Rowan Read Online Free PDF Page B

cringes. She’s terrified of me.
    Tristan asks after Caleb, and I answer. Then I say, “We have to move her.”
    “Where are you taking me?” Lillian asks. She’s clutching at herself, like she thinks I’m going to attack her.
    I unlock her cage and pull her out of it harder than I probably need to, and Tristan calls me on it. I feel like a fool—an angry fool. Gallant Tristan saves the princess from the dirty, violent Outlander.
    “Then you take her,” I say, shoving Lillian at him. “But if she bolts for the woods, her death is on you.”
    “Fine. It’s on me,” he says out loud, and then adds in mindspeak: What the hell is wrong with you?
    Lillian doesn’t give me a chance to answer. She tilts her freckled nose up at me and puts on her haughty face, saying that she’s responsible for herself. I see anger staining her cheeks pink and brightening her eyes. Her mouth is just inches from mine and I’m aching to kiss her. I’m sick with it, and sick because of it. She rambles on about monsters (she knows they’re called Woven) and then says, “I’m not a frigging moron. And I don’t appreciate being ignored, Rowan whatever-your-last-name-is. Where are you taking me?”
    “Like I’d tell you that.” I’ve never heard the world “frigging” before, but I get the gist of its meaning. Pretending not to know my last name was an inspired touch—even I almost believe that she doesn’t know me. And I bury this, but it hurts. “She’s all yours,” I tell Tristan. Let him deal with her. It’s what he’s always wanted, anyway. Maybe something did happen between them—that would explain why he’s always dogged after her. I’m choking on the thought as I turn my back on them.
    I slip into the forest, heading in Caleb’s direction, not really caring anymore if they follow. Lillian crashes along after me, tripping over everything as if on purpose. She’s having a horrible time of it, and that’s only making me angrier. Her skin is reacting to every irritant possible, and she doesn’t do anything to counteract it. She even twists her ankle and pretends not to know how to mend it.
    I glance at the ankle and see that it’s broken. She’s in a lot of pain. Crying, even. A sinking doubt starts to creep in on my anger. This can’t be an act anymore, can it? Tristan picks her up and carries her. Just seeing her in his arms, and the way she settles into him like she’s done it a million times before, eats away at me. I go ahead of them and give Tristan the direction of the rendezvous point in mindspeak.
    When they arrive at camp after me, Caleb goes to them. Tristan tells him that the girl isn’t Lillian—he believes her story now. Caleb and I go to get the sachem. We bring the sachem to her, and he bends down close to look her in the eye. He asks her a few questions and makes up his mind.
    “This isn’t Lillian, Rowan,” he says.
    I fight it—of course I fight it. What Alaric doesn’t understand is that I can look into her cells and see the life helix. I know this is Lillian.
    “Look in her eyes, Rowan,” he tells me. “There’s no death there.”
    He has a point. I look down at the girl sitting next to the fire, and see again what I saw when I first laid eyes on her outside the café this morning. Innocence. Alaric asks me if this girl is as powerful as Lillian.
    “There’s none stronger,” I say. And it’s true. She’s so heavy with power she seems to punch a hole in the night. But her power doesn’t flow through her as it should. It’s dammed up inside of her … because she’s never used it. More doubt weakens my resolve.
    “Can she do everything that Lillian can?” Alaric asks.
    “Maybe. With training,” I answer. I see something light up in Alaric’s eyes.
    He speaks some more with her, but I barely hear them. Is she really from another world? I can’t accept it. Alaric has accepted it so easily. Too easily.
    He orders me to fix her ankle, and I’m glad because it gives me