She felt Breakfast take a seat next to her and together they waited through the long night, listening to the mournful howls of the Pack circling just beyond the edge of vision. But the attack never came, and Lily never gave the order for her braves to find the Pack and kill them.
One by one, Lily could feel her braves deciding to leave her. While they sat crouched in the dark, aching to seek out the Pack and slay them, they lashed out at her and accused her of not doing as she said she would. They’d come west to kill Woven, and Lily was denying them that.
A part of her understood. A larger part of her felt betrayed. Knowing that all but a few braves outside of her inner circle of mechanics were going to leave her made Lily ache for someone—anyone—who could understand her. Someone who knew what it was to lead against the majority rule. There was only one person who truly understood what Lily faced. Herself.
Lillian. They all want to leave me, even though what I’m doing is for their own good. Killing the Woven one by one won’t solve the problem.
No. It won’t, Lily. The Woven reproduce too quickly.
My braves think I’m betraying them, but I’m trying to save them. I feel abandoned. Is that how you feel?
Yes. I understand what you’re going through. I know what it is to do something for the good of the many, only to be hated for it. I even know what it is to hate yourself for doing it. I did what I had to in order to get out of the barn because I knew that I couldn’t save their world, but I could still save mine. And I did it for people who despise me now.
What did you do, Lillian? How did you get out of the barn?
It is my most shameful moment. It’s when I did the one thing I thought I would never do.
… I cradle the boy in my lap and use what energy I have left to ease his suffering. It’s no use. I’m so weak I can barely hold his emaciated body in my arms, let alone calm his severed and screaming nerves.
River took his arm. The boy howls, screaming that his missing limb burns. I know what it is to burn. I wish I could do it for him. I wish I could do it for all of them. I grit my teeth in frustration and count the clothes on all the bodies around me. If I were to get them to give me all their clothes to burn, would that be enough to fuel me?
Fuel me for what? I can’t claim these willstone-less people. I can’t make an army out of lambs. I drop my face into my hands and scream along with the boy in my lap. They’re all going to die, mutilated and starving in the dark. There’s nothing I can do to save any of them.
But they can save me.
I must say good-bye to the person I thought I was, and give up the self-serving image of myself as good. Good people die with a smile, allowing the world to disintegrate around them, just so they can protect their precious understanding of themselves. But I will not allow myself to die in this barn just so I can have a hero’s ending. I will give up myself in order to save my world—to save Rowan’s world.
I make my choice.
“Everyone! Listen to me,” I say. “The doctor will be coming back soon, but I have a plan.” A few of the more lucid ones turn their eyes to me. I place the boy on the ground and stand. “I’m a witch and I know a way to get out of here.”
“If you’re a witch, then where is your willstone?” asks one of them.
“I swallowed my stone when they took me. We don’t have a lot of time left,” I reply.
“I recognize you,” another says. “You’re the Salem Witch. They said you died in the blast.”
“There’s no time to explain,” I say. “I’m alive because I can do something that no one knows I can do.” I smother the last bit of my humanity. “I can take us all out of here—to another world.”