Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker #3)(82)

She looked at the armored cart behind him. Its wheels were sunk deep into the soft earth. Lily trained her witch’s eye on it and saw no radiation, but she did detect a large amount of lead.

“Lily,” Carrick rasped. He said her name a lot. She didn’t know if he knew how it unnerved her. “Don’t worry. I already disarmed it.”

“So that’s the bomb?” she asked, gesturing to the armored cart.

“The only weapon more dangerous than you,” he said, laughing with the effort to keep his head raised. “Maybe that’s why you and Lillian are so obsessed with it. You can’t bear the competition.”

Lily’s brow pinched at the troubling thought, and she glared at him. “The only thing I’m obsessed with is saving as many lives as I can.”

“Liar. You think I don’t know you?” Carrick smirked. “I know you. Better than that pretty brother of mine. Oh, he sees the magic of you, but what he misses is the blood. All you witches are magic and blood. You more than most on both counts. You like the blood as much as you like the magic, but what you don’t know, that I can teach you, is you need the blood.”

She kept her face neutral by dint of will alone. “Where’s Lillian’s bomb, Carrick?”

“If I told you, would you set me free?” He saw Lily’s lips purse at the thought and chuckled. “No. Because you’d never set a monster like me loose in the world. So why should I tell you?”

She knew that there was no point appealing to his humanity, no point in pleading for the lives of the people of Bower City. For Toshi’s life.

“You’ll tell me because you need me,” she said. “Lillian is dying. Who’s going to claim you when she’s gone?”

She saw the thought glinting in his eyes—a spark across the flat black of his inner life. “You’d claim me?” he asked, hopeful but cautious.

She nodded once. “Because I’d never set a monster like you loose in the world.”

A smile crept up his face. “I don’t know where Lillian’s bomb is. She acquired it while I was following you in your world,” he said. “But I will find it for you.”

“Find it. Disable it. And when Lillian’s gone, I’ll claim you,” Lily promised. When she saw him smile—a thin reptilian upturn of the lips—she felt a part of herself lie down and die.

Lily, what are you doing?

Lily turned to see Rowan coming toward her, shirtless, barefooted, and angry. He carried one of the silver knives from his belt in one hand and a torch in the other. It took everything in her not to run to him.

Making a bargain with the devil, she told him in mindspeak.

“Missing something, brother?” Carrick taunted.

You shouldn’t be with him on your own. Carrick is dangerous, even if he is bound, Rowan told her in mindspeak.

I know. But I need him—

Rowan stiffened and his head whipped around, interrupting her thought. Both his and Carrick’s eyes were already darting into the murky edge of the firelight before Lily could hear what the two of them heard—the absence of sound. The tree frogs had gone silent. Not one owl hooted.

“Let me out,” Carrick said in a low, desperate voice. “Brother. You can’t defend her alone.”

Rowan’s eyes narrowed at Carrick, and Lily got the sense that they were sharing mindspeak. Whatever Carrick said convinced Rowan. One quick tug and he pulled out the peg behind Carrick’s neck. The yoke fell away with a jingle and a thump. Rowan tossed Carrick one of his blades and the two of them put Lily between their backs, both of them looking out, encircling her against the silent darkness.

Lily opened her hands to the torch, absorbing the heat of its small flame. A witch wind whipped her hair about her head, whispering ghostly, half-heard words. She filled Rowan’s willstone just in time to meet the onslaught. The Woven burst through the trees in a wave of noise and motion.

“Simians!” Carrick called out.

The simian Woven hooted as they knuckled forward, their thick bodies swinging between their arms with blinding speed. Rowan ran out to meet them. They barreled into the light of the torch fire and stopped abruptly.

“Hold,” Rowan ordered, pulling up short.

“They’re not attacking,” Carrick said, like he couldn’t believe it.

The simians swung around a perimeter just far enough to show that they weren’t engaging in a direct fight, but not far enough to let the humans run.

Lily felt one of them look her in the eye, assessing her. He snorted and looked away, scanning Rowan’s and Carrick’s faces.

“They’re looking for someone,” Lily said, puzzled.

“Lily!” Rowan hissed as she stepped forward. She felt Carrick snatch at her arm and she shook him off.

“I’m okay,” she told them, walking to the edge of the perimeter. “Look—they’re not here to kill anyone. I don’t think those are their orders.”

The simians retreated as she neared, rolling their lips back and baring their fangs anxiously. One of them darted in at her, bluffing to push her back. It was just what Lily was waiting for. Instead of falling back in fear, she dove forward, her hands reaching for the Woven’s neck. The creature was so startled by Lily’s brazen action she had time to find a small, hard lump under its skin.