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“It’s not that. I know it should be that, but it isn’t,” she admitted.
“Then what is it?”
“You loved your father. You miss him because he meant the world to you and now he’s gone. I’ve always missed my father because he was never there. Him being dead doesn’t feel that much different.” Lily looked up at Rowan. “Your loss hurts more, but it’s so beautiful. You know that, right?”
Rowan nodded, brushing her cheek. “I’m lucky. He made me who I am and because of that I’ll always have him with me.”
* * *
Carrick slipped into camp while everyone was still throwing gifts at Lily’s head. It was easy, actually. This used to be his tribe, and even though Carrick had to alter his face slightly with a glamour so no one recognized him, he still knew how to speak and act like he was one of them. He even saw some familiar faces as he made his way through the tents. That could be useful. In the turmoil of Lily’s return, Carrick walked right in.
Carrick knew that going after Alaric was pointless. Even with a glamour he wouldn’t be able to get close to the sachem without possessing the right password, but Alaric wasn’t Carrick’s target, anyway. There was someone at this camp who Lillian wanted even more than Alaric.
Hakan, the builder.
Lillian had no idea where Chenoa and Keme were hidden, but she knew that Hakan had to be traveling with Alaric. The bombs were touchy contraptions, and someone who understood how they worked needed to be there to tend to them. Hakan was one of the few who were qualified, and Lillian knew he’d been traveling with Alaric for two months now. It was finding Alaric that had been the problem.
The sachem had a lot of experience eluding Lillian, who could scour the minds of even the most loyal Outlanders for any scrap of information if she managed to claim them. To protect himself, and the personnel that came with him, Alaric had divided his tribe into thirteen factions. Each faction stayed close to a city and came equipped with a body double who looked like Alaric. No faction, except for the one he traveled with, knew where Alaric really was. But Lillian knew Rowan. She knew he would take Lily directly to Alaric, leading Carrick to his target. They intended to get a lot of information out of Hakan, and Carrick had Lillian’s permission to use his unique skill set in order to do just that.
Carrick wanted to go after Alaric. His bitterness toward his old sachem ran deep, and it stretched back to when Carrick and his father had been thrown out of the tribe and left to wander on their own. There had never been any proof that Carrick and his father had killed that little girl, but Alaric didn’t wait for proof. He knew who’d done it. When Alaric seized power ten years ago, he’d thrown Carrick and his father out of the tribe with only a mock trial. Alaric had left them at the mercy of the Woven—and he’d left Carrick at the mercy of his father. They’d settle that score someday. But tonight, it was Hakan’s turn.
It took Carrick a few hours of wandering around the camp to find a carriage that looked heavier than the others. Lillian had told him that the carriage with the bomb would be completely lined with lead in order to contain the poison inside. Carrick checked the wheels, looking for the ones that sank the deepest. When he found the right carriage, he blended into the shadows to wait.
Lillian had laid eyes on Hakan herself. She’d given Carrick the memory of what Hakan looked like, and when Carrick saw him approaching the carriage just before noon the next day, he simply walked up behind him and hit him on the head.
He’d take Hakan elsewhere to begin the questioning.
* * *
Lily and Rowan didn’t even try to leave their snug nest until noon, when hunger for something more substantial than fruit drove them out of bed. Rowan helped lace Lily into a soft suede-like wearhyde dress with a fringe-hemmed skirt, and then braided a swan feather into her hair while she wrapped her feet and calves in a lovely pair of beaded moccasin boots. When they finally did emerge and made their way to the inner campfire to eat, Lily couldn’t bear to be more than a step away from Rowan. She knew she was underfoot, but she couldn’t help it. He’d just have to learn how to cook with her arms around his waist.
“You’re alive,” Caleb said, grinning at Rowan and Lily as he joined them around the fire. “We thought we were going to have to send in a rescue party.”
Rowan smiled while he worked, his face tilted down to hide what might have been a blush, but he didn’t take Caleb’s bait. The two Tristans had come with Caleb, followed closely by Breakfast and Una, and Lily noticed that her Tristan looked sullen and withdrawn. Rowan noticed, too.
I love having you close, Lily, but maybe for Tristan’s sake you should go sit down.
Lily nodded and reluctantly left him to join Breakfast and Una at the table. “What’d we miss?” she asked, tearing off a piece of bread.
“Well, three people came up to me and started talking in Iroquois like they knew me,” Breakfast said. “So that was interesting.”
Caleb turned to Tristan. “Who was that guy who looks just like Breakfast?” Caleb asked, frustrated that he couldn’t remember.
“I never met him,” Tristan replied.
Caleb let it go, but Lily got the sense that he was saying something in mindspeak, and Lily hoped it had something to do with cheering up. Caleb turned to Lily and changed the subject. “The sachem wants to see you when you’re ready.”
“Yeah,” Lily replied, suddenly frowning. “Whenever he’s free is fine, I guess.?
?
“I’ll see if he’s free now,” Caleb replied. He stood and left before Lily could come up with a reason to stop him.
Lily had no idea what she was going to say to Alaric. She stared at the ground, desperately trying to come up with a plan. She felt Rowan brush her shoulder and looked up, startled. He was holding a bowl.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She shook her head and smiled at him. Lily took the bowl and stared at something that looked a lot like vegan chili, but her appetite was suddenly gone. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Rowan sat next to her and she leaned against him, not caring if Tristan was uncomfortable with it. A nameless anxiety was building in Lily, and she needed to be close to Rowan to reassure herself that he was real and that he was still with her.
