I don’t tell Tristan. A little bit of fear sharpens the wits—a lot steals them.
When we start to get closer to Alaric, I can hear Caleb more clearly and I send him a warning.
Tristan and I have kidnapped Lillian. We’re bringing her to Alaric for justice.
I feel a swell of emotion from Caleb.
I’ll hang back for you and bring you to Alaric myself, he replies in mindspeak.
Careful. Woven are right behind your group.
Tell me something I don’t know.
Tristan sees me smiling. “You reach Caleb?” he guesses. His range for mindspeak isn’t as far as mine. I nod and Tristan relaxes even more knowing we’ll have our stone kin with us soon. As his anxiety thins, mine thickens. I’m bringing Lillian to justice for what she’s done, and if Alaric is fair, he’ll give her the same sentence that she’s passed on to so many of our people. He’ll hang her. My feet slow.
Trouble? Tristan asks.
I shake my head and pick up the pace.
It isn’t long before Caleb finds us—silently appearing between the dark trees in a way that defies logic for such a giant. He’s on foot and carrying a lacquered wicker cage. We use that kind of cage to trap large animals, but that’s not why Caleb brought it. The cage is for Lillian. He wants her contained, probably so she can’t run away.
After we greet each other, and the initial shock of seeing Lillian in the flesh passes for Caleb, we put her in the cage. For a while we just stand over her, looking. None of us can believe we captured the queen.
“What is she wearing?” Caleb asks. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen thick cotton breeches like that before.”
“I’ve never seen Lillian wear breeches, period,” Tristan adds. He turns to me. “You?”
“No, she hates them. They make her too hot,” I say. We all go back to staring at her.
“Are you sure that’s Lillian?” Caleb asks.
I give him a look.
“I don’t know,” Tristan muses.
“What don’t you know?” I say.
Tristan sighs. “It doesn’t feel like her,” he says, gearing up for a fight.
I open my mouth to argue, but I can’t. I know that the girl in the cage is Lillian, but Tristan’s right. It doesn’t feel like her.
“We should bring her to the sachem,” Caleb says. “Let him decide.”
I’m just realizing now that from the moment I laid eyes on her outside the café I’ve reeled from one snap decision to the next. I haven’t once stopped to think things through. What if getting to the sachem is what she wanted?
“I don’t trust her,” I reply.
Caleb asks me questions about her, trying to get to the bottom of this, and I keep telling him that the girl in the cage is Lillian, but I also keep saying that there’s something off about her. I know I’m not making any sense, and that I’m starting to rant, but I can’t shake this feeling that something terribly wrong has happened.
I’m combing through every tiny detail, but I’m still not getting it. My da used to say that it’s easier to find things when they’re small. All you have to do is be careful and you’ll spot it eventually. But when what you’re looking for is big, you have to be able to stand back to see it all. Sometimes, you just can’t get far enough. I have a sinking feeling that something huge has happened to me to today, but I can’t remove myself enough from the situation to see it.
Then I hear her move. She starts to yell. And she calls out for Tristan. She asks for Tristan to help her. Not me.
She’s coughing and hacking, complaining about the mold. I light a sage bundle to purify the air and she stops. Why is she acting like this is bothering her? Mold hasn’t bothered her since she was eight, and I say as much. The sound of her voice is irritating—if only because I want to hear it so badly.