Trial by Fire

by Josephine Angelini

  “Listen,” he said, leaning back and regarding her with narrowed eyes. “Even if you’re curious to try it with Rowan, just wait, okay? He’s as sensitive as a mechanic gets, but he could still really hurt you if you two rush into it.”

  Lily remembered how Rowan had shivered with agony when she’d handled his willstone roughly. The stronger the magic, the stronger the bond with the willstones, and for witches having a willstone meant having a raw nerve laid bare on your throat. She looked at her three little hearts, beating at their own particular tempos in the palm of her hand, and knew that whatever pain Rowan had felt when she’d been careless with his stone would be ten times worse if he’d done the same to her.

  And Rowan didn’t trust her. In fact, there were times when Lily was convinced that he hated her.

  “Okay,” she replied quietly. “I get it, Tristan.”

  Since it was out of the question for Lily to allow anyone to touch her willstones, she had to make the necklace herself, and she wasn’t exactly adept at arts and crafts. Lily finally managed to shake off the nagging sadness she felt over Rowan, but not because what she was doing was particularly soothing.

  After three hours of struggling with a pair of pliers and what she was certain had to be the most uncooperative spool of silver wire in the world, Lily pushed through her brainfry and reached the goofy stage of overstimulation.

  “It looks like I put them in an ugly cage,” Lily said, turning her wreck of a necklace around in her hands. She started laughing. “What a piece of junk.”

  Tristan cracked up with her. “Three of the prettiest stones I’ve ever seen and you put them in jail.”

  Lily laughed even harder. They’d been at it for hours, and all she had to show for her painstaking work was a gnarly lump of metal with some rocks stuck in it. “I can’t go out in public wearing this. People will think a fork threw up on my neck.”

  They heard the front door open, but the giggles had set in for both of them, and they were too wound up to stop.

  “Are you two drunk?” Caleb asked from the doorway.

  “Caleb,” Tristan said, waving him over. “You gotta see this.”

  Lily held up her necklace. Caleb squinted at it.

  “He doesn’t even know what it’s supposed to be,” Tristan said, sending them both into another round of giggles. In the background, Lily saw Rowan come in with bags of groceries and start unpacking them silently. She wiped her streaming eyes and put on her ugly necklace.

  “What do you think, Caleb?” she said, waggling her eyebrows at him. “You’ve got to admit, it takes a special talent to make something as hideous as this.”

  “It is pretty hideous,” he said with a grin, but his smile faded fast. “Three stones,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen that before.”

  The mood shifted from jovial to serious in seconds as Caleb regarded Lily cautiously. She could feel him fighting with himself, still not sure about whether or not he could trust her. Of course he still doubted her. He’d spent the afternoon with Rowan. As soon as Lily thought this, Rowan turned and came toward her.

  “Here,” he said, placing a velvet pouch in front of her. Lily opened the pouch and a gorgeous platinum chain spilled into her hand. “Lillian couldn’t make her own setting either.”

  Rowan turned and went down the hallway to the spare bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him. He’d made his point about how alike she and Lillian were, and the worst part was that he’d done it in a way that Lily couldn’t dispute. Fuming, Lily resisted the urge to follow him down the hallway and yell at him. Instead, she untangled the chain and laid it out on the table so she could see it better.

  The chain had an open platinum oval pendant that was shaped like a teardrop. Dangling from the teardrop were three smaller, detachable chains of staggered lengths. At the bottom of the three chains were three different-size settings, one for each of Lily’s stones. The largest setting hung lowest, the medium above that, and at the top was a tiny, pea-size setting, waiting for her shy golden stone. Lily ran the small chains through her fingers, finding the clasps that detached them from the teardrop easy to work but stable. They wouldn’t come off unless she meant to remove them.

  “So I can take off two and hide them in my pocket. Make it look like I have the normal number of willstones,” Lily said quietly, marveling at how Rowan seemed to consider everything. And marveling at the beauty of the necklace he’d brought her. “You think he could have told us he was going to do this so we didn’t waste all day,” she said, purposely turning her gratitude into frustration.

  “Classic Rowan,” Tristan said with a shrug.

  Lily fitted her stones into the settings and tamped down the edges securely. She found that she didn’t have to do much altering. Rowan had guessed the size and shape of her willstones almost perfectly.

  “Where do willstones come from?” she asked, considering her necklace.

  “They’re grown,” Tristan answered. “It’s a long, frustrating process, but it’ll be part of your training so there’s no way out of it.” Caleb looked at Tristan sharply. “We have to train her, Caleb,” Tristan said out loud, even though Lily guessed that Caleb had just tried to initiate mindspeak. Lily appreciated that Tristan was including her.

  “Tristan’s right,” Rowan said, returning and joining them at the table. He had changed into loose linen pants and a soft white shirt. “And we need to start now.”

  So you can get the hell away from me, right, Lily?

  For a moment, Lily could feel Rowan’s tangled emotions. He was furious with her—and with himself for some reason Lily couldn’t quite understand. He pushed her mind out of his before she could figure it out.

  “Okay,” Caleb said, oblivious to the internal battle going on between Lily and Rowan. “But if you’re going to train her, I want some kind of a promise out of her first.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tristan asked.

  “I want to know she’ll never fight for Lillian,” Caleb said, like it was obvious. “She doesn’t have to swear to fight for us, but we need to know you two aren’t training another evil witch.”

  “No problem. I promise I’ll never fight for Lillian,” Lily said gladly. “Is that enough?”

  “No, that’s not enough,” Rowan replied, his eyes narrowed mockingly.

  “Well, apart from my word, what else can I give you?”

  “Access,” he answered. “You have to allow me to ask you questions about your loyalty—in mindspeak, where you can’t lie—whenever I feel like it. If you don’t answer me, or if you shut me out without allowing me to feel your deeper intentions, we’ll kill you.”

  Lily felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. Did he really hate her that much?

  “Ro,” Tristan said, interrupting the long silence. “That is totally out of line.”

  “No it isn’t,” Rowan said, turning his glare on Tristan. “If at any point in this process she shuts me out, I think it’s fair to assume the worst.”

  “Because that’s what Lillian did, right, Rowan? She shut you out,” Tristan said, baiting him. But instead of anger Rowan responded with regret.

  “And then she started hanging people,” Rowan said quietly. He looked at Lily. “Do you agree to my conditions?”

  “Do I have a choice?” she snapped. She sat back in her chair, her throat filling with frustrated tears. If she agreed, it would be like living in a glass room, without even the right to keep her thoughts to herself. But if she didn’t, she’d never learn how to get back home. “You win, Rowan. I agree.”

  He nodded and stood. “Let’s get started. Tristan? Do you want to change?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. He stood and went down the hallway. Apparently, he knew his way around Rowan’s apartment because he didn’t need to be shown the location of the closet.

  “Was there a loose dress in that bundle from your sister?” Rowan asked Lily without looking her in the eye. She nodded. “Put it on. And don’t wear anything binding u
nder it.”

  Lily stood up and stormed down the hallway to the bathroom where she’d left the bundle of clothes. She didn’t even consider arguing. This was Rowan’s show, and she was just going to play her part until she’d learned enough to get home. Lily stripped naked, slid into what looked like a white silk slip, and joined Rowan back in the main room. He, Caleb, and Tristan were at the far end of the apartment, clearing a large space in front of the fireplace.

  Tristan had changed into loose white pants like Rowan, and the two of them had taken off their shirts. Their willstones pulsed on their bare chests. Lily’s willstones flared brightly in response, startling her. Rowan, Tristan, and Caleb saw the flash and looked at Lily briefly before returning to their tasks. Lily could feel static in the air. She glanced down and saw the hairs on her arms rising. The ritual was already beginning.

  “Do you have enough wood stored?” Caleb asked Rowan.

  “On the roof,” Rowan replied while he moved a white sofa out of the way. “We’re going to start small, anyway. Big magic is something she can do intuitively. It’s small magic she has trouble with—it took her forever to figure out how to mindspeak. Just like Lillian.”

  Tristan rolled up the carpet, exposing the wood floor. “What were you thinking of starting with?” he asked.

  “A water purification spell. We can send it as a gift to the sachem.”

  Rowan opened a door next to the fireplace and took out a large cast-iron cauldron, which he hung on a hook that swung into and out of the fireplace. Tristan shook out a black silk sheet and laid it on the floor in front of the fire.

  “Sit,” he instructed, leading Lily to the center of the silk sheet. He positioned her with her back to the fireplace.

  “Is there anything I can do to help set up?” she asked. All three of the guys paused momentarily to exchange looks.

  “I’ll be right back with the wood,” Caleb said.

  “And the bucket of stale rainwater next to the pile, if you can?” Rowan called after him as Caleb left.

  Lily waited, feeling a bit stupid just sitting there while Rowan and Tristan scurried around. Tristan laid out a collection of silver knives and a marble mortar and pestle in front of Lily.

  Caleb returned with the wood and water. Rowan emptied the bucket of fetid, brownish water into the cauldron and started a fire. Lily could feel something in her switch on, like a factory coming to life.

  Rowan knelt in front of Lily with a collection of herbs, flowers, and crumbly stones. He picked up one of the silver knives and after calling each herb by name, cut pieces of them and put them in the mortar. He picked up another knife, and after naming each element in what Lily now recognized as part of the ritual, he scraped different amounts of each into the mortar. He ground it all together, stopping every now and again to check the consistency. Then he held the concoction out to Lily.

  “Let your thoughts be pure. Let your will remove all taint,” he said, his voice low. “Breathe on it.”

  Lily leaned forward, feeling the touch of Rowan’s mind guiding hers, and blew. Her willstones flared, the small golden one shining brightest, and for a moment, she saw the chemical compound that they had created. She also saw how the energy she had imparted on the mixture with her breath would strengthen it and make it multiply. Rowan’s eyes closed briefly, and then he handed the mortar to Tristan.

  Using a fresh silver knife, Tristan scraped the mixture into the cauldron and swung it over the fire. Lily could smell the change immediately. The rainwater went from spoiled to clean in moments.

  She felt unbelievably tired.

  Lily was aware of time passing, of Tristan and Caleb pulling the cauldron off the fire and testing drops of its water on rectangles of paper. She felt Rowan take her shoulders and lower her to her side. He kept his hand on her back, rubbing it gently while he and Caleb discussed where portions of the purifying water were most needed. A part of Lily was aware of the fact that she should be furious with Rowan for making her think that he cared about her when he was simply harnessing her power, but she was simply too comfortable to start another fight with him. The fire, his soothing hand on her back, and the spent contentedness in her muscles kept her from storming away from him. She was suddenly aware of Caleb’s big white grin hovering over her eyes.

  “Good work, witch,” he said, smiling widely at her. She smiled back, but by the time she got around to it, he’d already turned away. There were footsteps, a door closing, and Lily felt herself being lifted off the ground. The change of position roused her from her torpor.

  “How much dirty water can that one cauldron of potion clean?” she asked.

  “Every batch is different, depending on the witch,” Rowan said. She could feel his voice rumbling in his chest. He was carrying her down the hallway to his bedroom. “We think your ratio is about one to ten thousand.” He sounded proud.

  “Ten thousand of those huge cauldrons of water made clean by only one?” she mumbled as he tucked her into his bed. There was some reason she wasn’t supposed to be sleeping in his bed, but she couldn’t remember what it was. “That’s not small magic, Rowan. Clean water is important. It can save lives.”

  He nodded at her, and his words slid into her head. Lillian called it kitchen magic. It’s taxing, and she resented how much energy it took from her when any novice crucible could be paid to do it—if only on a much smaller scale than she could.

  Lillian is an idiot.

  Sleep.

  * * *

  Lily sat up in Rowan’s bed, miffed. She felt like every time she used magic, she woke up twelve hours later wondering what bus had hit her. There had to be a way to do magic and remain conscious—and out of Rowan’s arms.

  She made his bed and thought about how he had treated her last night. Like he cared about her. It was misleading of him to rub her back, tuck her in, and still think she was evil. Or maybe he was only nice to her because he needed her to do magic. The thought made Lily go still for a moment. She set aside the small, chilled feeling that settled in her heart and got dressed. Whatever Rowan thought of her, she’d still done something good. Her magic had given people clean water.

  She washed her face in the bathroom and thought about the water purification ritual. She knew what herbs they’d used—bay, rosemary, thyme, hyssop—and which elements—carbon, chalk, sand, and silver. Lily knew enough chemistry to know that none of these things would really treat dirty water and make it drinkable. She could see the change she’d made in the chemicals, though. She hadn’t created any new elements. She’d only recombined them. It had to be some sort of science, she figured, just not one she had ever encountered before.

  Lily went out to the main room to find Tristan, Caleb, and Rowan sitting around the kitchen table, the remains of a big breakfast spread out before them. Rowan’s shirt was unbuttoned at the collar and his hair was pushed up funny in the back, as if he’d been rumpling it with his fingers. Lily looked away quickly when he noticed her watching him.

  Caleb lifted his mug to salute. “There she is!” He grinned at her, and Lily found herself grinning back. Caleb looked big and scary when he just sat there, but when he smiled he looked like a giant teddy bear. If teddy bears had muscles like sacks of coconuts, that is. “The sachem thanks you for your donation to the rebel front and would like to encourage you to—wait, what did he say?” He looked at Tristan, who shrugged. “Something fancy about doing well.”

  “I take it Alaric’s okay with me learning to be a witch?” she asked. Lily went into the kitchen and poured herself some tea.

  “I made pancake batter for you. You hungry?” Rowan asked, standing. Lily nodded and took a seat on top of the island in the kitchen while Rowan crossed to the stove. She could tell he was trying to change the subject.

  “The sachem is very happy you’re learning to be a witch. Especially if you keep the water purifier coming,” Caleb said. “Even better? We could really use some of those tabs that rid the body of infection. There’s a fever going aro
und.”

  “It’s bad,” Tristan added, looking at Rowan. Lily saw Rowan’s brow pinch with worry before Caleb continued.

  “And he wants you to know that he understands that you need to go home, and in exchange for your help, he’s trying to locate the shaman for you. I’ll let you know when we find him.”

  “Thanks. Why do I need the shaman?” Lily asked over the edge of her mug of tea. Rowan poured four dollops of batter into a skillet and sprinkled blueberries in them. “I love blueberries,” she whispered. He smiled to himself—he already knew as much—and picked up a spatula.

  “Rowan and I are Coven trained. And so is Caleb—well, a bit,” Tristan said, waving a hand to include Caleb and Rowan. “None of us have any idea how to spirit walk. Maybe two people in the whole world do, actually. You have to see a shaman for that, and there’s only one full shaman left.”

  “What is spirit walking?” Lily asked. “I’ve heard you all talking about it, but I don’t think I understand it yet.”

  “It’s where you separate your body and spirit and send your spirit elsewhere,” Rowan replied. “Even other universes.”

  “Is it like astral projection?” Lily guessed. No one understood what she was asking. “No one knows how to spirit walk except for the shaman? Aren’t there more than one?”

  “No,” Caleb said. “There’s a kid out on a vision quest on the Ocean of Grass who’s trying to become a shaman, but right now we only have the one. We need to find him before we can get you going.”

  Rowan flipped a pancake. “So you can find your home world, Lily,” he said. “Right, Tristan? That’s why we’re doing this, isn’t it? So she can go home?”

  Everyone was quiet. Tristan and Caleb didn’t move a muscle as they watched Rowan cook for Lily, and she got the sense that they were all sharing mindspeak. From what she could gather from their flashing eyes and tight mouths, the three of them seemed to be arguing intensely.

  “Why does Lillian hunt scientists?” Lily asked. Her voice sounded uncomfortably bright in the quiet room.