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9
Lily had a vague sense that she was moving. She felt a steady flow of air rushing over her singed skin and the occasional jolt of a misstep. She was having trouble catching her breath and, as she wiped away the
cobwebs still connecting her mind to Lillian’s memory, she realized she was having trouble breathing because she was slung over someone’s shoulder.
“I think she’s coming around,” Breakfast whispered frantically.
Lily peeled her eyes open and saw a chaotic mix of upside-down limbs and woodland landscape bouncing around as if someone had thrown her in a dryer. She propped herself up against Rowan’s back and saw Breakfast’s panicked face huffing and puffing as he ran through the milky light of a snowy dawn.
The world righted itself as Rowan swung Lily around and looked in her eyes. “There you are,” he said, relieved. He was still running and he suddenly ducked, careening to his knees as he clasped Lily painfully to his chest. “Everyone down,” he ordered.
The little group huddled together against the rocky side of a cliff. The trees were bigger here, and the air crisper, but even with these differences Lily recognized this cliff. They were at the Witch Caves—they just weren’t at the Witch Caves in Lily’s world. It always stunned Lily how quickly a memory exchange could happen when the memory itself seemed to last ages. She felt like she had been inside Lillian’s memory for at least half an hour, but only minutes had passed.
“Shh,” Rowan breathed. His eyes went up to the treetops. Lily huddled close to his chest and looked at the faces of her coven, wild-eyed and bleached white with cold and terror. Rowan’s head snapped around, and then Lily heard it—a hooting, bellowing sound echoed through the forest. “Woven,” he whispered. “Simians.”
Lily saw the trees shake. She heard the crack of brittle branches as the animal calls rose to a frenzied chorus. They were surrounded.
“Breakfast, get a fire going,” Rowan said. There was no point in whispering now. “Lily, we need your strength. Can you handle this?”
“I’m okay,” she lied. “Light the fire.”
Rowan nodded once and looked at Tristan and Una. “Take off whatever clothes you don’t want torn to shreds,” he said, shucking off his jacket and shirt. Too confused and frightened to question him, Tristan and Una did as he said.
Breakfast led Lily back into the boulders strewn about the bottom of the cliff. He tucked her among the stones as deeply as he dared, trying to provide as much cover as he could without hemming Lily in with so much granite that it would block her connection to her mechanics. Tristan, Una, and Rowan took position between them and the Woven. Breakfast kicked the snow aside with the edge of his boot and gathered what leaves and twigs he could and put them in a pile. He cussed a blue streak as match after match fizzled in the icy tinder.
“Breakfast?” Tristan said uncertainly over his shoulder as he watched the shadows in the treetops loom nearer.
Breakfast’s f-bombs rained down on the tinder with more fervor, and somewhere between the matches and his explosive language a spark managed to catch as a dark body dropped from the trees and swung on huge knuckles toward Lily’s three warriors.
“Sweet jeezus,” Tristan whispered, his mind struggling to come to grips with the monster in front of him.
Lily had never seen a simian Woven before, either. It looked mostly ape-like with its hulking shoulders, long arms, and short legs, but snake scales flashed between the clumps of longhaired fur and a forked tongue spilled out of its fanged mouth as it roared. Two more dark shapes thudded to the ground and barreled up behind their leader, hooting with excitement.
“Oh, please,” Lily begged, staring at the tiny flame Breakfast was nurturing, wishing she could make it grow faster. It still wasn’t large enough for her to harvest any strength from it.
The simian Woven roared again, and Rowan charged out, howling like a wild animal himself, to meet it. The Woven balked. Lily felt intelligence inside of it as it knuckled around Rowan in a circle, sizing up this smaller but fiercer opponent. Rowan didn’t back down or show even a flash of fear, although Lily could feel how terrified he was. Four more Woven dropped from the trees and crashed forward through the snow and underbrush to flank Lily’s pitifully outnumbered coven.
Tristan and Una managed to gather themselves after the initial shock of seeing their first Woven and charged forward, trying to mimic Rowan’s battle cry as bravely as they could. Rowan never took his eyes off the leader.
“Stand back, Breakfast,” Lily whispered. If the fire wasn’t large enough by now, it would be too late anyway. Lily took a deep breath, pulling heat into her already-singed skin. A clap of air threw Lily skyward and kept her there, suspended in a pillar of moaning witch wind while she transmuted heat into force and fed it to her mechanics.
Their willstones gorged on the full power of the Gift. Breakfast rooted himself staunchly under Lily’s dangling feet while Rowan, Tristan, and Una swept forward and attacked the Woven in a blur of flashing knives and bloodlust. A part of Lily went out with them. She could feel their bodies moving, leaping, and stretching as if she were wearing their physiques over hers like a cloak. She could feel her strength filling them up and spilling over into an ecstasy of rage. They slashed, tore, and crushed the Woven beneath them in seconds.
And right on the edge of her mind was that creeping temptation to take over her claimed completely—to possess every bit of them, even their dreams.
Rein it in, Lily. You must be strong and control it, or we’ll turn on one another.
Lily’s insides squirmed with guilt.
I will. I’m sorry, Rowan.
I understand—I really do. But you must not let it swallow you whole.
Lily released the loop of power and dropped into Breakfast’s outstretched arms, limp as a rag doll. She was so tired and injured from the pyre that she could barely lift her head. Her mechanics gathered around the fire while Breakfast gently laid her on the ground. Tristan and Una were stark white under the livid streaks of blood painting their nearly naked bodies. They shook with shock over what they had faced, but more so over what they had done.
“Tristan. Una. Start gathering all the body parts and pile them away from the cliffs,” Rowan said gently. “More Woven will come to scavenge the dead.”
Tristan and Una blindly followed Rowan’s order. Rowan turned to Breakfast. “Well done,” he said. “It takes a strong man to resist and stay behind. Not many can do it.”
