Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker #3)(19)

“You don’t want to say anything to him or ask him any questions?” Juliet asked. Her big eyes were round with worry and a whispered name ghosted across her mind. Like Lillian.

Lily turned to her. “No. I really don’t. I’m going to bed.”

She felt the pull of him as she walked away—a heavy bending of space around his body that threatened to drag her to him. But every step got easier, and by the time she reached her room she didn’t feel Rowan’s weight at all.

Carrick waited patiently for someone to come to him. He’d been here for a day and a half and so far he’d only met lackeys. Lackeys never knew what to do with him. Whenever Carrick had visited the fancy homes of the powerful people who needed his talents, like Gideon and his father, the lackeys could never figure out if they should treat him as a guest because their masters needed him, or like scum because that’s what their masters thought of him.

The woman who came to get him that morning, Mala, was no different. She wasn’t stupid. She could sense what Carrick was, and she had no idea why her master—an Outlander named Governor Grace Bendingtree—would want to house a killer.

“Big party last night,” Carrick said. “I couldn’t see from my window, but I could hear it. There was a fight. Breaking glass and a witch wind.”

“Yes,” Mala replied. She kept her body angled slightly away from Carrick, like half of her was about to run away. “You’re not one of them, are you?”

“I know who they are. I know the witch, Lily. And she knows me,” he replied.

Mala swallowed, unnerved by the way he said Lily’s name. “Grace said you were following her.”

Carrick stared at Mala. There was something she wanted, but she was too afraid to ask. He started with the obvious. “You don’t seem to like Lily too much.”

Mala’s mouth trembled with all she wanted to say. “Do you like her?”

Carrick shrugged, noncommittal. “The things I do don’t leave much room for liking.”

“What things? Following people?”

“Sure,” he said. If she wanted to pretend that’s all he did, he’d let her. She knew better, though. But let her pretend for now.

“She’s staying in another wing of this building. Would you follow her for me?”

Carrick tipped his chin at the door. “There are no locks on the doors.”

Mala didn’t understand. “And?”

Carrick sighed. Maybe she wasn’t as smart as he’d thought, and if she wasn’t smart, maybe she wasn’t all that powerful. He didn’t care if she was dumber than a pickax. All he needed from Mala was someone influential enough to make sure he could come and go as he pleased, do as he pleased, and that was it. If she could handle that, then they had a deal.

“No one leaves me in a room without a lock on the door, unless they got something better to watch me,” he said.

“We don’t need locks here,” Mala said. “The Hive prevents violence.”

Carrick stood. Mala didn’t shrink from him. That was a good sign. She had some backbone. “Then if you want me to do what you can’t, you’re going to have to figure out how to keep the Hive away from me, aren’t you?” She nodded slowly, finally understanding him. “Until then, I’ll just follow.”





CHAPTER


4


Dappled light brightened the other side of Lily’s eyelids, and for a moment the whole world was warm and rosy red. The swaying of the trolley passed her head back and forth between invisible hands, lifting her up and out of her body. Warmth cooled, and the rosy light darkened to gunmetal gray. An old friend met her in the Mist. Someone sad and lonely. Someone lost.

She was in pain.

Lily saw an army sprawled out before her. She saw banners snapping in the wind and the acrid taste of struck iron made saliva gush under her tongue.

“Lily?” Toshi’s voice startled her from her near sleep. “Sorry,” he said, grimacing at her stricken expression. “But we have to hop off in another few blocks.”

Lily looked around, reorienting herself in the spangled sunshine of Bower City. Lillian? She called to her in mindspeak, and got no answer.

“Are you okay?” Toshi asked.

Lily nodded. “Strange dream,” she said, shifting the packages on her lap.

They’d been shopping half the day and stopping at cafés for cool drinks and tapas. Now, nearing the end of the day, Lily found herself alone with Toshi. Una was getting the pedicure she’d been longing for, Juliet a massage, and the guys sat for proper haircuts that were done with scissors instead of belt knives.

Rowan wasn’t with them. He’d said he’d had a witch shower him with gifts before and that it hadn’t ended well. Then he wandered off on his own, leaving the rest of them to take a little less pleasure from the pampering.

Lily looked down at her packages with an odd detachment. After months on the road, saying no to new clothes was not practical. It felt wrong to be out shopping, but if the clothes were a little less fine, or the surroundings a little less opulent, it wouldn’t make the dead come back to life. Lily looked out the window at the sparkling day. It was easy to forget about death here. Bower City didn’t do gloomy or rainy or sad. It didn’t dirty its head with the ashes of mourning. It had one bright cheery note, and everyone was forced to sing it.