Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker #3)(42)

They kept moving forward and noticed that the wax also covered a pillar they passed. The rows of womb combs and vats ended, and the coating grew thicker until their feet were sinking into it.

“I see the rest of the coven’s tracks,” Rowan said. They continued on, careful of their footing, as they went down a series of ever-shrinking tunnels.

The passageway continued to narrow until they were walking down a thin tube. Hexagons rose out of the surface. Lily could smell something sweet in the air. She saw Rowan breathe it in.

“Honey,” he said. He looked around. “We’re in an old honeycomb.”

They reached a bottleneck and had to squeeze through. The cavern they entered was stuffy, and it smelled of musk and honey. Lily saw her coven’s backs. They were facing something. She felt their shock as they parted and let her through.

Sunk deep into the wax was a giant throne. On the throne, propped up by many velvet pillows, reclined the satin-clad torso of a woman. Trailing off to the side where her legs should have been was a pale, distended abdomen that ballooned up and out of the throne room into titanic proportions. Atop the human torso were the ovoid head and bulbous eyes of an insect, and around the Queen’s neck hung a golden willstone.





CHAPTER


6


Carrick couldn’t see Lily and her coven leave—they were moving much too fast for his eyes to follow—but he could feel that one moment there were people in Lily’s suite of rooms, and the next it was empty.

He cursed silently to himself. Lillian could have used those speaking stones to send him enough power to follow them had he thought to ask, but he’d been banking on Lily’s coven staying one more night. They’d cased the city all day, and then there was that long silence this evening—which he was sure was them plotting to make a break for it—but Carrick had his little brother pegged as too cautious to leave right away with no supplies and no horses. Someone else must be calling the shots. Maybe even Lily herself. She was rash enough.

Didn’t matter. They had vanished and now Carrick had no excuse to give Lillian. Mala didn’t concern him. She wanted Lily gone one way or another, so she wouldn’t care much that they had fled the city. Mala had served her purpose by giving him enough cover to get him out of his plush jail cell. Lillian, however, would demand to know where Lily went. He was supposed to be watching her and filling in the gaps of information that Lily wasn’t sharing with Lillian in mindspeak, like the existence of the speaking stones and Grace’s fixation on solving the riddle of the two Lillians. Lily had been very forthcoming with Lillian, but that didn’t mean she was sharing everything, and Lillian wanted to know everything about Bower City before she attacked.

Carrick scanned the smooth floor. He didn’t think he’d be able to track Lily and her coven across marble, but he had to at least try. Still angry with himself for his miscalculation, he started down the main stair and through the foyer. Something told him that the coven had headed toward the government buildings. Maybe it was Lily’s power he was sensing, or his brother’s ever-lingering sadness, but he followed his hunch all the way to a door into nothing.

He had no choice but to call to Lillian and explain what had transpired. She was tired when he contacted her. Her sickness was unraveling her at the very moment she most needed to be whole. Carrick didn’t doubt that she would live to see her plans through, though. And if she didn’t, there was always Lily.

Lillian looked through Carrick’s eyes at the door into nothing. I think they went down there, he told her. I can’t make the jump without your strength, My Lady.

I can fuel you, but once you go down there I won’t be able to reach you to give you more, Lillian replied.

Then I’ll have to be careful with what you give me, Carrick said.

Very well.

Carrick was so consumed with receiving Lillian’s strength, so focused on the fearlessness he felt as he plummeted into the darkness, that he didn’t notice the Warrior Sisters following him.

Lily staggered closer to the Queen, staring at her. Workers were shuttling up and down the Queen’s body, some of them cleaning her, while others marched to her mouthparts and away again, delivering a steady supply of royal jelly. Her gargantuan abdomen heaved, and the Queen’s human hands, claw-like with tension, gripped at the velvet pillows.

“What are you doing?” Una hissed when she saw Lily move closer.

“She’s in pain,” Lily said.

There was no way to read the Queen’s face. Her black faceted eyes held no emotion, and her mouth—a wet, tubular proboscis and waving mandibles—was downright nauseating, but still Lily could tell she was suffering. She stepped forward and took one of the Queen’s human hands as her pale abdomen heaved again.

Lily wanted to comfort her, but she didn’t think spoken words could be heard or understood. She tried to reach out to her in mindspeak and felt a distinct vibration clashing with hers. It was a harsh sensation that made Lily draw back immediately, like ice-cold water washing across a sore tooth. Lily knew what it meant, even if she’d never experienced it before. She looked at her coven, truly afraid.

“She’s someone else’s claimed,” Lily said. “A witch controls the Queen.”

“Grace,” Juliet said, needing to voice it aloud to make it real.

“If Grace controls the Queen, does that mean she controls the whole Hive?” Una asked.