“I don’t know if we can avoid it at this point,” Breakfast said. “I mean, we might get an insanity plea to work if we all start babbling about magic and parallel universes.”
“No,” Lily said sharply. “No one in this world can know about magic.” She conveyed one brief image of the battle she fought against Lillian. She showed them how—with her power in them—her army of Outlanders had fought with impossible strength, speed, and ferocity. “Can you imagine our jacked-up world with those kinds of soldiers in it?”
“It would be a bloodbath,” Rowan said. “The Woven aren’t the only reason my world is so sparsely populated. There was an era in our history when witches regularly sent out their armies to fight each other.”
“Over what?” Breakfast asked.
Rowan gave a half smile. “You’ve felt what it’s like to have a witch in you, but you haven’t felt the Gift yet,” he said in a deep voice. “When you do, you’ll understand.”
“We don’t have to show them warrior magic. We can just show them medicine and kitchen magic,” Breakfast said hopefully. “And it could be a good thing. Do you know how many burn victims would be saved because of what you taught us the other day, Rowan?”
“No. No magic in this world. The shaman was very clear about this when he taught me how to spirit walk,” Lily said. “You can’t steal advanced technology from one world and bring it to another without something terrible happening. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are. Just think it through. It’d be like introducing the plague to a bunch of people who’ve never even had the sniffles. I won’t be responsible for genocide just because I don’t want to go to jail.”
“So we can’t tell the truth.” Una looked at Lily, her cat-like eyes narrowed. “Our only hope is to run, but there’s no place in this world we can hide. Not for long.”
Rowan looked up from the ground and around at the group, the first to catch on to what Una was suggesting. “You can’t leave Lily,” he said fearfully.
“Hang on,” Breakfast said, his brow furrowed. “Una, are you saying we should go with Rowan to his world?”
“Doesn’t it make more sense than staying here?” she said, her excitement building.
“No. It doesn’t,” Breakfast said.
“Stuart, I just found out who I really am inside. For the first time in my life I feel like I understand where I fit. I’m not giving that up,” she said, eyes blazing. “And anyway, we’re mechanics. We are magic, so we don’t belong in this world. We might even be a threat to it because eventually someone is going to find out about us.”
“But if we go, we won’t be able to do much magic without our witch,” Tristan said.
“Then she should come,” Una said.
“No,” Rowan said sharply. “It’s too dangerous.”
“More dangerous than this?” Una argued, gesturing to Scot’s dead body.
Rowan nodded sadly. “You have no idea.”
“Tristan,” Una implored. “Back me up.”
“I’d go in a second,” he said with a shrug. “My life here is over anyway.”
Una looked at Lily hopefully, biting her lower lip.
“No,” Rowan said.
“Yes,” Lily countered quietly. She looked at Rowan. “It’s never going to end unless I go back. And who’ll be next? Juliet? My mom? Rowan—I can’t run from Lillian any more than I can run from myself, and it was stupid of me to even try. I have to go back.”
Rowan’s face crumbled. Lily felt that unthinkable thing well up in him again.
Back to her army. What will I do…, he thought before shoving a new, dark idea away.
Rowan, if I use that army, it will be to fight Lillian. How could you ever think anything different of me?
I don’t want you fighting at all! Your last battle against Lillian almost killed you.
She sighed, frustrated. As soon as she decrypted one confusing part of Rowan’s feelings it seemed another even more baffling emotion swooped in to take its place. She honestly didn’t know what he wanted from her, probably because he didn’t know himself.