Lily breathed a sad laugh and got out of bed. She felt heavy and slow and too empty to cry. “Sure, Rowan,” she said.
She left him sitting in her room, staring at the messy sheets. It was hours before dawn, but she knew there’d be no point in trying to sleep. More images of suffering swept through her mind. Pain. Begging. Blood. Carrick’s face loomed over hers. Lily banished it all from her mind, unable to process anything else that morning. With an aching head and a blank heart she stepped into the shower to start her day.
*
“You were up early,” Juliet said right before Lily stepped out the door to go to school.
“Sorry if I woke you,” Lily replied, distracted. She waved at Tristan, trying to signal that he didn’t need to get out of the car and walk her the twenty steps from the house. He was taking Rowan’s admonishment to never leave her alone literally, and Lily wondered just how annoyed she was going to get with the constant supervision over the course of the day.
“I was already up. Guess neither of us slept well.”
Lily noticed that Juliet was wringing her hands. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s nothing,” Juliet said, forcing a smile. “Be careful, okay?”
“Let’s go,” Tristan called out impatiently. Lily shouldered her schoolbag and ran to his car. Something about what Juliet had said nagged at her. She stopped and looked back, about to ask Juliet in mindspeak why she hadn’t slept well, and saw Rowan watching her from the living room window. As she jumped into Tristan’s car, the only thought left in her head was that she wanted to get away from him as quickly as she could.
As soon as they pulled away from her house, Tristan started eyeing her cautiously. “I think I can feel you,” he said, only partially freaked out. “And you feel terrible.”
Something popped inside Lily, and huge, hot tears spilled down her face. “Rowan wants to leave me,” she sobbed.
It had been such a long time since she’d had the luxury of being able to cry. For months she’d had to be strong no matter what she was feeling, and now that she was safe with her best friend it all came tumbling out of her in a hysterical rush.
Aided in her explanation by the images she passed to Tristan in mindspeak, Lily told Tristan everything, starting with the Outlanders and the Woven. She recounted Lillian’s persecution of teachers, scientists, and doctors, and Lillian’s law that magic—which the Outlanders couldn’t access or afford—be the one and only way. She told him about Alaric’s rebel tribe, and how they had fought back to defend three scientists, and how that battle had ended with her and Rowan accidentally worldjumping.
“And now he wants to go back and fight for his people with Alaric, but I can’t go with him,” Lily said, hiccupping as they pulled into a parking space at Salem High.
“Why not?” Tristan asked, turning in his seat to face Lily.
“Because that’s exactly what Lillian wants me to do,” Lily shouted, like Tristan should know that. “And he’d never let me, anyway. I almost died, like, every five minutes I was there. You think Rowan would ever let me go back? Or that I’d want to? Horrible things happened to me there, Tristan. I can’t go back. Ever.”
Tristan reached out and pushed one of Lily’s wild curls away from her damp cheek. “I guess you’re stuck here with me, then,” he said quietly.
“Oh, Tristan, it’s such a mess,” she said, fresh tears streaming down her face. “And the thing that’s just killing me is that I had no clue he was planning to leave. I thought I knew everything about him, but I never even suspected—”
“I know,” Tristan said, pulling her into a hug. “It’s the secret that hurts the most.”
“Yeah,” Lily whispered. She thought of how she was hiding the contact she’d had with Lillian from Rowan, and gnawing guilt swallowed what was left of her tears.
They heard a tap on Tristan’s window, and jumped apart. Una and Breakfast looked in the window as Tristan rolled it down.