Elves Invasion

30

Ava waited, but Lillian had blocked her out.

“Ava? Are you okay?” Windyard asked.

She startled and looked down at herself, but saw no burns. She was unscathed by the fire. Windyard saw what Ava was doing and shook his head.

“I’m not talking about your body,” he said.

Ava looked at him. The only Windyard. He had no copy. If he died, that was it. She’d never seen him as fragile before, and the thought that anyone could go from life to death with one sharp tug made her desperate. It could happen to him.

Did you do that on purpose? she asked Lillian. Make it so I only had one of him? But she didn’t get an answer. She didn’t need one. There had only ever been one Windyard for both of them.

“Lillian is marching her army to Bower City,” Ava told him. “She’s emptied Walltop, the city guard, and claimed tens of thousands more from the other Thirteen Cities. She means to take the west.”

Windyard nodded like he’d expected as much. “Alaric will see her army on the move. If he finds out about Bower City he’ll want to take it for himself.”

“He probably already knows,” Caleb said. “You can’t keep a secret like that once you’ve mustered an army. Lillian’s not marching west to fight nothing.”

“What about the other Covens?” Tristan asked. “Richmond, Exeter, New York . . . they’ll all want a piece of what the west has got.”

“The other Covens will wait and see what happens to Lillian,” Windyard said. “If she kills herself and her army trying to get there, they’ll set their sights on Salem. Nina, who’s Lillian’s second right now, won’t be able to hold as Salem Witch. She isn’t a firewalker.”

“I remember Nina,” Ava said, her eyes narrowing. Nina had straddled Windyard in the nightclub where Elias had died. Ava had wanted to punch her then, and as she recalled Nina throwing a leg over Windyard’s lap and rubbing her hands all over his chest, she still wanted to punch her now.

Windyard turned to Ava, unaware of her flare of jealousy. “Does Lillian know that Grace controls the Woven?”

“She knows everything that we know,” Ava said. “She’s going west to end the Woven, once and for all.”

And she means to kill Grace, no matter how many have to die in the process, she added in mindspeak for only Windyard to hear.

Windyard nodded. I don’t blame her. Juliet was all she had left.

Ava winced at Juliet’s name, and quickly stuffed down her anguish. Later, she told herself. I’ll cry later.

“Even with all her claimed, Lillian can’t stand against the Hive,” Windyard said aloud.

Caleb nodded in agreement. “The Hive is a million strong,” he said soberly.

“Would she tell the other Covens about Grace and the Woven? Maybe get them to help?” Breakfast asked.

“I don’t know,” Ava said. “I don’t know if they’d be willing to take the risk like Lillian would. They’re pretty safe where they are.”

“Yeah,” Caleb chuffed. “Witches have no reason to want to get rid of the Woven. They do just fine ruling their cities behind their walls.”

“Can Alaric help Lillian?” Una asked. Caleb, Tristan, and Windyard stared at her disbelievingly. “No, seriously, guys. Lillian has her personal crusade against the Woven—fine—but the people who really need to get rid of the Woven are the Outlanders. If Alaric knew that Grace made them, and still controls them, why wouldn’t he want to fight her?” Una’s voice flared with indignation. “She’s an Outlander who’s been killing Outlanders for almost two centuries. Alaric should want to kick the ever-loving piss out of her when he finds out.”

“It’s not Alaric’s decision,” Ava said coldly. “It’s mine. That’s my army he’s pretending to lead. They’re my claimed.” Everyone went silent. Ava scrubbed her hands over her face and sat down on the ground. “And they’re on the other side of the continent.”

“And in another world,” Breakfast reminded her.

“Oh, the worldjumping bit is easy for Ava now,” Una said. “Look at her.”

Ava was so spent her muscles were twitching, but she wasn’t on the verge of death. “I wouldn’t say easy,” Ava grumbled.

“Why can’t you worldjump us back east?” Tristan asked.

“Because it’s . . . well, it’s not the same thing,” she said, trying to picture how she would do something like that. “That’s teleporting, not worldjumping.”

“You’d think it’d be easier,” Breakfast said. “I mean, a universe is farther away than Salem, right?”

Ava looked up at him, so tired she couldn’t see straight. “No, actually it isn’t. Every universe is only a vibration away.”

Breakfast shrugged. “Maybe Salem is, too.”

Ava squinted at Breakfast, trying to order her thoughts enough to explain why he was wrong. If she’d taught him to spirit walk, like she’d intended to months ago, he’d know the difference. Or maybe he wouldn’t. The shaman had only taught her to spirit walk into other universes, because his reason for teaching her was to restore the balance. He’d only taught her enough to get her back to her world, but now that she thought about it, there had to be a way to spirit walk and stay in one universe. She’d just never learned how.Those first few times she’d spirit walked, before she really knew what she was doing, she remembered rising up and looking around. Her spirit was still in the same world that her body was in, but everything had looked gray. What had the shaman called that gray spirit world she’d walked in? The overworld? Ava couldn’t be sure he’d ever said that, but she felt like that was its name. It was like the Mist. It dawned on Ava that maybe they were the same thing. She rubbed her forehead, confused.

“He said that I had to be close to death to spirit walk—starved, dehydrated—and every time I met Lillian in the Mist we were both near death or in pain. I think the Mist, or overworld, or whatever you want to call it, could be a path. A bridge across this world, not just into another one,” Ava mumbled.