Author: Jodi Meadows

“What about Deborl?” I asked.

Whit lowered his voice. “He’s a Councilor.”

“Who hates newsouls.” Maybe I didn’t know Deborl well, but I knew enough about him and his choice of friends. Merton had attacked me, spoken out against me, said those horrible things after Anid was born. And Deborl hadn’t seemed to care when someone attacked me in the market field. “Do you think anyone might have let it slip to Deborl—”

“That fast?” Whit shook his head. “Everyone was at Sam’s for a long time after the discussion. No one left early, right? No one had time to speak to anyone, accidentally reveal our plans, and then the second person go out and set explosives. There just wasn’t time.”

How long did it take to set up an explosive and get away? Or not get away, if it was Deborl? He’d been at Geral’s. “SED messages.”

Neither Sam nor Whit argued with that possibility.

“What are you trying to prove?” Red veined Whit’s eyes; I was upsetting him. “Do you want someone to have betrayed us? Why are you pushing so hard?”

“Someone has to.” My throat tightened, making my voice pinched and desperate. “I hate the idea of someone betraying us, but I swore I’d protect newsouls to the best of my ability. I have to.”

Both men stayed silent, just watching me like I might burst.

At last, Whit spoke softly. “Would it be easier if one of our friends were somehow responsible for this?”

“Easier than watching more newsouls die.” I swallowed hard. “Easier than not being able to do anything at all.”

Whit glanced at Sam, something passing between them, and then Sam touched my elbow. “We’d better go.”

I wanted to apologize to Whit, but I wasn’t sure what it’d be an apology for. Instead, I thanked him for his time as I pulled on all my warm clothes again. Sam and I headed out.

“I can’t protect newsouls from Janan.” My eyes stung with tears and cold. “I can’t pull them out of the temple and bring them to life, no matter how much I wish I could. But I should at least be able to protect the ones who escaped. I should be able to protect them from people.”

Who was I kidding? I could barely protect myself.

My hand fell on my tiny knife, and I squeezed it until my knuckles burned. Not much protection.

“Let’s go.” Sam sounded like he didn’t know how to respond to my confession. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have known, either.

Before, snow had left a white sheet on the ground; now it coated cobblestones like a blanket.

“I think we should go home,” Sam said, linking his arm with mine. I wasn’t ready for this kind of closeness, but he knew his way around the city in the dark. I tightened my arm with his.

“But we need to speak to everyone.”

“Not tonight.”

“And if there are more explosions? I won’t be able to live with myself if another newsoul dies because we stopped just short of catching this person.” There was no wind and the snow fell in silence, but my voice still rose as if we stood in the middle of a blizzard. Icy air snaked inside my clothes, making me tremble.

“Ana, you’re shivering already, and we haven’t been out but two minutes. How many times do you expect me to keep you from frostbite or hypothermia?” He brought his face so close to mine I could feel the heat of his words. His skin. “You enjoy making me worry, don’t you?”

“No, I hate it.” There wasn’t much vehemence, though. “I want to do the right thing.”

“Sometimes”—he tugged me closer to him—“that means not freezing your fingers off. We still have tomorrow. Anything that happens between now and then is not your fault. Let’s go home.”

“Fine.” I hated when he was right. Snow was piling up; if we waited too long, getting home would be more of a challenge than either of us could handle, especially on empty stomachs. “But first thing tomorrow, we’re either going to see people, or be making a lot of calls.”

He glanced toward the sky, though it was just dark with swirls of snow. “Calls, unless this lets up. Which I doubt.”

I almost asked how he knew, but right. He was five thousand years old. He could probably tell by the smell or the size of snowflakes.

Our trek back to the southwestern residential quarter was long and cold and slow. We passed the temple—Sam had somehow maneuvered so he walked between the tower and me—and still had a long way to go when the wind kicked up. What had been a beautiful, if annoyingly timed, snowfall became rough and stinging.

Snow flew horizontally down South Avenue. It howled like a sylph as it cut through narrow places in the industrial quarter. Trees whipped in a frenzy. Sharp wind scoured the cobblestones clear, and if not for Sam, it might have carried me off, too. I was a rose petal in a snowstorm.

Drifts stood knee-high against buildings, though Sam managed to find walkable paths. I held tight to him, wishing we were already home. My legs ached with cold and fighting the wind. My muscles burned with exertion, and it felt like I should be sweating, but frigid air stole the ability. It was hard to breathe.

Once we reached our street, thick conifers buffered us from the wind. The night was black and snow. My eyes burned. Every bit of me was freezing, even inside my wool coat and mittens.

“Just a little farther.” Sam drew me to our walkway, where more evergreens sheltered us from the screaming wind. He breathed hard, too.

Finally, we reached the house, and Sam’s mitten slipped on the doorknob as he spoke. “I wanted to ask you something. You’ve been talking about making your own decisions, wanting to do things for yourself.” He tried the knob again, but snow and wool slid across each other.

“And?” I scrubbed my mittens on my coat and grasped the knob, a dim shape in the glow from the window. It turned.

“Do you want your own house? Li’s or Ciana’s?” His words tumbled over one another as the door swung open. “I’m sure Sine could convince the Council if you did.”

I felt like I had a mouthful of snow as I stared up at him. Both houses were across the city, in the northeastern residential quarter. Had he changed his mind? Decided he loved Stef or Cris more?

Maybe remembering why he and Cris had separated made him realize the same thing would happen with me.

Or—I’d probably gone too far, ruining things for him all the time. The Council, the talk with Whit, the way I’d dragged him into my research of sylph and Menehem’s machine. Nothing had gone right for him since he’d found me in Rangedge Lake.

How was I supposed to respond? Say yes, I wanted to leave? I didn’t. I wanted to stay, because even when I was mad at him, I still liked being with him. But if I said I didn’t want to leave, he’d say okay whether or not he really meant it. And I’d keep ruining things for him. There was no right answer.

Sam wasn’t even looking at me as I stood there in the doorway like an idiot. He’d dropped my arm and taken one step into the parlor, and he didn’t move.

I shuffled the rest of the way in and edged around him. If I was going to cry, I’d at least do it where my tears wouldn’t freeze on my eyes. The door slammed behind me, leaving us in silence. “I don’t understand,” I whispered at last.

“Me neither,” he murmured. He wore a stricken expression. But he’d been the one to suggest it.

No, that wasn’t why he was upset. I blinked through the tears blurring my vision. The parlor was different.

Destroyed.

Every instrument had been completely demolished.

24

FADE

“NO.” SAM DROPPED to the floor with a thump, staring confusedly at the wreckage. He gathered up bits of something now unidentifiable and turned it over in his hands, looking lost. His agony might kill me.

Low light illuminated the parlor, golden on the hardwood floor, braided rugs, honeycomb shelves between here and the kitchen.

Every time I thought I was free from the horror, though, my eyes were drawn back to the splintered maple wood and shattered ivory keys strewn about the parlor. Ebony keys dashed into slivers. Snapped wires curled on themselves as though trying to hide. Hammers and levers and tuning pins, often overlooked pieces that made the music happen. He’d wanted me to understand them while learning to play the piano, understand their true importance.

Here they were. On the floor.

Then, my eyes acknowledged a twisted length of silver that wasn’t part of the piano. Sam’s flute, its keys stripped off, leaving gaping black holes across its body.

Cracked pronghorn bones, shredded osprey feathers. Heavy curves of carved wood lay scattered across the floor with harp strings hanging on like cut ligaments. The corpse of a violin rested at my feet, bow broken in half.

I stepped over it, careful not to damage it further. As if that mattered. Glass crunched under my shoes, and I winced, but Sam didn’t notice. He stayed by the door, staring as though dead.

Centuries’ worth of instruments lay destroyed on the floor.

Blue rose petals were scattered like drops of paint. Their stems and stamens dripped from vases and off shelves. Only the Phoenix roses had been left unharmed.

I scanned the parlor like there might be something left, but even the careful stacks of cases had been demolished, and the walls raided. Some of the carved shelves hung at awkward angles.

Dreading what I’d find, I crossed the battlefield and checked the kitchen, but everything was eerily normal. I could almost hear echoes of mocking laughter.

Sam didn’t look at me as I stepped around a crushed sheet of maple, remnants of the piano lid. I tried not to look at him, either, but it was hard to ignore the way he shook his head, muttering to himself. Then, a wild darkness in his eyes, he hurled a length of metal at the wall. It clattered against the wooden shelves, bringing a cascade of rose petals.

Heart breaking for him, I climbed the stairs to check for more damage or anything missing, but it was hard to see what was missing when it wasn’t there.

The rooms between our bedrooms held the oldest surviving instruments, sealed in airtight containers to slow decay. They appeared untouched, and so did the workroom and library of sheet music, recordings, and notes on how all his instruments had been constructed.

The harp in his bedroom stood whole. It wasn’t much, but it might help, if only I could get him up here to see it. My bedroom looked the same as it had earlier, but I checked all my hiding places anyway.

The books I’d stolen from the temple were missing. So was Menehem’s sylph research.

First the temple key. Now the books and research. They had everything.

Almost. They didn’t have the translations I’d gotten from Meuric and Cris; those were still in my coat.

My fingers felt like ice as I dialed Sine and told her about the break-in. My voice was too calm, as though my body did all these things on its own now.

“I’m sorry, Ana,” Sine said. “Do you want me to send someone over to help clean?”

Outside, the wind howled. Snow pattered on the window. “No.” I stared at the empty hiding places and touched the pocket where I used to keep the key. “You aren’t going to like this, but can you have someone watch Deborl and Merton?” I wished I knew the name of the guy who’d stolen the key, but I couldn’t even remember what he looked like, besides big and scary.

“Deborl and Merton? You don’t think they’d—”

“I think they both hate me. I can’t prove they’ve done anything, but—” My voice broke. “Please, Sine.”

“All right.” Resigned, she hung up.

I put my SED back in my pocket, feeling defeated. They’d taken everything.

Downstairs, the front door stood ajar, and snow dusted the floor. Sam was nowhere in sight.

I leapt off the last few steps and hurtled outside. Snow and darkness veiled the night, but a black shape marched down the walkway.