywhere in my world. Overcrowding is a big problem.”

  “Amazing,” Rowan whispered to himself. “I’d love to see that.”

  Lily stared at his profile. The gentle expression that crossed his face as he imagined her world—a world that was safe enough to fill up with people—softened his usually sharp eyes. “How old are you?” she asked, suddenly not sure.

  “Nineteen. Why?”

  “You seem so much, I don’t know. Older, I guess. You’re, like, an adult.”

  “Well, yes,” he replied with a small laugh. “Legally, I’ve been an adult for three years now.”

  “So you come of age here when you’re sixteen?” Lily asked.

  “In the cities. When do you?”

  “Well, technically, it’s eighteen. But in my country, there are still some things you can’t do until you’re twenty-one.”

  Rowan made a face, as if he thought that was insane. “In the Outlands we come of age at fourteen. Most men have families by the time they’re sixteen.” He put down the stick he was using to stir the acorn and wrapped his hand in the sleeve of his jacket. “But Outlanders don’t have any time to waste. Most don’t live to see fifty.”

  Disturbed by this, Lily frowned pensively as she watched Rowan pull the pot off the fire and drain away the red-brown water. At least that explained why all the elders seemed on the young side. Outlanders didn’t live long enough to get old. Rowan fished out all the acorns and gave them to Lily.

  “Did you already eat?” she asked him.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Rowan, seriously.” Lily tried to put half of the acorns into his hand, but he wouldn’t take them.

  “I don’t have to eat. I’m taking all the energy I need from you.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, completely lost.

  He placed two fingers on her wrist as he’d done many times in the days before, as if he were taking her pulse. Lily saw his willstone glow subtly under his clothes.

  “Your body is an energy factory, Lily. You can take a handful of food—in the right chemical combinations, of course—and turn it into enough raw energy to sustain twenty people. Eventually I’ll have to eat for the protein and vitamins that my body needs to maintain itself, but I can live for days off of your excess energy.”

  “That is so unbelievably weird,” she said, shaking her head. “So when you touch my wrist like that, you’re taking, like, sips of energy?”

  “And regulating your reactions,” he said, laughing a little at Lily’s choice of words. “You haven’t learned how to safely process all the different agents in the air and in your food.”

  Lily had been so overwhelmed since the raid she hadn’t noticed that she’d gone two days without getting a fever or a rash or even a stuffy nose. She hadn’t had a full day completely free of a reaction in years, and certainly not on a day spent outside.

  “Can you teach me?” she asked, leaning closer to him.

  “Of course,” he replied with a small smile.

  He had such an expressive mouth. Now that she was looking at him up close, she could see that even when his eyes were guarded, his lips conveyed every new emotion that sped through him, as if they were more sensitive than most people’s. Lily couldn’t stop watching them.

  “Eat,” he reminded her.

  She pulled her gaze away and started in on her acorns, pleasantly surprised to find them quite satisfying, if a bit bland.

  “Got any salt?” she asked jokingly. His face pinched with worry.

  “You need it. Badly.” Rowan rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin and his leg started bouncing up and down nervously.

  “It’s okay. They’re really good just like this,” Lily said.

  “It’s not about taste,” he replied with frustration. “Salt is an important mineral for a crucible.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a special substance. It carries a charge,” he said slowly, like she was a child. “Do you know what electricity is?”

  “Yes.” Lily tried not to sound offended or sarcastic. She knew Rowan couldn’t possibly understand that to her, parts of his world looked like they still had one foot in the Stone Age. “And I know that salt is an electrolyte. We understand biology very well in my world.”

  “Okay.” He paused, giving Lily another strange look before continuing. “Well, our bodies are electric, and we all use salt for a number of things—nerve impulses, muscle contraction, extracting energy from food. But a crucible’s body speeds through these processes differently, and at an accelerated rate. As a result, you generate huge amounts of energy. You also use up a lot more salt.”

  “Is that why I freaking love Fritos?” Lily asked. He didn’t get it. “Forget it. Keep going.”

  “Witchcraft and salt go hand in hand. Your body practically runs on it,” he said, summing it up. “And I’m out of salt.”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s just a craving.”

  “When you crave something, it means you need it.” He breathed a laugh and his eyes momentarily turned inward. “A crucible’s craving is her mechanic’s mandate.” The way he’d said that made Lily think it was something he’d learned by rote, and that it had a much deeper meaning than was immediately apparent. “Trust me, in another day or two, this is going to become a big problem for both of us,” he continued. “And I can’t bring you back into Salem just yet. Not for another three or four days, at least.”

  “Okay. Is there any way to get more salt?” Lily asked equitably.

  “Yes. I could kill an animal, and you could drink its blood.”

  Lily gave Rowan a withering look.

  “Look, you don’t have to eat the meat,” he began, his tone near to pleading.

  “I’m not drinking blood, Rowan.”

  “There are no other sources of salt out here. Otherwise, we have to go back to Salem.”

  “Then we go back to Salem,” Lily said simply.

  “Right. Because that’s the smartest choice,” he said sarcastically.

  “I refuse to consume any part of any animal. It’s not an option.”

  Rowan paced around the fire, biting his lower lip to keep himself from spea
king.

  “Just say it,” Lily said, jumping to her feet.

  “Fine. I really want to know if there’s a universe, any universe, where you’re a reasonable person who knows how to compromise even a tiny bit?” he yelled back at her. “Does every version of you have to be so ridiculously stubborn that you won’t even do the littlest thing I ask?”

  “Drinking blood is not a little thing,” she sputtered incredulously.

  “You do realize who you look like?”

  “Yes!”

  “And you realize that you’re a bit conspicuous?” He pointed to her bright red hair. “And that it would be nearly impossible to get you back into Salem right now without someone spotting you from, say, a mile away?”

  “So cut off my hair. Dye it,” Lily said, her voice wavering when she realized what she was saying. Rowan’s angry expression switched to surprise, and Lily strengthened her resolve. “Do what you have to do. But I am not drinking blood.”

  * * *

  Lily saw the first tress of her hair fall at her feet and nearly told Rowan to stop.

  She heard his knife slice through another hank, and tears started welling up in her eyes. She tried to tell herself it was just hair, and that she’d never liked her hair to begin with, but that only made her cry harder. If she didn’t like it long, how much worse would it look short? Lily’s breathing skipped with tears and Rowan’s hands stilled.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked quietly.

  “No.” Lily’s voice came out high and childish. She cleared her throat and continued. “It’s too late anyway, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Keep going.”

  He lifted another lock and cut through it. “I think short hair will be really flattering on you,” he said optimistically. “You’ve got a beautiful face. It shouldn’t be covered by hair.”

  Lily watched more strands fall to the ground. Her neck could feel everything, even the weight of Rowan’s eyes as he looked at her. She felt exposed.

  When he was finished cutting, Rowan took up a bundle of Lily’s shorn hair, a twig, and some twine from his pack. He sat down next to her while he wrapped the hair onto the end of the twig, binding it tightly with the twine. He trimmed the ends of the hair bundle evenly, and in a few moments he’d fashioned a rudimentary paintbrush. Lily watched every neat motion of his hands. His dexterity fascinated her so much she momentarily forgot about herself.

  “Nifty,” Lily said, truly impressed.

  “We’re almost done,” he said, smiling encouragingly at her. He stood behind her and began painting the dye he’d made in his small cauldron onto her hair. Rowan dyed her hair in layers, getting all the way down to the scalp. He piled the dyed hair on top of her head, being very careful not to stain her face or neck with it. As he worked, the stench of the dye kept intensifying.

  “That smells awful. It’s making my eyes sting,” she said. “What’s in it?”

  “Black walnut husks.”

  “They smell like pee,” she said, sniffling.

  “No, they don’t,” Rowan responded cautiously. “Pee is why the dye smells like pee.”

  Lily stiffened and turned her head carefully to look at him. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “You can’t make dye without a stripping agent, Lily,” he said pleadingly. “I don’t have any way to make peroxide or ammonia out here, but I do have uric acid in my urine.”

  Lily faced front again.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked.

  “No,” Lily said through gritted teeth, trying to ignore what was seeping into her scalp.

  “You can rinse it off right now if it’s too disgusting. I’ll go catch a squirrel, and we don’t have to go back to Salem.”

  “No thank you.”

  “Lily, you really don’t have to—”

  “Are you going to finish or not?” she said, cutting him off.

  “So stubborn,” he said, more to himself than to Lily.

  “I’m not stubborn,” Lily said. “I have conviction. And I’m not afraid to do something difficult in order to stay true to my beliefs.”

  “That sounds familiar,” he said in a slightly sad way.

  They lapsed into silence while Rowan finished painting her hair with the dye and they waited for it to set. When Lily was done rinsing the dried dye out of her hair in the stream, Rowan made another, more careful, pass at trimming her hair with his knife. He took his time, making sure it was even and that it fell properly around her face. Finally he stood back and gave her a satisfied nod.

  Lily’s hand shot up to feel her hair. Rowan had given her what felt like a bob. She scrunched her damp curls, happily noting that he’d had the sense to give her some layers so she didn’t have pyramid-head.

  “How does it look?” she asked anxiously.

  “I think it looks great short,” he replied, still studying her. “But I’ve always preferred you with your hair up, so I can see your long neck.”

  Lily was thrown for a moment. Of course, he was referring to Lillian, but it was still strange to hear Rowan speak to her in such a familiar way when she’d only met him three days ago.

  “And the color?” she asked, unable to hold his appraising gaze.

  “It’s dark,” he warned. “Outlander dark, which works in our favor. If you don’t let anyone see your light eyes, we might be able to pull this off.”

  They broke camp quickly. While Lily washed out the cauldron, Rowan took care to make sure all of her hair was burned before he buried the black walnut husks and the embers of the fire under a few layers of dirt. In minutes, it was as if they’d never been there. Lily looked over her shoulder as they left the campsite and headed back to Salem, conscious of the fact that they’d left no soda cans or ugly plastic wrappers behind.

  “What’s wrong?” Rowan asked, touching her arm.

  “Nothing. It’s just that in my world we’re so concerned with everything being clean. Everything has to come in its own package.” She gave Rowan a rueful smile. “And it makes such a mess.”

  His nose scrunched up as he puzzled out the contradiction. “Being clean makes a mess?”

  “Unfortunately,” Lily said, nodding.

  “I don’t think you’re doing it right then.”

  “No. We definitely aren’t.”

  “I guess every version of the world is flawed somehow,” he said equitably. “Nothing’s perfect.”

  Lily walked beside Rowan for a while, wondering if she agreed with him. If there were an infinite number of universes, didn’t that mean that one of them had to be perfect? And if one of them was a paradise, then did that mean that another one had to be hell? Lily wondered how many versions of the world were better than this. And how many were worse.

  “Teach me something,” Lily asked, breaking herself out of her circular thoughts.

  One corner of his mouth tipped up in a quizzical smile. “Like what?” he replied.

  “Teach me how to control my reactions,” Lily asked excitedly.

  “That’s going to take more than one lesson. But we can start if you’d like.”

  Rowan spent the next few hours showing Lily how to discharge unnecessary energy before it became a runaway reaction. Lily saw little sparks of energy flying off her skin, like glitter. It was pretty, but it required so much focus. Rowan said that a willstone would change the energy effortlessly, and without making her look so sparkly. They worked their way up from bark dust, and after a few tries, she was able to manage her reaction to a nettle scratch without Rowan’s fingers on her wrist.

  “It’s not puffing up too horribly,” she said, peering at the angry red line that traced an inch across her forearm. Lily sniffed. Her head was starting to get congested.

  “You mostly did it,” he said encouragingly. He reached out and pressed his fingertips to her pulse point. The red line disappeared, and her stuffy nose cleared. He grinned at her.

  “Why can’t I do it like that?” Lily asked with a pout
. “What I need is a willstone.”

  Rowan’s smile faded. He looked at the ground as they walked, his lips pursed together.

  “What? Don’t you want me to have one?” she asked.

  “It’s got nothing to do with what I want,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you get a willstone, you’ll have to be trained. You’d be a menace if you weren’t.” He pulled his lower lip through his teeth.

  “So train me,” Lily said. His head snapped around and he stopped walking.

  “Why?” he asked, suddenly angry. “Why do you want to be trained?”

  “So I can control my reactions.”

  “You’re lying,” he said dismissively.

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re not telling me the whole truth, Lily. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “I want to control my reactions, and I want to go home!” she shouted. “Do you have any idea how I can do that? Do you know how to send me back to my universe?”

  His eyes narrowed, warning her against using too much sarcasm. “It’s never been done by anyone but Lillian.”

  “That means I have two options. I can beg Lillian to send me back—which I know she won’t—or I can learn how to do it myself. If she figured it out, why can’t I?”

  “It’s not that simple, Lily. You seem to have all her potential, but crucibles start their training when they’re six years old. You have no idea how much you’ll need to learn to get to the point she’s at right now.”

  “I don’t care what I have to do. Please, Rowan, I need to go back. My mother—”

  Lily broke off, a wave of fear making her voice weak. She’d been so concerned with keeping herself alive the past few days she hadn’t had any worry left in her to spare for her mother. The worry came back as Rowan searched her eyes. Lily got that feeling again—the feeling that there was a secret language the two of them spoke that she’d forgotten.

  “And if I train you,” he said softly. “How do I know you won’t end up exactly like her?”

  “Because I’m nothing like her,” Lily replied, throwing up her hands like it was self-evident.

  “Really?”