Witch's Pyre (Worldwalker #3)(8)

“There’s no line,” Lily argued, but Caleb continued as if he didn’t hear her.

“Don’t worry about Tristan. He’s just mad at you because it’s a convenient distraction. It’s easier to be angry at you than to be sad about, well, everything.”

“Not here it isn’t,” Lily said, noticing that more Workers were coming in through the window. She pointed it out to Caleb and told him how the Hive had reacted when she’d started to feel anger.

They can feel our emotions? Caleb looked disturbed.

I doubt that, but they can certainly sense them somehow, she replied. And they don’t allow anger. Tristan’s blocking me. Tell him to calm down and show him why.

Caleb took a moment to converse with Tristan in mindspeak, and then turned back to her. I really hate this place.

Get ready to hate it some more.

Lily brought Caleb out onto the balcony and showed him the ships in the harbor. She told him they were from all around world and watched as he stared at them, his breath stalled in his chest and his jaw lax with surprise. His eyes flew out over the water as he imagined other countries, other continents—all of them Woven-free.

“How does Bower City keep the Woven from contaminating other countries?” he asked. “Because all you need is one to climb inside a crate that gets loaded on a ship—”

“The Hive,” Lily replied. “I’m pretty sure that, apart from them, there are no Woven out west. I don’t think they let anything past them, maybe as far to the east as where they picked us up. That’s about halfway.”

“No Woven over half of the continent,” he whispered. It was almost too much for him to accept. “How could we not know that?”

The Workers had settled down after Tristan’s outburst. They went back to gathering nectar, buzzing in and out of the wisteria, their brightly striped bodies weighing down the blossoms.

Toshi mentioned “restrictions” on immigration, Lily told him in mindspeak. If the Hive only allows a few people to come to the city, I doubt it lets many out.

Caleb’s eyes angled up the edge of their roof as a Sister escaped out of his line of sight. Many—or any? he asked.

We’ll see.

A porter arrived with a rolling cart piled high with food, drawing Lily and Caleb back inside. The smell of hot food drew the rest of the coven out of their beds and baths and into Lily’s sitting room. While they passed plates around, Lily shared in mindspeak what she had learned from Toshi.

Una eyed the nearest flower arrangement warily and saw a Worker waddle out of the wide throat of a bloom. She elbowed Lily and tipped her chin at it.

Lily gave a faint nod and stood. They’d been sitting there silently for too long. “I think I’m the only one who hasn’t had a bath yet,” she said.

Converse out loud, but be careful, she told her coven in mindspeak. I don’t know how much the Workers can or can’t understand and I don’t want the Hive to know anything private about us—especially not about where Breakfast, Una, and I come from. As far as anyone in Bower City is concerned, we come from this world.

Does that include Toshi? Tristan asked in mindspeak.

Lily didn’t bother to respond. She knew he was fishing for something to feel other than sad, and he needed someone to blame. It wasn’t helping matters that Lily couldn’t look him in the eye. Not yet. Not so soon after.

She went through to the bedrooms and found that Juliet and Una had left her the largest room, and understood why when she studied the flower arrangements. The bouquets were made up exclusively of every different kind of lily that Lily could recognize. Her smile at Una’s and Juliet’s sweet gesture to leave this room for her turned hesitant as she considered whether or not their host’s flower choice had been intentional or coincidental. Lilies are commonly used in arrangements, so it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to think that this was just a happy accident. More to the point, there was no way anyone in Bower City could have known Lily’s name ahead of time. Still, it nagged at her.

Lily undressed self-consciously while she filled the generous soaking tub. One of the casement windows had been left slightly ajar and a tall glass vase held a bunch of enormous, long-stemmed tiger lilies by the full-length mirror. Lily couldn’t see them, but she knew the Workers were there, free to come and go out the open window.

The bath soap she drizzled into the water was so heavily perfumed it made Lily sneeze. The scent was lovely, but so concentrated she knew that her skin would smell like it for the rest of the day.

Either the Workers liked it, or it made the people easier for the Hive to track. Either way, Lily found herself unable to enjoy it knowing that it was, somehow, for the Hive.

As she soaked, Lily watched as the last of the burns on her hands faded away. She looked more carefully at the decanter of soap, and saw that it contained a strange chemical that was almost like the burn salve, but that she had never encountered before. The water grew cold as she tried to pick its composition apart with what she had learned of medicines. The most she could discern was that it had regenerative properties. She was so engrossed in trying to figure it out she nearly called out for Rowan to come and take a look. The thought of him stopped her breath, and she dropped the image of him as if it had stung her.

He betrayed me.

Lillian was listening. The memory of Rowan taking her willstones and locking her in a cage flew from Lily’s mind to Lillian’s.