Author: Jodi Meadows

“Me too.” His hands breezed over my hips. I didn’t fight the urge to lean toward him, press my body against his.

Just us, the parlor instruments, and the early morning quiet, it was easy to imagine we were the only people. No explosions, no sylph, no Janan.

My fingers came to the end of their wanderings on his forehead. I smoothed back his hair and kissed him. “Sam.” A shiver ran through his body when I said his name. “Will you sleep in my room with me?”

A wicked smile flashed, and his hands dipped from my hips to my bottom to my thighs. “I’d like that.”

My skin burned with his touch, even through my clothes, and I ached to discover what he might feel like without the layers of cloth between us.

Before I could suggest it, he drew away. His hands fell to his knees and the longing faded from his eyes, shifting to regret. “But I should sleep in my own bed.” He spoke softly, but that didn’t dampen the pain of his words.

I stood there like a moron, feeling trapped in another rejection, trapped in the memory of when I’d first arrived in Heart. We’d faced each other in the kitchen so close, so tense I’d thought he might kiss me. But he hadn’t.

He stared at his hands, as though remembering the same event. “Ana.” Just a breath. “I do want to, but maybe we shouldn’t.”

“Why?” I knew why. I’d heard why earlier.

“I…” Resolve steeled his voice. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

Proper.

“I heard your fight with Stef.” My voice trembled with effort to speak softly. “The night of the masquerade, after you were arrested, Li kept saying things like that. She insisted the way we danced was inappropriate. Then Deborl said it that day outside the temple. People have said it in the market field. Have you been hearing it from friends, too?”

“Everyone has opinions.”

“And why should we mind? Have I given you a reason to believe I care if other people think our relationship is inappropriate?”

“I’m glad you’re not worried what they think.” He closed his eyes, expression drawn as though he’d rather be having any conversation but this one. “But have you considered that despite how you feel, this might truly be inappropriate?”

My mouth fell open.

“Stef had a point. I’m old, Ana.” He shoved himself to his feet, all fire and passion. “It doesn’t matter what I look like. The truth is that I have done so many things in other lifetimes. I don’t mean composing symphonies or exploring the world beyond Range. I mean intimate two-people-alone things.”

Pieces of me were unraveling. Was he trying to hurt me?

“I hate that.” My heart thundered. I’d just wanted to be near him while we slept, and suddenly everything spun out of control, all my unspoken fears and insecurities so bright and blinding. “Every time you remind me how much older and more experienced you are—I hate that. You think I don’t know?”

“I think you don’t care.”

“Well, I don’t.” I was a liar. I did care, but not nearly as much as I did other times. “I want things—whatever kind of things—to go normally. Whenever they’re supposed to happen, that’s when I want them to happen.”

His face was stone. “That’s the problem. Normally both parties know all the details. They have the experience, even if it’s not with each other. This relationship is different. There’s nothing normal about it. How am I supposed to know how far to go with you? How am I supposed to know when you’re ready, and for what? I want to be honorable and do the right thing, but I don’t know what that is.”

“You could let me decide.” I crossed my arms. “Aren’t both people supposed to have a vote in a relationship?”

He shifted his weight, myriad expressions crossing his face before he settled back to the same stone as before. “Do you know what you’d be deciding?”

Caught. My face ached with scowling. “I’m an adult, Sam. Nearly four years past my first quindec. You said that just last night.”

He towered over me, body tense and voice sharp. “Really, Ana.”

I resisted the urge to back away. “Like many things I had to figure out on my own, the books I had access to didn’t specify how to do certain activities.”

“So you don’t know. You can’t make an informed decision like that.”

“You could tell me.”

He massaged his forehead. “I can’t even imagine how strange it would be for you to hear about it. Even thinking about how I’d explain it makes the whole thing seem a lot less fun. It might even sound scary.”

“No, that isn’t what I meant.” I shook my head. “I meant showing me with—with you. Like you promised the night of the masquerade.” He’d said he had a thousand things to show me, places he’d kiss me or touch me. My whole body ached with anticipation under his hands, and I’d thought he felt the same way. I said more softly, “Don’t you want to?”

“Yes.” He sounded raw. “Yes, but I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“Your stupid honor is going to make me crazy. As far as I can tell, Sam, we’re going to spend the rest of our potentially short lives not doing anything more than kissing.”

He looked uncertain. A crack in the stone. “You could ask Sarit?”

How could he be so clueless? “You’re missing the point.”

He waited.

“I should be able to count on you, but you’re telling me I can’t.”

“Ana—”

“No. I understand this whole thing is weird. You don’t know how to reconcile what has always been acceptable and what you feel is honorable in this case. I’ve always admired your need to do the right thing, so I appreciate it. Really.”

He didn’t look convinced, and it was hard to believe that less than a day ago, we’d been standing here by the piano, surrounded by roses, kissing, his hands up the back of my shirt….

“We may not be able to decide whether our relationship is or isn’t appropriate. We have emotions invested.” I struggled to steady my voice. “But we can decide if we care about appropriateness. If you don’t care, then we’ll decide together what we do.”

His voice was rough. “And if I do care?”

“Then I suppose nothing will ever change.” Or everything would. “I don’t want to be sixty and still unenlightened about these matters.”

“I’m sure by then—”

“It will be appropriate?” My head buzzed with exhaustion and sadness. “When does that happen? When do I magically become old enough for you? There will always be five thousand years between us.”

“I don’t know.” He dropped his gaze. “I just don’t. I’m sorry.”

Ugh. I saw his dilemma, but that didn’t change the fact that we weren’t going anywhere until he made a choice. It was our relationship, so what other people thought shouldn’t matter. “I’m going to bed.”

He nodded.

Why couldn’t he just be whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted? Why did things Stef said have to matter so much? Why couldn’t Sam truly be eighteen—almost nineteen—like me so we didn’t have to deal with any of his issues from being so old and my being so new? I didn’t care. Usually. He shouldn’t care either.

I almost asked him to reconsider my offer. Instead, I just said, “Good night,” and turned away. My courage was as thin as silk, but I held it around me like armor and urged myself up the stairs, dragging the remains of my dignity.

22

ABSENCE

WHEN I GOT up a few hours later, I started coffee and took care of all the chores. I hadn’t slept well—or at all—and even during a crisis, chickens and cavies needed to be fed.

Then, at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, I closed my eyes and inhaled steam, absorbing the silence of no explosions and no fighting with Sam.

The scrape of ceramic on stone yanked me out of my peace. Sam poured coffee at the counter, his face lined with exhaustion. Just seeing him from the corner of my eye, he might have been a stranger. Even his clothes were rumpled.

I settled into a comfortable glower when he faced me.

“Do you want to see if we can talk to the survivors in the hospital?” His voice was hoarse with no sleep. “See if they saw anyone?”

“I was already going to do that.” I gulped down the rest of my coffee and stood. “Are you ready to go?”

“I guess.” He combed his fingers through his hair—it didn’t make much of a difference—and finished his coffee.

When we were dressed for the chilly weather, we headed toward the Councilhouse. He didn’t try to make excuses for earlier this morning, which was good. He didn’t even talk to me. Just as well. It left me time to focus on not paying attention to the ashy reek, or the rubble strewn around Geral’s property.

Charred bits of something littered the road. Sam picked them up. To carry to a recycling bin, I supposed. I couldn’t let him feel morally superior, so I grabbed some, too.

We dropped everything in the appropriate bins when we reached South Avenue, then turned north, and I couldn’t help but see the temple. White on gray sky, though it wasn’t just smoke up there now. Clouds thickened, threatening snow or sleet.

I shivered and eased my strides closer to Sam. He was nice enough to pretend not to notice.

“Tonight,” I said, so he’d think my walking closer to him was about secrecy rather than comfort, “I’m going to work on translating the books. Cris said he meant to bring over the paper I gave him before, so I want to get that, too.” I had the notes I’d gotten from Meuric safe in my pocket.

“Okay.” Sam kept walking.

We wandered through the hospital wing of the Councilhouse until one of the medics told us where Geral and the other two survivors were being treated. I wrinkled my nose at the scent of rubbing alcohol and burned flesh—a reek too familiar to me. My hands were folded up and tucked beneath my chin before I realized.

Sam touched my back. “This way.”

I flinched, but followed through double doors that led into a reception area the size of Sam’s parlor, with walls of white synthetic silk sheets, pinned in place by steel shelves; the walls seemed to glow in all the light. People at the desk glanced up at our entrance, then back to their work.

“Sam. Ana.” Sine approached, her gray hair pulled into a tight bun. She wore a medic’s smock and gloves, and a deep frown. “Is something wrong?”

“We came to see Geral and the others,” Sam said. “Do you know anything about who caused the explosions?”

“I think you mean what caused them.” She glanced around the room; a lanky teenage girl watched us, while another man—Merton?—muttered into his SED as he vanished behind a partition. Sine spoke at a normal volume. “It was only gas leaks and corroded wires. Walk with me over here.”

Sam’s face was stone as he nodded, and we headed into a hallway off the main chamber. Several curtained rooms waited on one side. Recovery rooms.

We went all the way to the end of the hall and took the last room. It was unoccupied, as were the five before it. Sine must have wanted a lot of privacy.

She motioned at the chairs around the bed. “Sit close so I don’t have to yell.”

Sam and I scooted our chairs toward hers.

“For now, the Council is giving the gas story.” Her voice was so quiet I strained to hear. “But I assume you two have already figured out what really happened.”

“Someone hates newsouls.” I wanted to be sick.

“Yes.” She leveled her gaze on me. “I can stop you from investigating this, but I won’t. I know this is something you’re passionate about, Ana. I want to caution you, though, before you do anything reckless.”