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Caleb asks me questions about her, trying to get to the bottom of this, and I keep telling him that the girl in the cage is Lillian, but I also keep saying that there’s something off about her. I know I’m not making any sense, and that I’m starting to rant, but I can’t shake this feeling that something terribly wrong has happened.
I’m combing through every tiny detail, but I’m still not getting it. My da used to say that it’s easier to find things when they’re small. All you have to do is be careful and you’ll spot it eventually. But when what you’re looking for is big, you have to be able to stand back to see it all. Sometimes, you just can’t get far enough. I have a sinking feeling that something huge has happened to me to today, but I can’t remove myself enough from the situation to see it.
Then I hear her move. She starts to yell. And she calls out for Tristan. She asks for Tristan to help her. Not me.
She’s coughing and hacking, complaining about the mold. I light a sage bundle to purify the air and she stops. Why is she acting like this is bothering her? Mold hasn’t bothered her since she was eight, and I say as much. The sound of her voice is irritating—if only because I want to hear it so badly.
“I’m not Lillian,” she says. Again, her eyes search for Tristan. “Please, you have to believe me. I’m a version of Lillian.”
It takes a moment for the three of us to get what she’s saying. She’s talking about parallel worlds. Alternate selves. Multiple universes. I can’t believe she expects me to swallow this. It’s insulting that she thinks I’d be so gullible. And something else keeps gnawing at me. It’s the way she keeps turning to Tristan. Did something happen between them that Tristan didn’t tell me about? That’s ridiculous. But still …
Then Lillian brings up the shaman, shocking me out of my mounting bitterness. I didn’t think she’d ever admit to that.
Caleb turns to me. “Is it true?” he asks. “Did a shaman go to the Citadel?”
I tell them about how I asked the shaman from our tribe to come to the Citadel to help Lillian’s mother—not that there’s a cure for what she had. I thought it might help make Samantha feel better to talk to someone who didn’t think she was crazy. But all of that spirit-walking stuff the shaman used to spout is just a fairy tale. Caleb knows that.
Lillian isn’t swaying from her story. Now she’s talking about science, of all things, and even going so far as to admit that what she’s saying is impossible. She’s really selling this. Even Tristan is starting to fall for it.
She keeps looking at him like she knows him, like she expects him to suddenly come to his senses and let her go. She looks at Tristan like he’s the one she’s always loved and trusted.
“How am I supposed to prove to you I’m not the evil witch I look exactly like?” she asks, her teary eyes working Tristan over mercilessly. She must be doing it on purpose to get to me. She wants to turn me against him. I can’t take another second of this.
“You know how, Lillian,” I reply. “Let me in your head.”
“Ro. Be serious,” Tristan says. He’s so nervous his voice cracks a little.
He and Caleb argue against it, which I’m sure Lillian knew they would. She planned this perfectly. The only way for us to know the truth is for me to ask her who she is in mindspeak, where no one can lie. I don’t have to let her claim me, but I do have to let her touch my willstone in order for us to share a moment of rapport. In that moment she could do just about anything to me, and I may not be strong enough to resist her. A part of me is begging for it to happen. To finally be rid of the weightless ache.
Caleb won’t let me. He pulls rank and says it’s for the sachem to decide. Relief battles with disappointment.
We leave Tristan to guard her while Caleb and I go to see Alaric. My eyes keep straying back to her, even as I walk away.
“You have to calm down,” Caleb tells me.
“Calm down?” I say. I can hear the hysterical edge in my voice now that Caleb has pointed it out. “If Elias killed your father—”
Caleb stops and puts a hand on my shoulder, turning me to him. “I’m trying to help you, brother. You’re making stupid choices.”
“I know I am,” I admit. “How am I supposed to be calm about this?”
“No idea,” Caleb says. “But find a way.”
As I follow my stone kin through the trees, I try to pull myself together. I’m fighting the urge to go back and force her to admit that she is Lillian—that she recognizes me as she does Tristan. How can she manage to look at me like I’m a stranger to her? And the way she spoke to Tristan—so intimate, like he knew all of her secrets.
Caleb brings me through the main camp. Tents are already pitched and the few armored carts that travel with this light and fast faction of our tribe make a barrier wall toward the westerly side. Alaric is outside of the strangest cart I’ve ever seen. It’s completely windowless, so I doubt anyone would live in it, and judging by how deeply the extra thick wheels are sinking into the ground, it’s the heaviest cart I’ve ever seen. I can’t help but wonder what he’s hauling in it. It must be full of metal or an ore of some kind.
The council fire is lit in front of Alaric. He’s hearing a petitioner who is speaking passionately. The conversation stops as soon as I arrive, and the petitioner leaves without finishing his suit. As he passes me I see he isn’t an Outlander. I catch a whiff of hay and the fleecy smell of sheep about him and figure he’s a ranch hand, although I’ve never seen a ranch hand petition a sachem before. There are red patches on his face and hands. Burns. I scan them quickly and find no hint of ash or trace of chemicals in the raw skin. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
“Rowan,” Alaric says, standing up on his stiff leg. “Is she still unconscious?”
“No,” I reply. I’m distracted by the man’s injuries. “How did he get those burns?”
“A cooking fire,” Alaric says. I narrow my eyes at him and he laughs. “Okay. Not a cooking fire. But I can’t tell you the real cause, so let’s leave it.”
“Is that where all my salve is going?” I think of how much salve I’ve been making, calculating how many more are burned like that man. Dozens. Hundreds?
“Yes.” Alaric’s eyes say he’s being honest with me because he thinks I have a right to the truth, but they also say he’s not going to tell me anything more. “But onto bigger matters,” he says, smiling wolfishly. “How did you capture Lillian?”
