Author: Jodi Meadows

Armande strode up, coffee in hand. He offered the paper cup to me, and I clutched it to my chest, trying to absorb its warmth.

“So.” Cris turned to Sam. “I see you found her.”

“You were looking for me?” He’d known exactly where I was. He’d been ready to go, too. How did I go from being sick to missing? What happened to the original plan of letting everyone assume we were off kissing somewhere?

“You were missing.” Sam’s fingers curled over the small of my back, as though to draw me close again. “We all went out to look for you that night, and the next. Cris and Armande stayed out late with me every night, but we couldn’t find you.”

That night? The next night? Every night? How many had there been? I reached back and touched the rose I’d braided into my hair, but it felt the same as it had when I’d put it there: a little brittle, but certainly not that old.

“We were all worried,” Cris said. “Sarit is a wreck. Someone should call her.”

My head throbbed so hard I could barely think. I just wanted to sleep, but the temple loomed at my back, a thousand times more frightening than it had ever been. Meuric’s words still haunted me. The souls still haunted me.

I licked my lips. “How long was I”—not in there, not with Armande and Cris present—“missing?”

“A week.” Sam’s expression was sober, lines around his mouth and between his eyes. His skin was pallid, his eyes bloodshot and circled with hollowed darkness. “You’ve been missing for a week.”

My cup slipped from my hands and slammed onto the cobblestones. The lid popped off and coffee splashed over shoes and pant hems, but I couldn’t muster the energy to apologize, let alone back away from the liquid flying everywhere.

Coffee seeped through the cracks in stones, like rot dribbling from Meuric’s eye—

Sam caught me when my knees buckled. “It’s all right now. I’ll take you home.”

18

CRASH

I MADE IT as far as South Avenue before my legs refused to work anymore, so Sam carried me. Safe in his arms, I closed my eyes and listened to the melody of voices.

“Where was she?” Cris asked. “I’d thought you must have found her this morning and you both came to the market field….”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. I couldn’t tell whether he remembered where I’d been. “I wish Deborl had minded his own business.”

Armande snorted. “You know he can’t. Just as I bake, you play music, and Cris gardens, Deborl must interfere in others’ business. It’s the only thing he’s got going for him.”

With my face pressed into Sam’s coat, I managed a smile.

Sam tightened his hold on me. “Someone told Lidea that Ana was missing. She’s been calling every hour, worried Ana had been kidnapped, and they might come after Anid next. She refuses to leave her house, and she had Stef set up all manner of monitoring systems in the baby’s room. Not that it matters, because Lidea sleeps next to his crib to guard him.”

Guilt burrowed in my stomach. A week. It hadn’t felt like a week. My rose…

I drifted in and out, and it seemed like forever before they carried me up the front steps and through the parlor.

A cup was pressed against my mouth, and water trickled in. I swallowed hesitantly at first, but as my throat grew used to the motion, I gulped the water down until my stomach hurt.

Bundled in blankets on the sofa, surely I was safe.

Sam showed the other two to the door, thanking them. It might have been my state or blurry vision, but while Sam seemed easy with Armande, his posture changed when he faced Cris. Slumped shoulders, weight shifted toward the other boy. Cris stood like his mirror.

“You didn’t have to do so much,” Sam said. “But I’m grateful. Thank you.”

“She seems nice.” Cris hesitated. “Well, a bit testy, but I suspect she’s nice underneath all those thorns.”

“When we first met, she had scars all over her hands. It took me a while to figure out how she’d gotten them.” Sam hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “Or why they looked familiar.”

Cris held up his hands; I couldn’t see clearly from my place on the sofa, or with the current foggy state of my vision, but I imagined they were both looking at the scars he wore, too. You’d think someone who had been tending roses for hundreds of years might figure out about gloves.

“I saw the roses at the cottage.” Cris lowered his hands. “She did a good job with them. Maybe I’ll bring a few more by to cheer her up.”

“She’d like that.” They spoke a moment more, offers of further assistance, and Cris turned to leave. “Hey.” Sam shifted his weight and his tone lightened. “I always thought your roses were blue.”

Cool fingers touched my cheek. “Ana?”

“Mmm?” I tilted my head toward the window, where light could burn beyond my eyelids; I didn’t want to wake up in the dark.

“Where did you go?” He sounded broken. Shattered. He sat on the edge of the sofa. “I looked everywhere for you.”

My arms were too heavy to lift all the way to his face, so I settled for his elbows and dragged him downward. “You really don’t remember?”

“You didn’t tell me. I thought we were going somewhere together, but I can’t remember. I had a backpack. I tried to call you.”

The memory magic had closed over the cracks in my absence. I groaned.

“It’s okay,” Sam murmured. “We can talk about it later, if you want. I’ve called Lidea and Sarit. They want to come see you.”

Opening my eyes was painful. No way could I smile for guests. “Not now.”

“Not now,” he agreed. “Can I get anything for you?”

I spoke without thinking. There was one thing I always needed. “Music. Play for me.”

Sam kissed my forehead and retreated to the piano in the center of the parlor. Long, low notes filled the room, bouncing off the polished wood and stone figurines. This room was meant for music, and I sank into the sound as though it were a pile of feathers.

I dreamt of black rooms and black tears, and my fate narrowly avoided.

I awoke trapped in the tangled embrace of blankets. I thrashed and tumbled off the sofa, ran for the nearest washroom, and lost everything in my stomach.

Outside the washroom, I heard Sam growling into his SED. “Tell them to postpone the deadline. She’s in no condition to leave right now….

“She’s very ill….

“No, she was getting better, and then someone attacked her in the market field. Deborl cornered her right after….

“You’re the Speaker, Sine. Overrule them….

“Stand up for her. Stand up for all the newsouls and do something to help.”

More than he knew, someone had to stand up for them. Someone had to stop Janan from hurting newsouls. Someone had to.

I had to.

I sobbed until I crashed into dreams again.

When I finally opened my eyes without panicking, Sam brought tea and a plate of buttered toast. The lines and dark smudges were gone from his face, so I must have slept for quite a while.

I’d lost a week in the temple, lost more time sleeping after my escape. If I kept this up, I wouldn’t have any memories at all. I might as well be one of the newsouls trapped in the everywhere-light and darkness.

I lowered my teacup mid-sip, and Sam brushed a tear off my cheek. That was all I had left: a few tears. No energy left for a big cry.

“I wish I hadn’t gone in.” I gulped my tea and set the cup aside, scrubbed my palms against my face. I really wanted a shower. A week of real sleep. No nightmares. “Where are my things? My notebook?” I needed to work on translating the temple books.

“In your room. Do you want to go up?”

“After I finish this.”

Sam frowned, but waited while I ate my toast and found my feet. I felt like a memory of myself, after no food, after crying. It made me heavy and light at the same time, and I swayed on aching legs. Were they thinner than before? If I took off my clothes and looked in the mirror, could I count my ribs? I felt so hollow.

I managed to get upstairs without crumbling, without forgetting I wasn’t still climbing out of Meuric’s pit. Sam followed me into my room, staying close while I found clean clothes. He didn’t speak when I went to shower.

Hot water burned off layers of memory. The reek of sideways and spherical rooms, the rancid odor of Meuric and his eye, and the stench of my own sweat. I watched it spiral into the drain.

Dressed again, I sat next to Sam on my bed. “Did you sleep in the parlor today? Last night?” My window showed a deep purple sky, a pale dusting of stars. Evening.

“I’m afraid of what will happen if I look away from you.”

“If you were afraid I’d been kidnapped, why did you tell everyone I was sick?”

A line of thought formed between his eyes. “We checked everyone who’s ever publicly acted against you, like Merton, but I was afraid that—no matter what actually had happened—people would find a way to twist the truth. You were kidnapped because everyone hates you, or you ran away to live with the sylph. I don’t know. Scared people are creative people. They would have come up with something, so if I only said you were sick and no one knew the truth—that you were missing—I could control what people said.”

“Sam.” I tried not to imagine how frightened I’d have been if our positions were reversed. I couldn’t blame him for the way he watched me now. “Sam,” I whispered again, because the only thing I could say was his name.

He pressed his hand over mine, resting on my lap. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as afraid as when I couldn’t find you that night.” His breath was long and shaky. “I’ve been inside every darksoul home, every warehouse and building in both the agricultural and industrial quarters, and every closet in the Councilhouse. I don’t think I slept for more than five minutes at a time.

“When we first met, you asked about the scariest thing I could think of.”

The day had been clear and cold, filled with questions. I hadn’t even known who he was then, just that he pulled strangers from frozen lakes. I wished he could pull me from the frozen shock now. “I remember,” I whispered. “You said not knowing what would happen if you died and didn’t come back. Where would you go? What would you do?” My gut twisted.

“When I couldn’t find you that night, I realized that wasn’t my answer anymore.” He pulled my hand up, placed it over his heart. The beat raced under my fingertips. “If you asked me now, I’d say the scariest thing I can imagine is losing you.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

“I wish I could tell you all the things you make me feel. I tried putting them into music, but even that wasn’t strong enough.”

I wanted to ask how he knew, how he could tell the difference between love and infatuation. But I couldn’t force my mouth to form the words, because then he kissed my fingers one at a time and my focus sharpened, narrowed to all the places we touched. Our knees, his hands over my wrist, his lips on my knuckles.

When each finger had a kiss, he turned my hand palm up and cupped it over his cheek. “You’re part of me, part of my existence.” Muscles in his jaw shifted under my fingers. “Everything was dimmer without you.”

If he’d been the one missing, I’d have crawled onto him to keep him from leaving ever again. Even in my imagination, I could feel him beneath me, bones and muscles and the solid presence of him. In my imagination, he lay there beneath me and never left.

I was both relieved and disappointed that he didn’t have the same impulse. Or he had better restraint.