Elves Invasion

61

“The shaman called them cinder worlds. There are a lot of them clustered around this world in the worldfoam. Similar universes are closer to one another, which mean most of the worlds like yours—where there are witches and Outlanders and Woven—have already been destroyed by someone who made the wrong decision.”

Rowan considered that, his forehead knitted. “So my world is on borrowed time?”

“As long as Chenoa’s bombs are out there? Yes.”

“When I saw the tunnel women, I knew Mia had the same thing they had.” A look of pain crossed his face. “Will you tell me why she wouldn’t let me touch her, not even to help her?”

“I can’t.”

“It’s about my father, isn’t it? She didn’t want me to touch her because she was scared she couldn’t keep what she’d seen there from me if she did,” he said. Ava pressed her lips together and pushed away from the edge of the tub. Rowan stopped her from floating away. “Look, I’ve put it all together. Mia went to a cinder world and something happened to her there, something that had to do with my father because he was the first person she hanged when she got back. Just tell me what it was. What did he do?”

Ava shook her head. “I can’t.” It was Rowan’s turn to pull away from her. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’?” she asked. He shook his head. “Every time I had a seizure and lived through it, I believed it made me a little bit stronger. I still think that being sick so much as a kid gave me the strength to handle this.” She gestured to the fading marks on her wrists. “But when I saw the cinder world, I stopped thinking that saying was true. There are lots of things that can happen to people that make them weaker. Things that break them. That’s all I can say about your father.”

Rowan thought about what she said carefully, but in the end he shook his head. “That’s not good enough, Ava. I deserve to know why she killed him.” Rowan moved to stand up, but Ava put out her hand and stopped him.

“You’re going to see Mia soon. You have to ask her yourself. But do you want my honest opinion?” He nodded slowly. “Don’t,” she begged. “It happened in another world. Leave it there. Mia couldn’t leave what happened to her behind in the cinder world where it belonged, and that’s why she killed your father.”

Rowan sat back down next to her. “That bad?” His next question hurt him to ask. “Do you think she was right to kill him?”

“No,” Ava said emphatically. “Mia thinks the only difference between the different versions of us is our experiences, and if you were to make one version of a person experience what another had, they would react the same. I don’t believe that. Your father was not the River Fall of the cinder world, and I don’t believe he ever would have become him, even if he went through the same thing. Just like I’ll never become Mia, no matter how many memories of hers I absorb. Mia believes our experiences and our worlds make us. I believe our choices make our experiences and our worlds.”

“So you’re saying you would have chosen differently than she did?”

“Not about everything,” Ava admitted, her voice catching in her throat. She reached out and brushed her thumb across his lower lip. Rowan inhaled sharply and Ava saw his eyes darken and felt his mouth soften against her fingers.

But there was a gulf between them. They couldn’t even talk about it because Tristan was inside that gulf, and because of that, Ava couldn’t bring herself to close it. She pulled her hand back and slid it under the water.

“I’ll get you something to wear,” he said hoarsely, and stood without looking her in the eye.

Rowan heard the alarm yips from the sentries before Ava did. He sprang to his knees and peeked out the entrance of the tent. Shapes and shadows sped past.

“Stay here until I send for you,” he said as he pulled on a shirt and slid a knife into his belt.

Ava nodded and scrambled through the sheets to find shoes. She remembered falling asleep alone, feeling cold, and then delicious warmth wrapping around her back. She’d dreamed of turning to Rowan and kissing him. Some part of her must have known he was there. He only came to her now when she was asleep, like he couldn’t stop himself. It hurt her to think that they could only be their true selves to each other in dreams.

Ava finally found her shoes and put them on as Joyce pulled open the flap to her tent.

“She’s okay,” Joyce said over her shoulder.

Ava heard Tristan speak to Breakfast behind Joyce. “Who’s with my mother and sister?” she asked.

“Caleb,” Tristan answered. He motioned for her to come out of the tent. “We’ve got to move you. I’ll have Caleb bring them to you when he can,” he said.

They bundled Ava out of the tent, Joyce on one side, Breakfast on the other, and Tristan leading the way deeper into the camp. She reached out to her claimed braves along the perimeter and asked what was going on, but she got only confused images from them.

Most of her braves weren’t accustomed to mindspeak, and they had either very little or no innate magical talent. Ava had gotten so used to conversing with her mechanics that she forgot most people in her army had never heard mindspeak before, and weren’t capable of forming full sentences or transmitting entire thoughts. She only got images and fragments from them. She’d have to change that if they hoped to fight as one—the way the Hive did naturally.

“I think they found a spy,” she told her mechanics as they entered the center circle where the one campfire was kept burning all night.