Witch's Pyre, Page 4

  I still the air around me. I place my feet delicately. I quiet my breathing, ready to pounce—

  “I know you’re there, Lillian,” he drawls without even turning around from his workbench.

  “How do you do that?” I huff. I’ve never once been able to surprise him.

  “You’re louder than a herd of buffalo,” he teases, spinning around on his stool to face me. I launch myself at him anyway. He catches me, already protesting as I pepper his face with kisses.

  “Come on, Lillian,” he groans. “I have so much work to do.”

  “It’s so late, though. Come to bed,” I reply, pouting as he pulls away

  I don’t have time to work on this during the day,” he says, hassled. “We’ve been so focused on keeping the other Covens in line. I’ve had to officiate three duels in the past two days.”

  “Exeter and Richmond are at it again,” I say, sighing. “It’s lucky for us they’re content with singular duels instead of demanding to send their mechanics against each other in full skirmishes.”

  “I don’t think that’s far off,” he says, a troubled frown creasing his brow. He rolls his eyes. “Witches. Always looking for an excuse to fuel your mechanics.”

  “We do like to fight,” I admit with a shrug. The beakers in front of him catch my eye. “What are you working on, anyway?”

  “Well, I don’t know yet,” he says, smiling sheepishly. “I’ve isolated an interesting compound from a squid—”

  “A squid?” I interrupt scathingly. “You’re throwing me over for a squid?”

  He chuckles, shaking his head. “I can’t win with you.”

  “Of course you can,” I say, pulling on one of his hands and tugging him along with me toward our bedroom. My smile is a promise. “I’ll let you win right now.”

  His laugh is a purr in his throat. He stops short and pulls me back to him, wrapping me up against his chest. “You always get your way,” he whispers as he lowers his mouth to mine. . . .

  Lily snapped back to the here and now, a flush staining her cheeks. Enough, Lillian. Why show me that?

  To remind you how much you miss him. You should forgive him.

  Lily blocked her other self out.

  Rowan. He had been younger in Lillian’s memory. There was so much they had shared that Lily didn’t know about. They’d essentially run a country together. Lily felt herself choking on the wild, sick feeling that thought gave her. She didn’t know if it was jealousy or longing or the shock of feeling physically close to Rowan again, but it threw her and left her feeling bare and off balance. She looked up to see Toshi watching her, the barest hint of a smile on his lips. Lily looked away uncomfortably and trained her eyes on the scenery scrawling past. They rode the trolley for over twenty minutes, passing through different neighborhoods. The style of the buildings changed from Italian villa to downtown loft to Japanese wooden temples, complete with rock gardens and sliding screens rather than walls. There was even a Chinatown, teeming with people. All of the neighborhoods were orderly, perfectly maintained, and immaculate. Flowers were everywhere, spilling from windows and rooftops and lining the streets. There were many parks, and Lily noticed that in each of the parks were four towers, one in the vicinity of each corner. The towers were taller than any building, but still shorter than the greentowers in the east, and they weren’t covered in vegetation. They were thin structures, barely noticeable, with a flat surface on top.

  “What are those?” Lily asked Toshi, pointing to one of the spindly towers.

  “Oh, those are for the Hive,” he said, unconcerned. “The Sisters rarely come down to street level.” He turned toward the ocean. “Just a few more blocks.”

  The light was lying long across the city by the time they arrived at the docks. Ships of all shapes and sizes crowded into port, some of them so gigantic that they rose up from the water like windowless skyscrapers, hemming in the horizon. Cranes unloading shipping containers, and warehouses to store goods stretched past Lily’s field of view. From every high vantage point a cluster of Sisters hovered, barely visible, their whips ready at their sides.

  Caleb and Tristan took in the enormous scope of the port with a mixture of awe and anger.

  “So, is every other country in the world in on this?” Tristan asked, his bitterness strangling him.

  “Most of our trade is with China, Russia, and Japan, but yes,” Toshi answered. He was sensitive to their charged emotions, but not pitying. “The whole world knows about Bower City, and they know about the thirteen ‘untouchable’ cities in the east. They also know about Outlanders, and how you live out in the wilds with the Woven. You’re legendary, actually. There’s a lot of respect for your people around the world.”

  “But no help,” Caleb said. His mouth twisted into a sneer. “Not one country has ever thought to try to lend us a hand? My people are dying out there.”

  Toshi didn’t try to make excuses. “Everyone knows,” he repeated gently.

  Caleb made a sound between a laugh and a sob and turned away. Breakfast started to go after him, but Una’s hand shot out to stop him.

  “Let him be,” she said aloud. Lily could tell by the jumble of emotions that played across their faces that Una and Breakfast were sharing mindspeak, but they didn’t include her.

  Tristan was staring at Toshi, his anger at the world distilling into one person.

  Come on, Tristan. It isn’t Toshi’s fault, Lily said in mindspeak. Tristan didn’t answer. He broke away from the group and wandered, still reeling, down to the water’s edge. Juliet, who was hiding her shock with silence, followed him. Una and Breakfast slowly peeled off to go their own way. Lily found Toshi watching her as they walked to a more open-looking part of the wharf that had smaller ships that didn’t loom over them and block out the sky. Lily looked down at a few bobbing docks that were unoccupied by vessels but teeming with sea lions. They barked at the humans and flapped their flippers.

  “I have a feeling a lot just happened between all of you,” he said. “Especially Caleb and Tristan.”

  “Somehow it was easier to think the rest of the world had disappeared, or that they didn’t know, rather than own up to the fact that they’d abandoned us to genocide.” She gestured to the huge ships, the signs of progress. “We all suspected that the world was still turning, but it’s hard to swallow when you see just how much.”

  Toshi nodded, his lips pursed. “And you can feel what your coven feels right now?”

  “Some of it.”

  “What’s that like?” He was trying not to seem too eager, but his eyes were hungry. Lights danced inside his willstone like a tingle. Lily looked away at the tidy dock and the scrubbed hulls of the ships. Even the sea lions looked well groomed.

  “It’s annoying,” she snapped, her tone intentionally harsh. “Are we done here?”

  “Sure,” Toshi said, his face falling. She remembered, too late, that he had said he was going to show them where he grew up.

  “You were raised down by the docks?” she asked, trying to salvage the situation. “That must have been—”

  He shook his head once. “Some other time.” He flashed one of his dazzling smiles and Lily wondered if he’d been insulted at all. He started leading her back up to the street. “We should get going, anyway. We have other plans for you tonight.”

  “We do?”

  “New arrivals, chosen by the Hive? The whole city wants to meet you. Unfortunately, you only get to meet the boring half tonight.”

  “Ah. Bullshit Row?” she guessed.

  “Exactly. Important people first, I guess.”

  “I thought everyone was important in Bower City.” She was baiting him, hoping to find a crack in the high-gloss shellac that coated everything here. “What did Grace say when she paraded us through the Hearing Hall? It was built like that ‘so even the smallest voice can be heard.’ ”

  “Oh, the smallest voices are the most important,” he said impishly. “Especially mine.” Lily couldn’t hold back
a laugh. Pleased that he’d gotten what he wanted, Toshi started looking down the street for a trolley. “So, do we call for your coven, or . . . how does this work?”

  “I already did. They’re coming.”

  He looked away. The hungry shine was back. “Convenient.”

  “For some things.” Lily sought out the hole that had been Tristan, worrying it like a hangnail. “Most of the time it just hurts.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  “It’s like body origami,” Lily said.

  Juliet made an exasperated sound, looked down at the instructions, and then back up at Lily’s obi. The kimonos they’d been loaned for that afternoon’s outing to the docks were point-and-click, but the fancy dress kimonos for that evening’s ball were an entirely different matter.

  “No—you have to fold that down twice, and then twist it. Can that be right?” Juliet studied the obi. “Yeah. That’s it. Down twice, then twist, then tie.” She did it for Lily. “There.”

  Lily looked at herself in the mirror. She looked glorious in the petal-pink, crimson-red, and soft-cream kimono with a cherry blossom pattern. Her hair was swept up in lacquered combs and her face was subtly painted. The more layers of luxury this place seemed to pile on top of her, the more smothered she felt. She didn’t want to look beautiful. She resisted the perverse urge to spit at the liar in the mirror.

  “I’m hot,” she said.

  “You’ll live,” Juliet replied unforgivingly and then switched to mindspeak. You were quiet today.

  So were you.

  I had nothing to add, Juliet replied. Then, she suddenly changed her mind. Why the perimeter wall? Why is this city walled off like Salem if they’re not afraid of the Woven?

  I don’t know, Juliet. There must be something they’re not telling us.

  Una barged into Lily’s bathroom—yards of icy-blue silk in an ocean-wave pattern hanging off her—looking like a kid in her mother’s date-night robe. “I’ve had it with this thing,” she said flatly.

  “Juliet, you do hers and I’ll do yours.”

  They formed a train. Lily helped her sister wrap, tie, and rewrap her yellow kimono with a sunset pattern fairly easily, but Una was in worse shape. She had to strip down to the bottom layer and start over.

  “No wonder the Japanese are so smart,” Una muttered. “You need a frigging PhD to get into their dang clothes.”

  Careful, Una. You don’t know if they have PhD’s here, Lily reminded her in mindspeak. She couldn’t see it, but she knew at least one Worker was inside the trumpet of an enormous tiger lily blossom in her bathroom.

  That was careless of me, but this place is so nerve-racking, Una replied. And all the perfume is giving me a headache.

  You don’t trust perfect, Lily said in mindspeak.

  My mom liked to pretend that things were perfect. That we were perfect. I pretended along with her for longer than I should have.

  Lily glanced down at the rows of thin white scars on inside of Una’s forearm. They were hidden hatch marks that she’d given herself with a razor blade when she was a little girl—one for every time her mother’s boyfriend had touched her. Una knew she was looking at them.

  “I’d like a drink,” Una announced.

  “The boys have already started,” Lily told her, needlessly, though. Una and Breakfast were in near-constant contact, always sharing whispers of their thoughts. Lily had that once. It hurt to see it, so Lily made herself stare as they entered the sitting area and Breakfast held up a glass, already poured for Una. Lily didn’t need a razor blade to cut herself.

  She caught Juliet watching her watching them, and the sisters shared a sad smile. Neither of them commented. They both knew what the other had given up.

  At least I have her, Lily thought to Lillian. She felt her there, distracted, half listening, but not engaged.

  Lily’s mechanics were impeccably dressed in the tunic-style of clothes that the men wore in Bower City, and although she was no expert on fashion here, even she could tell that the tailoring and the materials were a cut above what she’d seen so far in the city. The shoulders had crisp lines, the trousers were the perfect combination of structured and snug, and their shoes had the buttery look of the best Italian leather.

  Tristan grinned at Lily when he saw her. “That took you half of forever,” he said, gesturing to her kimono.

  She shrugged and tried to move away, but Tristan caught her elbow and made her stay with him.

  “It was worth it, though,” he whispered. “You look stunning.”

  He was too close—too close to her, and too close to being who she needed him to be—but not close enough. She couldn’t look him in the eye. She looked at his hands instead and noticed that his glass was full, and rightly guessed that he was already on his second drink. “What is that stuff?” she said, pointing to the crystal tumbler in his hand.

  “Whatever it is, it’s amazing,” Caleb said.

  The lights in Lily’s willstone twisted as she looked into the amber liquid and the perfect sphere of ice that rolled in it as if oiled.

  “May I pour you one?” Toshi asked.

  Lily turned to find him rejoining the group with another bottle. He was wearing a midnight-blue tunic that made him look longer and leaner. She looked away. “I don’t drink,” she said.

  “Ever?”

  “Once. That was enough.”

  Toshi didn’t press her. “I don’t blame you. This stuff will teach you a lesson.” He filled a glass for Juliet. “The first time I had it was at a spring solstice party on the other side of town—a good twenty minutes on the trolley. The party was on the top floor of some rich guy’s apartment, and he’d had the whole floor carpeted with grass for people to sit on like they’re back in nature.” He paused to fill Caleb’s glass. “I take off my shoes like everyone else to feel the grass between my toes and have a few of these drinks. And then a few more. And then I think there were fireworks—either that or somebody hit me.” Tristan chuckled despite himself. “About then I realize it’s probably time to go, so I stagger out onto the street to wait for a trolley. Couldn’t find a trolley if it ran over me. So I walked home.” He refilled Una’s glass, taking another well-timed pause. “I wake up the next day and my feet are just killing me.” His sparkling eyes lifted to meet Lily’s. “I’d left my shoes. I was so stinking drunk I hadn’t noticed I’d walked halfway across the city barefoot.”

  Everyone laughed, tipping into a huddle. Everyone except Lily. Toshi didn’t ruin his good story by stopping to bask in his own cleverness. Before the laughter had a chance to get stale, he put down the bottle, his demeanor turning crisp.

  “Drink up, everyone,” he said. “Grace will kill me if I get you there too late.”

  They finished up their drinks and he swept them downstairs, across the foyer, and through a side door that let out into an atrium. The fountain in the center was large enough to swim in and it was lit so invitingly Lily had an urge to do just that.

  The thought of throwing off her clothes and wading into the water pestered her. Lily’s lips twitched as she stifled an upwelling of mirth. So many inappropriate impulses were fighting to come out of her. She wanted to tear off her clothes, break every mirror she walked by, and tell everyone in the world to go to hell.

  I think I’m going crazy, Lily said, reaching out for Lillian.

  You’re not, Lillian answered. That would be easier, though.

  You’ve felt like this?

  Sure. Dozens of times, but most acutely when I took the crown.

  What crown?

  It would be quicker to show you . . .

  . . . Rowan raises the crown over my head, and for the first time I get a good look at it in the mirror. The crown of the Salem Witch is made of burnt iron and diamonds. It’s a cruel-looking thing, barbed and jagged, frosted with icy jewels. It’s a thing of gothic beauty, born of fire and pressure. Like the Salem Witch herself.

  That’s me now. I’m the Salem Witch. At thirteen that
makes me the youngest in history. As Rowan places it on my head all I can think is finally, as if I’ve waited centuries.

  “Proud of yourself?” Rowan teases.

  “Let’s go,” I say, rolling my eyes and trying not to blush.

  “Are you sure you don’t want those?” Rowan gestures down into the black silk for the rest of the Salem Witch’s crown jewels. I balk. I don’t even want to look at them.

  “I’m not going to the pyre this instant,” I say, rubbing my wrists absently. “It’s overkill.”

  Rowan nods and covers them so I don’t have to see them. I’ve heard that the blood of other Salem Witches is scored into the metal, baked there by such high heat that nothing could ever really scour them clean. I’m not ready for the shackles of my new position. Not yet. Tonight I just want the crown.

  We go downstairs and all eyes land on me. Councilmen smear on their smarmiest congratulations. The heads of the other twelve Covens narrow their eyes in dislike while they congratulate me, their smiles wide and frozen.

  Laughter froths inside me. I try to stamp it down, but the more solemn I try to behave, the more I find myself fighting the urge to bray like a donkey. I’m a liar. I’ve somehow convinced this pack of fools that I’m good enough for this, but I know I’m not, and soon they’re all going to figure out what a fraud I am.

  I want to laugh in everyone’s face, I say to Rowan.

  Don’t, Rowan warns. They already hate you.

  If they already hate me, then why bother?

  Lillian—

  But it’s too late. I’m already laughing, laughing, laughing in their stupid faces . . .

  Lillian breezed out of Lily’s mind again, called away by something urgent. Lily wondered what it was that kept diverting Lillian’s attention, but she supposed that being the Salem Witch would keep one busy. Lily had never filled that role personally or experienced much of it through Lillian’s or Rowan’s memories.