Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker #3)(37)

Lily took an unasked-for cup of tea from Rowan with a small smile.

You’re in a good mood, Rowan remarked in mindspeak. He didn’t look at her. She could feel jealousy yawning in him like hunger, and she had to remind herself again that it was his idea that she get close to Toshi in the first place.

Toshi agreed to be claimed, she answered.

Did you claim him?

Not yet.

Why wait?

We were in the restricted zone.

So? What difference does that make?

The surveillance is so much harsher there, and I’d already caused a scene. What kind of scene?

What happened?

Lily found herself rattling off an explanation before she remembered that she didn’t need to explain herself to him anymore. I had just tried to heal his father, and the Worker attached to my throat almost stung me. Toshi guessed that I have more than one willstone and he didn’t think it was safe—

Rowan was not pleased. What do you mean, Toshi guessed?

I’ll show you the memory later. Just let me deal with Ivan first, okay?

“Excuse us,” she said to Ivan. Exchanges in mindspeak happened as fast as thought, but the rapidly changing emotions involved could still be noticeable to a sensitive onlooker. Ivan had been watching Rowan and Lily like he was at a tennis match. “You wanted to discuss Toshi?”

“Er—yes,” Ivan said, his eyes still bouncing between Lily and Rowan. “I’m afraid what I’m about to say is rather frank, possibly even rude. I’m taking a big chance by coming here, but I feel I must.” Lily motioned for him to continue. “Stay away from Toshi,” he said. “Your affinity has been noticed. Even planned upon.”

Lily nodded and smiled. “I didn’t really think it was an accident Grace has been so conspicuously absent and that he was chosen to escort me around the city in her place. Was she hoping that I’d take a liking to him and speak more freely than I would to her?”

“Just so,” Ivan agreed.

“What was she hoping to find out?”

“I’m not certain.” Ivan frowned, his aging boxer’s face creasing deeply between the brows. “Toshi has more talent than any mechanic I’ve ever seen, present company excluded, of course.” Ivan tipped his head to Rowan, who nodded back. “But I fear he has some radical tendencies that have prevented him from advancement thus far. I have petitioned to make him my second for some months now, and as yet I have not received an answer. Make no mistake, Toshi is being tested as much as you, my dear, and I would hate for his involvement with you to—well, there’s no way to put this delicately—ruin not just his chances of achieving his goal, but his life as well.” Ivan leaned toward Lily. “It’s possible that you’re too valuable to imprison, but mechanics are not witches.”

“I’ve been imprisoned before,” Lily said quietly. “And I have no intention of repeating that experience or allowing it to happen to anyone I care about.”

Her answer did not satisfy Ivan. “Toshi has been my apprentice for forty-two years. He thinks he knows how Bower City works.” He looked at Lily with a mixture of fear and sadness that had been tempered by the weight of decades. “He thinks he understands, but I can’t convey to you the extent of his miscalculation, and I’m afraid once he recognizes his error it will be too late.”

Ivan looked down at the floor, momentarily lost in his own misgivings, before standing. “That is all I came to say. Both too much and too little, I expect.”

Lily and Rowan stood. “It’s been a pleasure,” Lily said. She furrowed her brow. “I think.”

Ivan smiled. “You are a dear girl,” he said. As he lifted her hand to kiss the back of it, she felt him wedge something about the size and shape of a toothpick between her fingers. “I do hope the best for you,” he said earnestly.

He dropped her hand and turned to Rowan, giving him a polite little bow before leaving.

He slipped me something. Why wouldn’t he just give it to me?

He must be hiding whatever it is from the Hive, Rowan replied.

I have no idea how to look at it without being seen, she told him.

Rowan’s eyes darted around at all the flower arrangements in the room.

There’s no place to take it out here. I’ll think of something, he replied. Give it to me.

Lily moved close to Rowan in order to hide the exchange. She put her hand into his and felt the texture of his skin on hers. He grew still as she swept her eyes over the familiar curve of his shoulder and the cut of his jaw just above her eyelashes.

She saw again his dream of California. She didn’t know whether it was a memory she was replaying in her head or whether she was picking up on Rowan’s thoughts, but she could smell the barbeque, see the bluer-than-blue swimming pool, and hear the comforting murmur of friends’ voices laughing and chatting in the backyard like he’d imagined once. She glanced out the window. The golden California sun was lowering to meet the ocean, warm and lazy.

“We’re here,” she said, breathing in the scent of jasmine and taking in the magnificent view. “We made it.”

“Not all of us,” he replied. She looked at him and remembered. This wasn’t his dream, and Tristan was dead.

Rowan let go of her hand, taking what Ivan had given her with him, and moved away from Lily. She stayed where she was, wondering if she was ever going to get used to this.