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Lily waited a few seconds before asking, “Is it?”
Toshi let loose a tense laugh. “For me? Definitely.”
She and Toshi left the restaurant and started to stroll back toward the trolley line.
I see something, Una said from the top of the villa. She used her willstone to still the air around her and strengthen the tiny muscles that shaped the lenses in her eyes, improving her vision. I think the Warrior Sisters are heading toward a forest beyond the fields of flowers.
Show me, Rowan said. Una relayed what she was seeing to Rowan at the wall.
It’s hard to tell, but I think Una’s right, Rowan said. They’re headed toward that stand of enormous trees.
Let me see, Lily said, and immediately saw what Una was looking at. Those are redwoods. That’s the redwood forest. Lily passed a memory of a map of the California coast to her coven. In her world, there were several places where the ocean and the redwood forest nearly touched, as it seemed to be here in Bower City.
Ask if we can get out to see the redwoods, Caleb said.
“Do people ever go outside the wall?” Lily asked Toshi as they walked along.
“Of course. Lots of people even live outside the wall,” Toshi replied. “There are farms, vineyards, small towns.”
“I’d love to see that. Maybe you can take me to a farm, or out into nature.”
“Maybe,” Toshi said vaguely. “I’d have thought you’d had enough of nature on your journey.”
“I guess I lived in the open for so long I miss it now.”
“We’ll see,” was all Toshi would say.
Toshi knows Grace won’t let you go, Tristan said.
I bet no one with a willstone is allowed outside the walls, Juliet said. That’s what I’d do if I were in charge and trying to guard how they were made.
Then we have to sneak out. Tonight, Lily said.
We have to sneak out—Caleb, Tristan, and me, Rowan said, correcting her. You’re staying behind with Una, Breakfast, and Juliet to defend you.
Like fun I am. Lily—
“So, tell me the truth,” Toshi said. “We’re not really alone, are we? Your coven has been hearing everything I’ve been saying all morning.”
Lily had the decency to be embarrassed. “They’re very protective of me.”
“I understand,” he said. “I would be, too.”
Lily smiled. “If you were mine.”
He made a strangled sound. “Can I have half an hour alone with you?” he pleaded. “Really alone?”
Absolutely not, Rowan said.
Hey, this was your idea. He’s not going to let me claim him if he can’t trust me, and if he doesn’t trust me I don’t want him. I tried it with you, and look what happened.
Lily blocked her coven out. “Done,” she said to Toshi. “You have my full attention.”
“This way,” he said. A mischievous mood overtook him. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into a run alongside a passing trolley. Toshi boosted Lily aboard and then swung up beside her with a wide grin on his face.
“Where are we going?” Lily asked, pink cheeked and breathless from the quick dash.
Toshi kept his eyes trained out the window, one hand on the rail and the other on the small of Lily’s back as they swayed back and forth with the rocking car. “Home.”
