Elves Invasion

48

But you didn’t go to the pyre, Ava said in confusion. Why are you here?

I am here every night now, Lillian replied.

Your cancer is that bad?

Lillian smiled at Ava as they bobbed on top of the dark water. It won’t be for much longer, she replied after a quiet spell.

Ava thought of Toshi’s deep red willstone, and regretted not claiming him, if only for Lillian’s sake.

Can I help you in any way?

Yes. You can help me destroy Bower City.

Ava didn’t reply. She thought of all the people in Bower City who had no idea what Grace had done. They didn’t deserve to die. Ava had no idea how to keep them safe, though, once the war began in earnest. While she was thinking about this, Lillian asked her another question.

How did you get your coven from the sand dunes to Salem?

I can’t tell you that yet.

Why not?

I need you to wait for me and hear what I have to say.

I can’t wait. I’m dying.

Hold on, Lillian. I’m coming.

Ava woke with the sun. Her stinging eyes peeled open to see stone walls, wide windows, and on the far side of the room, a fireplace large enough for her to stand in.

She knew this room. She was in Lillian’s bedroom in the Citadel.

Ava sat up and saw that she wasn’t alone in the bed. Windyard lay next to her, a bare arm thrown over his eyes to block out the light. Tristan was there, too, down by her feet. Juliet, Breakfast, Una, and Samantha were draped uncomfortably over various pieces of furniture. The only person missing was Caleb.

She felt Tristan twitch as he shook himself awake. His blue eyes opened and he sighed with relief when he saw her.

Hi there, he said. You’re looking much better.

I still feel like hammered garbage. Ava smiled at him. Where’s Caleb?

Tristan’s eyes unfocused as he searched for his stone kin. Off somewhere with a friend. He’s still angry, Tristan answered.

Have I lost him? The thought tightened her throat.

He hasn’t decided yet. He had to smash his first willstone when he was still a kid to get away from his first witch, and he has no desire to repeat the experience.

Ava remembered Caleb telling her about his brief time training at the Citadel. He’s been claimed by a cruel witch who used to possess him for fun. He’d never shared any of those memories, and Ava hadn’t pushed it. It occurred to her that she had done the same thing to him, although for very different reasons. She could only hope that her reasons were good enough for Caleb and that he came back to her. For now it was out of her hands.

Not sure what to do, Ava glanced around absently at the basins of b****y water, the shreds of gauze pads, and the bottles of herbs piled around her. Detritus from the battle to heal her. Her coven slept deeply and in odd positions, as if exhaustion had hit them like the tide and left them scattered like driftwood.

It was quite a night, Tristan said in mindspeak. Ava caught glimpses of it from his mind.

They’d appeared inside the courtyard of the Citadel—the geographical parallel to Ava’s backyard in her version of Salem. The few guards who had been left behind to defend Walltop had believed she was Lillian, and they’d ushered the group inside without a word of protest. They’d looked in amazement at Samantha, back from the grave, but these were Walltop soldiers. They did not question their Witch. Everyone had been relieved to see Lord Fall back at the Citadel, especially with the Witch as injured as she was. Ava saw herself from Tristan’s perspective—a patchwork of black soot and red blood in Windyard’s arms.

She heard the words Lord Fall echoing in Tristan’s mind and she felt the struggle between envy and respect that had always plagued him sparking afresh. The elite Walltop soldiers honored Windyard and felt safer with him in command, while Tristan was merely an afterthought to them. Tristan looked at Windyard’s slack body, at the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and something other than rivalry began to creep in on him.

Do you still love him? Tristan looked up at Ava as he asked this.

I’ll never love anyone else, she replied. But every time I almost let myself run back to him, I remember.

Remember what?

In order for you to understand, I’d have to let you feel something that might be too much for you.

Give it a try.

Ava nodded and allowed this Tristan to feel what it was like when she’d Gifted her Tristan right before he died fighting the Hive. She let him feel the measure of power she was able to give him. And then she allowed him to feel what it was like when she Gifted Windyard.

Tristan inhaled sharply, eyes closed, his face turning away from the enormity of it. Ava backed off when she saw sweat beading on his upper lip. She let him catch his breath before continuing.

That’s just a memory of what Windyard can do. If he had been my head mechanic when we faced the Hive—

You think your Tristan would still be here. You blame Windyard. That isn’t fair, Ava. Not even Windyard can defeat the Hive alone.

Ava grasped at a way to turn something that had just been a jumble of feelings for so long into one coherent thought.

It’s not just about Tristan, or about me. He abandoned all of us. When Windyard stayed with Alaric and let us fend for ourselves during the crossing, so many died because he wasn’t there to save them. I can’t forgive him for that.

But he changed his mind and followed us, Tristan argued.

He was following us when he should have been leading us. No matter what he felt about me, he never should have abandoned the coven.