Trial by Fire

“Yes, I can. Don’t worry. We’re nearly at the rendezvous point,” he said, hefting her easily in his arms. “You weigh next to nothing anyway.”


Rowan had gone ahead. When they caught up to him, he saw Tristan carrying Lily, and even in the dark Lily could read frustration oozing out of him; frustration and some other emotion she couldn’t quite place. Despite his displeasure, he didn’t object to Tristan carrying her, even though he clearly wanted to tell his friend to drop her on her behind.

The rendezvous point was close, as Tristan had promised. In less than ten minutes, Rowan stopped and called out softly, holding his hand to the side to indicate that Tristan should keep still. A moment later, Caleb came through the underbrush.

“You made it,” Caleb said, his wide grin showing brightly against his dark skin in the starlight. He and Rowan clasped hands briefly. “What happened to her?”

Rowan made an irritated sound and brushed past his friend, leaving Tristan to explain.

“She fell in the dark,” Tristan said hurriedly.

“She fell?” Caleb repeated, grimacing like he’d never heard anything so silly.

“Her ankle’s broken.” Tristan shook off Caleb’s next question and continued. “She’s not Lillian—I’m dead sure of it, Caleb. We need to get this straightened out right now. She’s in a lot of pain.”

“Come on. I’ll take you to the sachem,” Caleb replied reluctantly. He led the way through the small camp, occasionally glancing back at Lily warily. He still didn’t trust her.

“Isn’t a sachem, like, an Indian chief?” Lily whispered to Tristan, and quickly corrected herself. “Sorry—Native American chief?”

The only reason Lily knew this was because, being from Salem, she’d had to learn about the Pilgrim settlement in Massachusetts. A lot of land had been purchased from the sachem of the Algonquin tribe, including entire islands, like Nantucket. Lily was pretty sure there were no more Algonquin left in her world, although she knew that there was a high school in Northborough named after them. Not really a fair trade, in Lily’s estimation—a high school for your whole tribe.

Tristan gave her a puzzled look. “The sachem is the leader of the Outland people in this particular area. Well, what’s left of the Outland people, anyway,” he replied darkly. They passed a few guards, who inspected them carefully. Every time one of the guards recognized who it was that Tristan was carrying, Caleb had to stop to calm him down.

“What’s an Outland person?” Lily asked while Caleb argued with a few heavily armed men and women.

“An Outlander is someone who lives outside the walls of the Thirteen Cities,” Tristan replied.

“You only have thirteen cities in this world?”

“Why? How many do you have?”

Lily recalled the vibrant city encircled by those towering walls—vibrant, but not bigger than New York. In contrast, she looked at the old and thick forest that she had battled through for hours, and a strange feeling settled over her. Tristan carried her past an expansive oak that must have been growing for hundreds of years. If there were only thirteen cities in this America, just how large was this forest? This world suddenly felt much wilder then her own.

“So there are thirteen cities and this big, spooky forest, but what about the suburbs?” she asked in a hushed voice as more and more eyes peered at her as they neared the camp. “Where are they?”

“What’s a sub-urb?” Tristan replied, his mouth tentatively pronouncing the foreign word.