“I don’t hate you,” he said gruffly. “And Tristan is city bred. He wouldn’t last a day out here on his own, although I’m sure you’d have preferred his company to mine.”
“I didn’t say that,” she replied quietly. She actually felt safe with Rowan. There was something about him that made Lily think he could protect her from whatever lurked out there in the shifting darkness between the enormous trees.
Lily stared at his profile for a few moments, trying to decide if she should keep questioning him when he looked so forbidding. He had a straight, aquiline nose, and full, well-defined lips. His skin was a light-caramel color, and his cheekbones were high and sharp. It was a strong face. He was very handsome, she decided, but his fierce expression made him almost impossible to approach.
“What?” he finally asked, his tone just short of snapping. Lily looked away, and silence drew out between them. “What?” he repeated, more gently this time.
“Are you, Caleb, and Tristan related?”
“Not by blood,” he replied. “We’re kin of a different kind.”
“But you can all mindspeak with each other, right?”
“Yes. When we have to.”
“Why wouldn’t you do it all the time? It seems really handy.”
He glanced over at her, his eyes measuring her. “You can’t lie when you mindspeak, or hide how you feel. Sometimes people need to keep things to themselves.”
“Were you mindspeaking with them just now?”
“No. Not at this distance,” he said. The corners of his mouth tipped up with a little smile. “I’m not you.”
Lily couldn’t decide if he was giving her a compliment or making fun of her. She didn’t understand Rowan, and she had no idea how to read him.
“Our willstones are tuned to each other. That’s why we can mindspeak. We are what’s called stone kin,” he said, surprising Lily by offering the information. “But only a powerful witch can sync up her willstone to other people’s and get into their heads from a large distance.”
“Into their heads?” Lily repeated, not sure she liked what that implied.
“That’s why they’re called willstones. The crystals get keyed to a person’s unique brain waves. Once a crystal is keyed, it answers to the will of its wearer, directing and amplifying a mental want or desire. Everyone here wears them.”
“So everyone here can do magic?”
“An average person can do small things, like seal something shut until they will it to open, turn lights off and on, or find something they’ve lost. Some of the more gifted can even share a little mindspeak with blood relations or stone kin. Mechanics can heal, regulate bodies, and strengthen the potions they create—along with a few simple spells, like camouflage and glamour.” He stopped and looked at her. “But only crucibles can do real magic because of their natural ability to transmute matter into energy and force inside their bodies. Their willstones help to direct and intensify that ability.”
Rowan fished his willstone out from under his clothes and showed it to Lily. She leaned close to peer at it.
“But a witch can do even more than that,” he continued. Lily looked back up at him. “She can unlock another’s willstone so that the wearer enacts her will. And that’s just the start.”
“What’s the difference between a crucible and a witch?” Lily asked.
“All witches start out as crucibles, but not all crucibles have the strength or the talent to become a witch. Most just stay crucibles. Very few are capable of graduating to full witch. There’s a level of magic—it’s called warrior magic—that crucibles don’t have the power to do.”