Trial by Fire (36 page)

“Good to hear. Let’s get started,” the shaman said enthusiastically.

Lily crawled through the dark toward the bottle of water. “Are you serious?”

“Best time to learn how to spirit walk. Right after a near-death experience or a great shock, like a fever or a seizure.”

“Huh. Go figure.” She thought about the seizure she’d had at Scot’s party, and how she’d seen herself from afar, like she was floating over her own body. “That actually explains a lot,” Lily said, and raised the bottle of water to her lips.

“Put down that water, girl,” he admonished. “You’re starved, which is fantastic, but dehydration is the real key.”

“Fantastic?” Lily asked, not too sure she agreed with his word choice. Her mouth was so dry it felt sore. “Can’t I have one sip?”

“Absolutely not,” the old man replied. “Usually I’d take you to a sweat lodge after your fast. You’d be allowed water there because you’d be sweating it out faster ’en you could drink it. But there’s no hope for a sweat lodge in this freezing cold, now is there?”

“Not really,” she said, putting the water down. It was mostly ice, and she’d have only gotten a few drops out of it anyway. “Wait. How did you see me pick up the bottle? It’s pitch black in here.”

“Darker than the inside of a cat, isn’t it?” The shaman cracked himself up.

“Ah, sure?” Lily said hesitantly. She didn’t have much experience being inside cats.

“Darkness is good for our purpose,” he said, without answering her question. “Now. You need to lie down and relax.”

“That’s the best thing you could have possibly said to me right about now.” She felt her way across the straw covered floor until she found her bunk, then gratefully pulled herself onto it.

“Now, here’s the hard part, girl,” the shaman said seriously. “I need you to empty your mind.”

“Piece of cake,” Lily mumbled.

“No. Don’t fall asleep.” The shaman’s voice was urgent. “Your spirit is a weak force. Like gravity. It works over vast distances, but the much stronger forces of the body and mind overwhelm the spirit in the short run. You must make the choice to put the spirit first. Let your will direct your spirit, and you can travel vast distances.”

Lily let the shaman’s words hang above her like thought bubbles in a comic book. Each idea was something she could see, suspended above her in black and white, but she didn’t try to think about them too hard. She just accepted them. Her spirit was whisper thin, easily overwhelmed by the howling demands of her body and the hard machinery of her logical thoughts. But as thin as it was, her spirit reached out past the stars and into other worlds.

“Okay. I see it,” she whispered.

“Good,” the shaman breathed. “Now, what do you hear?”

Lily. Are you in pain? We’re trying to find you.

“My sister. She’s looking for me.”

“You must go past that.” The shaman sounded sad. “I know you love her, and the other versions of the people who you love will guide you like bright lights into the other worlds. But Juliet’s mindspeak keeps you tethered to this world. In order to spirit walk you must go up, Lily. Jump up.”

She jumped. For a moment, Lily felt suspended. She looked down and saw her body lying on a dirty mattress. Her torn dress hung off her in ragged threads. Her face was streaked with filth, and her elbows, hands, and knees were rubbed raw and bleeding. She wasn’t looking with eyes—there was no light to see anything in the dank, cramped prison her body was trapped in—but Lily could see perfectly. She flew out into the alcove and looked around.

The shaman glowed like a pillar of fire in the next cell. The light of a thousand strange suns illuminated his body. Each sun showed him as a slightly different man. Lily saw him as old, young, beautiful, and dying at once. His spirit held every stage of his life inside him and refracted them back to Lily’s new farseeing eyes as if through a prism. He was everyman.

“There you are, girl,” he whispered, looking up at her. “Welcome home.”

Lily! Where did you go? Your mind went silent. Don’t leave me!

The screams of her sister brought Lily slamming back into her body.

I’m here, Juliet. I’m back. I’m sorry.

Lily pulled in a shuddering breath. The demands of her body assaulted her immediately, and she regretted coming back to such a dismal state of being. Everything ached. Without her willstones, she was cut off from the world again. Sick. She heard the shaman sigh.

“I couldn’t ignore her,” Lily mumbled, realizing she’d done exactly what he’d told her not to do. “She thought I’d died.”

“Well. I guess it would be worse if you didn’t love anyone that much,” he said. His voice sounded old and tired. “Get some sleep. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Gideon was excited to start work. He didn’t know for sure if this divide and conquer strategy was going to succeed. He almost couldn’t believe that no other mechanic had tried it, except for the fact that it was really rare for a witch to have more than one stone. Maybe witches avoided bonding with more than one stone for this very reason, although if witches did it on purpose, they didn’t tell mechanics that. This other Lillian probably hadn’t known to limit herself to one stone.

It was small things like that which made Gideon suspect that this other Lillian didn’t have much experience with magic. He was even beginning to believe that she came from a world where there were no witches or magic at all. Gideon looked forward to going there one day. He imagined he would seem like a god among the non-magical people, which would be a welcome change.

Gideon saw how people looked at him, like he had no talent. He’d only gotten his position because of who his father was. It was true that he’d been presented to Lillian when they were children because his father was on the Council, but that was common enough. Lillian had claimed dozens of Councilmen’s sons, but Gideon was placed in her inner circle. He was supposed to have been special. Then she’d favored Rowan and Tristan over him and ignored Gideon. His one consolation was that Lillian had never claimed Tristan either. Gideon didn’t know why. Lillian had claimed hundreds, but in her inner circle, those who she saw and worked with every day, she’d only claimed Rowan and Juliet. A year ago, she’d been forced to claim Gideon and make him her head mechanic—but he was that in name only. And
everyone
knew it.

This was Lillian’s fault. She’d pushed him to this. She’d claimed him, but then refused to utilize him, leaving him with no other option. If he couldn’t find true power in the witch system, then that system had to be overthrown.

Gideon had big plans. He was already talking to mechanics who specialized in growing willstones. They’d told him it might be possible to tailor them and make it so witches routinely bonded with more than one stone. His father was already drafting the legislature that would make it the law for all witches to bond with multiple stones so that they too could be controlled by their mechanics. Once that was pushed through the Council, the world was going to change. Witches would be ruled by their mechanics. They would still be a power source, of course. But Gideon saw a day when they wouldn’t be the
only
power, as they were now. In fact, after he had surveyed all that the other worlds had to offer, the witches might just find themselves obsolete. And begging
him
for a job.

Carrick was already in the oubliette when Gideon climbed down the rope and joined him. The girl was crouched in the far corner of her cell with her arms over her head. Her willstones were out on top of the desk, and Carrick was staring at them. That was unfortunate.

“Let’s get something straight, Carrick,” Gideon said, sighing regretfully. “You’re not to try to touch her willstones, or even look at them again unless I tell you to. Are we clear?”

Carrick looked up at Gideon with a confused expression on his face. For a moment, Gideon thought he saw something foreign in Carrick’s eyes. Carrick shook his head as if to clear it, and his usual coolness returned. Gideon angled himself in between Carrick and the stones. He couldn’t take them from the oubliette. That kind of distance between a witch and her willstones would make her too ill to do anything.

He was going to have to find some kind of safe to keep the stones in so Carrick wouldn’t be tempted. It might take a few days to get something like that out here, but Gideon knew he’d have to make arrangements. Gideon had been avoiding Salem, lying low. He’d have to go all the way to Providence to buy a safe, but he didn’t have a choice about that now. Carrick was becoming attached to her willstones—and maybe to her.

“Are we clear, Carrick?” Gideon repeated.

“We’re clear.”

“Good. She should be weak enough now that it’ll be safe to run a little test.” Gideon picked up the edges of the handkerchief and went to her cell. The girl hugged her stomach, biting her lower lip to stop the nausea. It must be so disorienting to feel your willstones picked up by another and moved around while you sit still, Gideon mused. He didn’t know. He’d never had the displeasure.

“We can give her the littlest stone, and see if she can transmute a
tiny
bit of energy with it, while I hold the other two for safe keeping.” Gideon met her eyes, pleased to see a wealth of anger there. She really was just like Lillian. This was going to be so much fun for him. “I’m always going to keep at least one of your stones with me. Wouldn’t want you to get any ideas above yourself. Now would I, Lily?”

The girl’s glare dissolved into pleading.
Now
she was starting to get it. With two of her stones held hostage, Gideon was the one in control of her magic. Unless she wanted to suffer, she’d better do every thing he said exactly as he said it.

“This is a power storage cell,” he continued, putting a heavy but small black box in front of the bars of Lily’s cage. He handed her the smallest willstone. “I am going to give you a tiny bit of heat and I want you to turn that heat into electricity and put it into the storage cell. Do you understand?”

Lily nodded blankly. “You want me to charge that battery.”

“We’ll start there and work our way up. If you’re good, we can move on to something more fun. Remember, there’s a gauge on this battery, as you called it, so don’t try keeping any power for yourself. I’ll be watching.” He squeezed her other two willstones, still cupped in the palm of his hand to give her a taste of the punishment she’d get if she tried to trick him. Lily gripped her head, stifling a scream in the back of her throat. “If you’re good, we’ll keep working our way up to higher and higher levels of energy. Who knows how far we’ll go? Maybe all the way into another world.”

Rowan has a way to find you, no matter how deep they bury you. Please don’t lose hope, Lily. We’re coming for you.

I haven’t lost hope, Juliet. What’s the plan?

Um. Well. I can’t tell you. You’re a prisoner, and they can make you talk. The less you know, the better.

I understand.

Really?

Yeah.

You’re just going to trust us?

Of course I am. You’re my sister.

That’s. Wow. That’s great.

Juliet? How is it I can hear you when I can’t hear Rowan, Tristan, or Caleb?

Because we’re family. Hold fast. We’re coming.

Lily woke up amused. She didn’t know if she were dreaming her sister to comfort herself or sharing actual mindspeak with Juliet while on the verge of sleep.

It didn’t really matter. Lily wasn’t going to wait to be rescued, no matter what Juliet and the guys planned. The next time Gideon gave her a stone, even if it was just her golden stone, she was going to take it and whatever energy he gave her in his attempt to “train” her, and use it to stop his heart. She would be punished. Carrick might even smash her other stones, trying to kill her, but Lily would survive. Like a wolf chewing off her own leg to get out of a trap, Lily knew she would survive. And then Carrick would have to come into her cell to get her, or leave her to open the lock on her door with her golden willstone and whatever energy she had left in her body.

It had been a long time since she’d eaten. She had to try to get away now, or she had no chance of opening the lock. Lily was actually hoping that Carrick would dare to come into her cell. Then she could lay hands on him, drain all of his body heat, suck the electricity out of his nerves, and leave him a corpse at her feet. As she should have done when he’d taken her captive in the tunnel. Even though she was dazed and weak, she could have taken power from him. It would have killed him, but as long as Lily was conscious and had even one of her willstones, she could always take the life force of another to fuel herself. She’d had to come to a point where she was ready to kill in order to even consider it an option, but she was ready now.

In fact, she had dreamed about killing Carrick, but she didn’t count on it happening. She couldn’t count on anything anymore. The only thing she knew for certain was that once she got out of her cell, she had to get the shaman out, too. She didn’t know what kind of shape he was in—neither of them had been fed since she’d been brought here—but if the brilliant aura she’d seen on her spirit walks was any clue, he had oceans of energy that she could borrow to break him out. Then they would get away together.

Out into the light.

“Lily girl? Are you dead yet?” the shaman asked. The sound of his voice warmed her and gave her strength. She might be in the dark, but at least she wasn’t alone.

“Not yet,” Lily answered, smiling.

“Then let’s get back to work. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

Lily lay back and made herself comfortable. She was dehydrated and literally starving to death, but as soon as she stepped out of her body, she would no longer notice it. She took a deep breath, looking forward to a spirit walk. When she was just on the verge of jumping up, she heard the shaman’s voice.

“The universes branch out, sort of like a great tree. Every choice we make—every fork in the road where we have to decide to go left or right—is actually two new universes bubbling up and being born. In one universe, we go left; in the other universe, we go right,” he said in his soothing voice. “And so it is with every choice we make.”