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Lillian looked down, wringing her hands. Lily watched her, eerily recalling how she was prone to do that when she doubted herself.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “What was this all for if I do?”
Lily felt truly sorry for her. “Do you want me to see if there’s anything I can do? I don’t know much about healing,” Lily said, trailing off with a shrug. She thought of Toshi. He would know how to heal Lillian.
“I can show you,” Lillian said, accepting Lily’s offer.
Lily helped Lillian comb through her cells and kill off as much of the cancer as she could, but there weren’t enough healthy cells left after that to keep her organs running properly. Lily might not have done much healing in her time as a witch, but she knew a failing liver when she saw one. When she had done everything she could to keep Lillian going for a few more days, she sat back on her heels.
“Your rose stone did all the work,” Lillian said. She wiped away the sweat beading on her upper lip. “So it’s true that the different colors are better at different kinds of magic?”
“Yes,” Lily answered distractedly. She heard shouting outside the tent. “Lillian, we need to talk.”
“We do. It was always my intention that you take my place when I’m gone. That’s why I went to find you in the first place,” Lillian said. “I’ll leave instructions with Leto that you are to be treated exactly as they would treat me. Salem is yours.”
“No, that’s not—” Lily stammered. “It’s the Hive. We can’t beat them. Not with the numbers that we have right now.”
“I know. That’s why we need to use the bomb.”
“But that’s insane—you know it is,” Lily said.
The shouting outside the tent grew loud enough to bring Lillian to her feet. She and Lily looked outside and saw people running past as Lily felt Rowan reaching out to her mindspeak.
Things are getting ugly out here. Come quickly.
“It’s Rowan,” Lily said urgently.
She and Lillian rushed out of the tent and followed the sound of a fight to a clearing among the trees, where a year-old rockslide had knocked down a swath of thick timber. Rowan was holding back someone who looked like he was trying to attack Alaric, while Caleb and Tristan restrained two screaming ranch hands. Una, Breakfast, Captain Leto, and some of his uniformed soldiers seemed to be busy wi
th crowd control as waves of people, most of them from the ranches, shook their fists and shouted. At the center of it all was a small Outlander woman with steel-gray hair and skin like leather. She stood stock-still with her hands crossed in front of her, her gaze elsewhere and her expression unconcerned.
“Chenoa,” Lillian said, teeth bared. The name hissed out of her like a curse word.
As Lily and Lillian approached the center of the clearing together, the shouting fell to a murmur. The crowds stopped pushing against the barricade and the man in Rowan’s headlock settled down enough that Rowan let him go.
Chenoa looked at the two Lillians, her mouth tilting with a knowing smile. Her eyes were like two black beads—hard and clear—and they sent a thrill down Lily’s spine.
“So I suppose you’ll be fixing to hang me,” Chenoa said, instigating a fresh round of hateful calls.
“She should be hanged!” yelled the man recently released from Rowan’s headlock.
“Otter—don’t,” Rowan growled in warning in case he decided to lunge at Chenoa again. Rowan knew this man. He spun away from Rowan and faced the bloodthirsty crowd.
“She killed my Lena and our baby,” Otter said. Voices shouted out the names of more dead. “She could have told us what was in those canisters.” More voices rose like “amens” in church. “She should have told us it was going to make them sick.”
Lily looked out at the quickly turning mob, and then back at Lillian’s impassive face. Lillian would let the mob hang her, and as Lily recalled the women dying horrible deaths in the tunnels, a tiny voice in her head said maybe Chenoa deserved it.
But then she noticed the Outlanders in the crowd were slowly detaching themselves, watching with their weapons ready. Lily reached out to Rowan.
Will the Outlanders fight if the ranch hands try to hang Chenoa?
Yes, Rowan replied in mindspeak. To a lot of Outlanders she’s a hero. This could get very bad, very fast. Find a fire and get ready to fuel us.
I don’t think you can stop my army from tearing itself apart, Rowan.
Neither do I. The only thing that I’m concerned with now is keeping you safe.
While Lily racked her brain for a way to defuse this powder keg, Mary stepped forward, holding up her hands for everyone’s attention.
