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Carrick bartered his last beaver pelt for a sack of grain. It was a small sack, but he’d have to make do. There were still two bombs left for him to locate and disarm. Hakan, the builder, didn’t have any idea where to start looking for them and Carrick had to make his supplies last for as long as his search took. The money and first-class train passes Lillian had given him had made his trip between the cities downright enjoyable, but Carrick was in the wild now. City money wouldn’t get him grain or beans out here.
At least the winter hadn’t been too harsh and some of the smaller family groups Carrick encountered still had stores of food they could trade. Some didn’t, of course. Being an Outlander often meant you went hungry, no matter what the winters were like.
Now, if only Lillian had given him some witch’s medicine, then he could have bartered for more than just one sack of grain. He could have even gotten some dried peaches or a jug of maple syrup. Witch’s medicine was just about the most valuable thing there was in the Outlands. Carrick would ask her for it next time he was back in Salem, which probably wouldn’t be for a while yet.
With Lillian’s help, he’d beaten all of Alaric’s messengers to the bombs, but he still had two to go and Lillian had made it clear that even one bomb was too many. She’d shared a brief glimpse of a cinder world with Carrick to motivate him, but he didn’t care much one way or the other. Cinder world, not cinder world, what was the difference? People had always killed each other, and Carrick couldn’t see that he’d be worse off if one of the bombs detonated, as long as it detonated far away from him. He might even do better, he figured. Cinder worlds were where men like Carrick—men who weren’t squeamish and knew how to take what they wanted—could run the whole place. One thing kept him motivated, though. He’d grown to crave the power his witch supplied him, and in the cinder worlds witches were done in first. Lillian wanted the bombs defused, and as long as he did what she said, he knew that she’d keep sending him those heady rushes of invincibility.
For as long as she lived, that is. The last time he’d seen her she looked worse. Her skin had a green tinge to it, and her eyes burned with fever. Carrick didn’t think she’d last longer than a few more months—maybe a year at best—but he took comfort in knowing that there was still Lily. She was fresh and healthy. Carrick spent many hours thinking of her and her three willstones. Lily had been his first taste of real power and it had been the sweetest. Someday, he promised himself. First, he had to deal with his half brother.
Carrick got swiftly back on Rowan’s trail after making his trade. Again, Rowan was moving away from the cities. The mountains would cause problems with his connection to his witch. Lillian was special, Carrick knew that, and she could keep the connection with her claimed over vast distances, but granite was granite, and not even she could penetrate that if there was enough of it. He didn’t like the thought of losing Lillian’s strength. He told Lillian in mindspeak that he didn’t think Rowan was leading him to the two unsecured bombs anymore, but she’d still wanted Rowan followed and Alaric’s plans for him discovered.
Carrick didn’t know what Alaric was using Rowan for anymore now that Lily was gone. If anything, with Lily’s possible control over his mind and body, Rowan was a security threat to the sachem. After watching them for over a week, he’d realized that Alaric and Rowan were stone kin, and as such their private discussions were beyond even his most cunning attempts at eavesdropping. That had come as a surprise. It was rumored that Alaric had no stone kin. Lillian had wondered how long that had been going on, and she doubted if anyone knew about it. Not even Lily.
Something had happened between Rowan and Alaric—maybe it had been a fight, or maybe it had been an order—and then Rowan had left Alaric’s tribe unimpeded and in the middle of the day. Lillian sent out other spies to find either Chenoa, Keme, or the bombs, and she sent out Carrick to follow his half brother. Carrick was the only one of her spies suited for that task. He could still feel his brother, even though Rowan had buried their connection so deep even Carrick couldn’t sense it anymore. That didn’t matter. Their blood bond wasn’t what Carrick followed now.
Carrick knew everything there was to know about suffering. It was his one true gift. After a childhood spent sending off wounded animals to drag themselves panting and whimpering with pain into the darkness, he even knew how to track suffering.
Rowan had no idea he left a trail of sorrow behind him as bright and clear as painted stones.
* * *
Lily dropped her bedroll on the ground next to her sister’s and looked around. She didn’t see Juliet anywhere. The sun was setting, and by this time her sister would usually have some kind of meal waiting for the two of them. Lily laughed at her own annoyance. She was starting to think like some fifties’ husband who expected his wife to have dinner on the table as soon as he got home from work.
She reached out to Juliet and followed the connection between them to the perimeter of camp. Her sister sat atop a small rise that was covered in shin-high grass and dotted with vibrant spring wildflowers. Lily joined her, sitting down next to her in the fragrant grass. They looked out over a vast plain that was so mind-bogglingly large that it seemed to stretch on past the edge of the gathering evening, through the night, and straight on to the next morning. Lily fancied she could see all the way to tomorrow’s dawn rising behind this setting sun.
“Look at them run,” Juliet said.
An uncountable number of buffalo undulated across the plain like a dark tide of muscle and blood washing over the Ocean of Grass. The pounding of their hooves thrummed through the earth and felt like a heartbeat under Lily’s hand.
“Alaric told me about this,” Juliet continued quietly. “He said seeing it would open me up so wide that all the hurt inside would just spill out.”
Lily realized her sister was crying. She wished she could join her, but her hurt was more complicated than her sister’s. It wasn’t clean. When Lily did an autopsy on her love for Rowan she saw that most of the evidence pointed at her. And Lily had never been good at feeling one emotion at a time, like pure sadness or utter joy. Her sister
had that talent, but not her. Everything Lily felt was tainted with other feelings, and sometimes she wondered if all the complications she put on her emotions kept her from ever really feeling anything. Except once. There was one night when all she had felt was love. Having that single taste just made it worse.
“Thank you for choosing me over Alaric,” Lily said. It was the first time they’d talked about it—the first time Lily acknowledged what Juliet had sacrificed for her.
“I couldn’t let you die,” Juliet replied, wiping at her face.
“Actually, you could have. I’m not your real sister.”
Laughter bubbled up through Juliet’s tears. “Yeah, you are. Only my real sister would drag me all the way out here.”
Lily dropped her head and let her shoulder shake with laughter. At least they could still share a laugh, even if Lily couldn’t cry.
“Where the heck are we, anyway?” Juliet said, looking around with a puzzled frown.
“Missouri, almost to Kansas,” Lily answered, even though that meant nothing to this Juliet.
“It’s flat.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean really flat.” Juliet shaded her eyes and peered into the tricky twilight. “What’s going on down there?”
Lily followed her sister’s pointing finger and saw a cluster of buffalo suddenly turn against the tide of their fellows. From between the parting buffalo came a pale, loping figure trotting across the plain.
“That’s the pale Woven,” Lily said, grabbing her sister’s hand and stiffening. She hadn’t seen the pale coyote in weeks, and Lily had thought she’d stopped following them.
