Rowan (16 page)

Lily tried to pinpoint where he was. She could see bushes and even a bit of the trail, but she couldn’t see him. Rowan seemed to be able to blend into the shadow and starlight.

“I don’t want to fight with you, Juliet,” he said, disarming Lily with his honest tone. “But I can’t let you take her.”

“She’s in shock and she’s terrified. You allowed her to get
injured,”
Juliet continued, as if the Rowan she knew would never allow something like that to happen.

“And I’ll kill her if I have to,” Rowan answered, finally stepping into view. He had his knife out.

Lily heard Juliet gasp, like she was fighting back tears. Feeling rather ridiculous, Lily tried to mindspeak again.

Hey, Jules. Can you hear me? Hello?
But she didn’t see or hear any reaction from Juliet.

“What’s happened to you, Rowan?” Juliet asked, dismayed. “Has Alaric turned you into another one of his painted savages?”

“Careful, Juliet.” Rowan’s expressive mouth was pinched into a thin line of warning. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know the man.”

“I know he’s little better than a wild animal.” Juliet pressed on with increasing heat. “Alaric has killed hundreds of guards—in all the Thirteen Cities—and he won’t even entertain the notion of peace. Rowan,” she said pleadingly, “I can understand you wanting to help your people, but how can you align yourself with
him
?”

“Because Lillian and the Covens have made peace impossible,” Rowan said. “Only when the Thirteen Cities grant Outlanders basic rights and stop killing the people who can give them a better future will peace ever be an option again.”

“Lillian says there’s a reason she’s taken this path,” Juliet said in a slightly more subdued tone. “That it’s for all our sakes.”

“What reason could she have for killing scientists, teachers, and doctors?” Rowan ran a hand through his thick hair. His face was sad and lost. “Come on, Juliet. How can you align yourself with
her
?”

Juliet looked down at her hands. She fidgeted with her fingers the same way Lily’s Juliet did when she was anxious. “She’s my sister.”

The argument was over. Rowan approached Lily and took her hand out of Juliet’s. Lily tried to fight him off, but Juliet stopped her.

“Don’t struggle, Lily. He really will kill you if he has to.” Juliet turned to Rowan. “And what about me?”

“You have to leave immediately. I can’t hide you from Lillian’s mind if she seeks you, and I can’t have the camp discovered.”

“She’s asleep,” Juliet said, shaking her head so that he needn’t worry. “She’s sick, actually, but I don’t know what’s wrong with her because we haven’t shared mindspeak in almost a year now.” Juliet seemed almost relieved to be able to tell this to someone, and despite the fact that Rowan was the enemy, Lily got the distinct sense that Juliet still trusted him. “No one knows I’ve left the Citadel, Rowan. I don’t want to get you all killed.”

“I know you don’t, Juliet.” Rowan’s face pinched with a painful thought and his voice softened. “You never want anyone to get hurt, but people do. Every day. Go back to Lillian and keep arguing with her. Try to save as many people as you can.” He turned to the bushes and whistled softly. A painted warrior appeared out of the darkness. “Take two men. Escort Lady Juliet through the woods. Protect her with your lives.”

The guard took Juliet’s arm, pulling her away. She smiled bravely at Lily, which only made Lily more afraid for her.

“Are you going to be okay?” Lily asked.

“Don’t worry about me,” Juliet replied.

Lily watched, her heart climbing up her throat, as her sister’s narrow shoulders disappeared into the clutching branches of the autumn-bare trees.

“She’ll be okay, right?” Lily asked.

Rowan didn’t answer. Instead, he took Lily’s wrist firmly in hand. She wondered if he could feel her loathing for him through her skin. He stopped briefly to give instructions to another warrior, ordering her to inform Caleb and to send out scouts to make sure that Juliet had come alone, and then pulled Lily back to the camp. He led Lily back to her tent, opened the flap, and hauled her inside.

“How did you reach Juliet? You aren’t really her sister,” he said harshly. “Did you touch her willstone?”

Lily glared at him, refusing to answer.

“Juliet isn’t a witch, and she has no fighting skills,” he persisted, his tone accusing. “She isn’t fit for the woods. You could have gotten her killed, coming here. She’s still in danger, even with the guards I sent with her. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Lily said, frowning with worry.

“Explain.”

Rowan’s dark eyes glittered, and Lily was suddenly aware of how much bigger he was than her. She saw the knife in his belt and took a step back, glancing around the tent for anything she could use to defend herself. Rowan’s expression shifted. He backed off and put his hands on his hips.

“I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” he said, as though regretting scaring her. “But I need to know how many people you contacted, or we’re all in danger, including Tristan. I know you don’t care about the rest of us, but you care about him, don’t you?”

“I don’t want anyone to die—not even you, if you can believe it. I just want to go home,” Lily said, exhausted. “Juliet said that even if I’m from another universe, I’m still her little sister, and sisters don’t need to touch stones, or whatever.”

“Can you mindspeak with Lillian?” Rowan asked calmly.

“I think so. I think I heard her in my head before she kidnapped me.” Lily dragged a hand over her face. “But I thought it was my own voice, like I was talking to myself.”

Rowan nodded, visualizing what it would be like to hear your own voice in your head. “Have you reached out to Lillian in any way since you’ve been at camp?”

“She brought me here. She
tricked
me,” Lily said, her anger rising swiftly. “I wouldn’t reach out to her if she was the last person on Earth. Any Earth.”

Rowan gave her a puzzled look, his eyes searching hers. Lily looked back at him, feeling the odd sensation again that there was a complicated language the two of them could speak if only she could recall the first few words. He looked away and swallowed hard.

“Stay here,” he said over his shoulder, and left the tent.

She heard him speaking quietly outside by the fire with Tristan and Caleb, telling them everything that had happened and deciding what to do next. They started arguing again. Yawning, Lily sat down on her sleeping bag and struggled to keep her eyes open while she waited to hear what they were going to do about her little jailbreak. Her body ached from the unaccustomed exercise and from the dozens of little bumps and scrapes she’d incurred. Her nose was stuffed up, probably from the leaf mold, and her head was throbbing. She rubbed her puffy eyes, wishing she could fall asleep and wake up from this nightmare. Finally, Rowan returned with another sleeping bag.

“You’re tired,” he said, like he was reminding her she needed to buy milk at the store. She regarded his sleeping bag meaningfully, arms crossed.

“I thought this was my tent.”

“Your single-tent privileges have been revoked,” he said, looking down at his own hands as he unrolled his bag. For a second, it looked like he was smiling to himself, but when he looked up at her, his face was stern. “Lie down.”

Rowan set his sleeping bag down against the foot of hers, in a T formation. She was just about to argue with him when a giant, jaw-cracking yawn overtook her. The truth was, Lily felt so exhausted that she didn’t really care where he slept. She stretched out on top of her bag as he climbed into the bag at her feet. He reached out for her, pushing his hand under the hem of her jeans and clasping on to her newly healed ankle. She tried to jerk her foot away, but he only held on tighter.

“In case you try to wander off again,” he told her. His expression made it clear that there was no point protesting—he wasn’t going to let go. Lily settled back hesitantly while Rowan lowered the lamplight and settled down.

His hand was refreshingly cool on her hot skin—almost as if he were pulling some of the heat and congestion out of her through the palm of his hand. Lily felt her nose unstuff, the ache behind her eyes lessen, and her fever begin to drop.

She knew she should probably be terrified of someone who’d threatened to kill her only moments ago, but she wasn’t. The gentle pressure of Rowan’s fingers on her calf soothed her. But as her muscles started to slacken, his seemed to get tighter and tighter. Even though Lily was exhausted, his tension was keeping her awake.

“What is it?” she finally asked.

“You’re really dehydrated,” he replied, throwing off his blankets and crossing the dark tent. “Didn’t Tristan tell you about the canteen?”

He brought it over to her without waiting for a response.

“I’m fine,” she said stubbornly.

“You’re not fine. Drink,” Rowan urged, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it. She took a few swallows, realized how thirsty she was, and drained the whole canteen in one long draw that left her gasping for breath at the end.

“Thanks,” she said, handing the canteen back to him. “How did you know I was so thirsty?”

Rowan didn’t answer her right away—he just shook his head and smiled to himself. After a long pause he finally said, “I’ve been taking care of you for so many years now, I know your body better than you do.”

Rowan stowed the canteen and climbed back into his bag. He reached out and grabbed on to her ankle again, but this time she didn’t try to pull it away.

CHAPTER 5

Lily opened her eyes and saw an arm. A big, thick male arm. The skin was smooth and a few shades darker than her nearly translucent shoulder, which was pinned beneath it.

She knew it was Rowan’s arm—the same guy who had said he would happily kill her—but she couldn’t seem to get herself to pull away from him in disgust. Every part of her felt like it was in exactly the right place.

Lying on her side as she was, she normally had to put a pillow between her skinny thighs to keep her knees from pressing too hard against each other, but Rowan had placed his bent leg in between hers. She had no pillow for her head either, but it didn’t matter. Rowan had put his lower arm under her head to cushion it. Lily always needed something clasped to her chest when she slept or she would feel untethered, only to dream of falling and shake herself awake. This morning she found that she was clutching Rowan’s hand to her heart as if it were her anchor.

She felt Rowan pull in a shuddering breath as he awoke, his diaphragm fluttering against her back. Lily eased away from him, embarrassed. No matter how good he felt, she didn’t know this guy, and she had no business cuddling with him.

Lily was trying to figure out how to crawl away as inconspicuously as possible when Rowan untangled himself from her, stood, and left the tent in a few swift motions. She sat up and stared after him, confused.

The way he’d spoken to her when they were alone last night in the tent, the genuine concern he’d shown over her well-being, had made her think that they could eventually make it through a conversation without wanting to throw rocks at each other. But he stormed out as if she’d wronged him somehow.

Lily got up and puttered around the tent for a few minutes, rolling up the sleeping bags, trying to convince herself that there was no reason for her to feel ashamed. She was a prisoner. It’s not like she’d asked to share a tent with Rowan, and she certainly hadn’t asked for him to spoon with her.

“Lily? Are you awake?” Tristan asked from outside the front flap of her tent.

“Coming,” she called, and lifted the flap. Tristan glanced behind her and into the tent.

“Where’s Rowan?” he asked, his eyes cautious.

“He got up and left a few minutes ago,” Lily replied, joining him outside.

“He just left you alone?”

“Not too good at guarding people, is he?”

Tristan and Lily shared a tentative smile before his eyes drifted up to look at the froth of hair on top of her head. Lily’s hand automatically shot up to try to smooth it down. It felt even bushier than usual, and there seemed to be an impressive collection of sticks and leaves in it.

“I’m going to need a personal moment,” she said wryly. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I could get a bath out here, is there?”

“I’ll take you to the lake,” Tristan replied with a laugh. “You’re going to need some fresh clothes too.”

Lily looked down at her stained N
O
N
UKES
T-shirt and torn jeans. She was filthy. “Yeah, I guess so. Thank you, Tristan.”

“What’s a nuke?” Tristan asked, leading her through the maze of tents.

“A nuke is short for a nuclear weapon or a nuclear power plant,” she answered, winding her tangled hair into a bun and knotting it on top of her head. “Do you have nuclear energy here?”

Tristan’s brow furrowed. “Describe nuclear energy to me.”

“Oh boy,” Lily said. She took a deep breath and dove in. “Okay, well. There are these things called atoms, teeny tiny bits of matter that are the building blocks of the elements.”

Tristan unhooked the front flap to a large tent, holding it open for Lily to enter, with a wry grimace on his face. “That sounds like what we call elementals. They’re the smallest parts of the elements.”

“Exactly!” Lily said excitedly. “Same thing, different name. Well, long story short, nuclear energy comes from fusing or splitting the insides, or nuclei, of the heaviest elements to turn matter directly into energy.”

“The heaviest elements are really unstable,” Tristan said, his eyes narrowing. “They throw off particles that corrupt cells and cause a wasting disease. If it isn’t caught in time, the corrupted cells overtake the healthy ones. It’s a very painful death.”

“We call it cancer in my world,” Lily said solemnly. “Which is why I, and a lot of people who think like I do, want to get rid of the nukes. Problem is, not only does nuclear energy power our cities inexpensively, but it’s also the source of our most powerful weapons. My world runs on inexpensive energy and powerful weapons.”