Trial by Fire (26 page)

“So what does it mean that I have three stones? That I have multiple personalities?”

Rowan shrugged. “I’ve heard of powerful witches in the past imprinting more than one stone at a time because there wasn’t an available stone large enough to harness her power, but your smoke stone is just about the biggest willstone I’ve ever seen. I think we’re in uncharted territory here, and we need to wait and see.” He stood and went to the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”

Rowan cooked for them while Lily changed into the new clothes Tristan had brought her, then took a moment to read Juliet’s letter. It didn’t say much, other than that Juliet was fine and that she hoped Lily stayed safe. Juliet placed extra importance on Lily staying far away from Gideon. She said he was lurking around, asking questions. Juliet begged her to stay out of sight for her own safety.

As Lily read the signature, “Ever Your Loving Sister, Juliet,” it occurred to her that she had been missing from her world for six days. Her Juliet must have been frantic.

“Lily,” Tristan asked when she joined them back in the kitchen “was there bad news in the letter?”

“Not really,” she said, smiling briskly. “I just miss my sister. Both versions of her.”

For a moment, as Lily stared at her sister’s name at the bottom of the letter, she felt as if she would cry. Tristan tactfully changed the subject. He started asking Lily questions about her trek through the woods, and they fell easily into conversation. It felt so normal to be sitting and chatting with him that she could almost ignore the fact that she was in a different world where she didn’t belong, until she glanced over at Rowan and noticed him scowling at her. How had she overlooked his open animosity toward her when they were alone in the woods together?

“So, when can I start training?” Lily asked when breakfast was finished. Rowan and Tristan exchanged a look.

I know you two are sharing mindspeak, Rowan. Do me a favor and just say it out loud, okay? I’m not an idiot.
Lilly didn’t even try to hide her annoyance. She wanted him to feel how upset she was, although she was careful to keep the root of that annoyance—how much he’d hurt her—to herself.

Rowan met her eyes, his mouth pursed in anger. “Tonight. If that’s alright with you,” he said with mock deference.

“The sooner the better,” she replied, holding Rowan’s angry gaze.
So I can get the hell out of here and away from you
.

Rowan looked away first, but Lily still didn’t feel like she’d won.

chapter 9

Lily spent the rest of the day at the kitchen table with Tristan, trying to make a necklace out of her willstones, while Rowan was out arranging a meeting with Caleb. During that time, Tristan gave her a crash course in willstones, their properties, and some of the complicated social conventions that had been established to accommodate them.

Even after just one day, Lily had already noticed some of the obvious benefits to having a willstone. She now had a photographic memory. Everything she learned from the moment she bonded with her willstones—every image that passed before her eyes—was recorded and dated and filed away neatly for her to reexamine at any time. All Lily had to do in order recall an entire conversation, word for word, was think about it. She could read a page in a book and recall it without omitting one letter, although her willstone couldn’t make her understand what she read any better. She’d already tested her comprehension by pulling
Meditations on First Philosophy
by René Descartes off Rowan’s bookshelf and found it really hard to follow. For now, anyway. She was sure her reading comprehension would expand to keep pace with the library she intended to stuff into her head.

Tristan added to what she’d already discovered by teaching her how to open doors with her willstone by having it communicate with tiny shards of lattice—a willstone-like crystal, but much less complex—that were embedded in the doorframes. Lily thought it was
Star Trek
cool to open doors with her mind. For a good ten minutes, she walked through Rowan’s apartment, watching the doors swish open and closed like, well, magic.

Once Tristan managed to get her to stop walking through doorways, he taught Lily how to seal up lattice-lined boxes so no one else could open them unless she willed it. There were so many different ways even a non-magical person could use their willstone that Lily thought it was like having a microcomputer with a ton of handy apps attached to her brain. Lily had always wondered why everyone in this world would choose to bond with a willstone if it made you vulnerable to a crucible or a witch’s claiming, but now she understood. Even for the non-magical, willstones were as useful as a laptop, cell phone, keys, ID, and a strong box combined. The way this world was set up, you simply couldn’t get along without one.

But having a willstone
was
a vulnerability—especially for the magically inclined. Tristan stressed several times that while non-magical people couldn’t really hurt each other by touching stones, Lily was different. She had to be careful. When she touched someone’s stone, she could potentially claim that person if he or she allowed it. Even if the person didn’t permit a claiming, Lily, as a witch, could still make that person feel things, both good and bad. A witch could make a person feel just about any sensation—whether taste, sight, sound, or touch—much more intensely just by touching that person’s stone. And the stronger the witch, the stronger she could make that sensation. But intensified sensation went both ways.

“You must never, ever let anyone touch your stones. Not unless you really trust him or her,” Tristan said. Again. “And only if it’s with one of your claimed.”

Lily kicked him under the table. “I heard you the first thousand times.”

“I’m serious, Lily,” he continued, even though he was grinning as though he’d never been serious in his entire life.

“Sure you are,” Lily drawled, grinning back.

She suddenly wasn’t sure if she was flirting with Tristan or not. It just was so easy to be around him. She wasn’t walking on eggshells or constantly second-guessing every look or turn of phrase, as she did when she was with Rowan. She also wasn’t hyperaware of Tristan as she was of Rowan. It was like Rowan’s skin was always whispering to hers. Like there was another, more meaningful space inside the space between them. Everything felt bigger, brighter, and keener around him. Unfortunately, that included her insecurities as well. Lily’s smile disappeared. So did Tristan’s.

“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.