Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker #3)(46)

A flash of white slid around the back of a redwood. Lily was desperate enough to try something that was still just an inkling, rather than an idea. She reached out to the confluence of scents, and the sharp but strange sensations she’d experienced many months ago when she found a willstone buried under the pale coyote’s skin. It was the thing that had put the idea of going west into her head in the first place—a connection that she hadn’t imagined possible. It had taken her this long to understand.

Pale One. Help me.

“I really hate waiting,” Grace said sadly.

Lily knew that there was a universe where everything worked out perfectly. Somewhere in the worldfoam a version of her had realized that the pale coyote was one of her claimed earlier. Somewhere in the worldfoam a version of Lillian had been awake, with a fire already going, and she’d been able to intervene sooner. But this was neither of those worlds. And Lily ran out of time. The sisters shared a last desperate look.

“It’s okay,” Juliet whispered, her huge eyes full of forgiveness that Lily would never believe she’d deserved.

Grace didn’t even flinch when the Warrior Sister broke Juliet’s neck with one sharp tug. Lily watched the light go out of her sister’s brown eyes. From life to death in a moment, and it was as if the body that fell to the ground wasn’t even her sister. Couldn’t be her sister. No. Her sister was a joyful spirit, full of warmth and hope, not a blank rag doll lying small and broken on a bed of dry redwood needles.

“Juliet?” Lily whispered. She’d get up. She wasn’t dead. “Juliet!” she shouted, as if to wake her.

“Toshi. Get her largest willstone,” Grace said. “Leave her the other two so she’s conscious enough to feel what I’m going to do to her.”

Lily didn’t know if it was her scream or Lillian’s scream or if both of them were screaming at the same time, but the sound was inside her and outside her and everywhere in a moment. Everything seemed to slow down. Everything went red with rage.

The pale coyote leapt over Lily’s head and attacked Grace. The Hive turned as one to their fallen witch, and as they did, Carrick brought his hands together and cast a spark at Lily’s feet. The resinous needles that lay around her erupted into flame and Lily stood up, planting her feet in the fire and drawing the heat into her willstone. A Warrior Sister backhanded Carrick. He fell to the ground and lay still.

Lily’s witch wind boomed. The redwoods creaked in the sudden gust. Grace looked up at Lily with fear in her eyes.

Gift me, Rowan begged. I’ll tear her apart.

No. The Hive is too strong. I can’t lose you, too.

“This isn’t over,” Lily promised Grace. She drew as much heat into her as she could, summoned her covens’ willstones, and catapulted them all across the worldfoam and back to her universe.





CHAPTER


7


Lily was not asleep. She was not unconscious or dreaming. This was happening. It was real, and it was not going to disappear no matter how much she wanted it to.

Juliet was dead. Maybe not her Juliet, not the version she’d been raised with, but still her sister. Lily was not going to let it go or move past it or forgive like sweet Juliet had done. She was going to go back to Bower City, but this time, she was going with an army. Hatred filled her mouth, wet and sour. She was going to go back and, when she did, she was going to kill every last one of them.

Lily looked up from the forest floor. She was standing with her coven around her. Dawn was starting to filter through the redwoods that reached above her like thick arms holding heaven over the earth. She felt shrunk down in comparison—an ant in a giant’s farm. In another universe, a dying version of her was weeping. Lily wasn’t. She could feel Lillian’s sobs, and she had to let those tears be enough. One of them to cry, one of them to stay grounded, and maybe together they could survive this. She called out to her other self.

Lillian. You need to calm down.

My sister is dead. I can’t calm down.

We have work to do. Gather your army.

I started gathering my army when you first contacted me. We’re already on the move.

Is that why you were always so occupied?

Yes. Grace has to die, Lily.

There was a time Lily would have quibbled about the morality of something like that, but now everything had changed. Tristan was dead. Juliet was dead. Lily looked at Una, Caleb, the other Tristan, Breakfast, and Rowan and knew that if she wanted to keep them alive she was going to have to get comfortable with crossing lines, just as Lillian had.

Yes. She does, Lily agreed.

Finally, you’ve joined me, Lillian replied, and for a moment, Lily shared Lillian’s view on the world.

She saw the army that Lillian had assembled. Men, women, and a menagerie of tame Woven were already on the move, and they were moving fast. Lillian climbed on the back of a greater drake and vaulted into the air. Lily could see its iridescent wings churning the wind and its talons raking the sky. She was like a warmonger witch from a bygone era, and she was going not to fight, but to completely eradicate her enemy. Lillian didn’t say it, but Lily got the sense that she considered all of the people of Bower City the enemy. Lily was suddenly afraid for Toshi, his sister, his aging father, and his sick mother. Lily thought of the two children who’d stared at her with their mouths open.

Lillian, I’m going to exterminate the Hive, but the people of Bower City have no knowledge of Grace’s control over them and over all the wild Woven. They’re innocent.