Author: Jodi Meadows

“Ana!” Sam yanked me, and I stumbled into his chest. “Come on. We have to go.”

Go where? But I followed, glancing back to see Meuric crumple to the stage. His head lolled, and as Deborl raged and the crowd surged, I caught one last look at Meuric: the black rot between his teeth when he grinned at me, and the awareness fading from his good eye as he finally died.

I ran with Sam, not sure there was anywhere safe to go, but it was better than watching this.

Sam reached for one of the glass doors, and just as it swung open, I saw the reflection of dozens of people pressing close behind me.

Someone grabbed my shoulders and ripped me away from Sam. I shouted and jerked my elbow behind me. Bone hit soft tissue—a stomach?—and I started back to Sam, but more people appeared.

Hands grabbed from every direction, taking my arms and shoulders and hair. They found Sam, too, and immediately I lost sight of him.

I struggled, but so many bodies created walls around me. I couldn’t get away as they push-dragged me somewhere I couldn’t see. Above everything, Deborl’s voice thundered.

“This is what newsouls do! This is what they will keep doing to us: killing us, destroying us, replacing us.”

The bodies blocking me moved aside, revealing me to the mob below. Tents had been thrown on their sides, tables knocked over. People pushed up the stairs, reaching.

I screamed for Sam, for Sarit or any of my friends. Where were Lidea and Geral with their newsouls? What would happen to them?

Someone kicked the backs of my legs and I dropped. Bone slammed on stone, and it felt like my knees shattered, but I could still move my toes. I blinked and breathed through dizziness.

“My friends,” Deborl cried, “we cannot accept newsouls. They will rip us apart. For her crimes, the newsoul will be punished.”

Cheering rose up. Someone shouted against it, but that voice was quickly silenced.

Fingers gouged into my skin, keeping me on the ground as Deborl approached. He leaned close, whispering into my ear. “You might have thought you could stop Janan. You can’t. Nothing can stop him. Meuric failed, but Janan has chosen a new Hallow. I will be the one who welcomes him when he ascends on Soul Night.” Deborl gripped my chin and yanked my face around. His eyes narrowed. “And you will be where you belong, trapped where you should have stayed before you were born.”

I tried to wrestle away from the people who held me, but they were too strong. Bruises formed under their fingers. I wanted to scream, to make some kind of response, but the noise and heat and rage overwhelmed me.

Deborl shoved me away as he stood. “Take her to the temple wall. I’ll put her with the others.”

My captors hauled me up, carrying me awkwardly so I couldn’t fight or flail. Every time I struggled, their grips got tighter and my existence grew fuzzier.

People banged against me as Deborl’s friends carried me through the crowd. No matter how I fought, they kept hold, and nothing I did led to freedom. We left the worst of the crowd soon, and moved between tents. I saw cobblestones, shoes, and trash on the ground. Never my captors’ faces.

Until they slammed me against the temple wall, and then I looked up to see Wend. Lidea’s partner. Anid’s father.

I choked. “You?”

“I do love Lidea,” he said, “but the newsoul is not right. He’s not natural.” Wend backed away, but before I could think about running, I found the blue targeting lights on my chest. The others had laser pistols aimed at me.

“Why not?” I asked. “Other animals live and die and are never reborn.”

“We have souls,” Wend said.

One of the others chuckled. “Some of us, anyway.”

I wanted to be horrified at how Wend felt no attachment to Anid, that he didn’t care at all that Anid’s existence was partly his doing. But I remembered Li, and how she hated me, how she resented me because I represented everything that terrified her most: the unknown.

“We have Janan.” Deborl came around after us, drawing the silver temple key from his pocket. “Janan gives us every life.”

“What about phoenixes?” I couldn’t stop staring at the key as he pressed the symbols I’d only guessed at.

“Janan is only for humans. For souls.” Deborl sneered and nodded at Wend. “Get her.”

Wend grabbed my arm as a door misted into existence on the temple. Did they all know about the temple? Was that how Wend knew what symbols Cris and I had been talking about? And how they knew what to take from Sam’s house?

Deborl dragged open the door, and reality hit me. They were going to throw me in.

I struggled, squirming away just long enough for someone to shoot the cobblestone in front of me. Stone sizzled as Wend grabbed me back.

“I’d like to break your bones and gouge your eye before putting you in there.” Deborl shoved me into the doorway; I stood half in and half out of the temple. “That way you can feel the pain you put Meuric through. Unfortunately, I only have time for this, but it will do.”

He reached back, and Merton slapped a laser pistol into his hand. To shoot me? To burn me just enough so I suffered forever inside the temple? I didn’t have a key this time. There’d be no way out.

I searched for a path between the men. Deborl, Wend, Merton, and strangers were too thick. There was nowhere to go.

The targeting light flashed on my shoulder.

Wend lurched forward and shoved me.

Just as gray veiled the outside, I saw Deborl turn and shoot Wend. For saving me the pain of being injured inside the temple?

Wend’s body crumpled.

I fell backward into the temple.

27

SKELETONS

I TUMBLED INTO the white chamber, all painful glow of everywhere-light and the deafening throb of Janan’s heartbeat. I skidded to a stop in the middle of the floor, clutching my head and groaning.

“Ana?” The heavy air smothered the deep voice. The human voice.

I looked up to find Cris and Stef sitting together on the far side of the chamber. Their clothes were ripped, and scrapes crisscrossed their hands and faces.

“Oh. I’ve been trying to find you two.” I struggled to stay upright. “For days.”

“Days?” Cris climbed to his feet and started toward me. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been missing.” I took a deep breath and tried not to think about where I was, but souls began to whisper and cry. The truth was impossible to forget. It was all around me: the incredible nothing that should have swallowed me, too.

“Not days, though. Deborl and some of his friends grabbed me,” Stef said, following Cris, “but that was just this morning.”

I shook my head, but decided not to burden her with the truth just yet.

“Do you have your SED?” Without my permission, she dug into my pocket.

“It doesn’t work here,” I warned, and checked to see where we were. Not that it made a difference. Most places in the temple looked alike, all big white chambers and archways. Whispers and murmurs rippled, souls cried. There were no words for how much I didn’t want to be here.

“How do you know?” Stef tapped the SED screen like it’d do magic.

Cris offered me a hand up. “I could have sworn they shoved us into the temple, but there’s no door.”

“This is the temple. Sorry. I’ve been here before.” I bit my lip. “This is my third time.”

They both stared at me, confusion bright. “How is that possible?” Cris asked.

The weeping and unsilence surrounded me, heavier and thicker for no reason except that we were trapped without the key. It would be impossible to tell how long we’d been in here, or what was going on outside. The everywhere-light glowed with ever-unwavering determination.

“Meuric had a device. Right before Templedark, he tricked me into coming here, then followed with the intention of leaving me locked in so I wouldn’t cause trouble. I took the key from him.” And then trapped him in here, caught between life and death. Now he was out, finally dead on the steps of the Councilhouse.

Stef raised her eyebrows. “And you’ve been coming and going since? Why?”

“Not because I like it here. I need to learn what Janan’s trying to hide. I came here before because I thought I could find answers.” I almost wished for ignorance again; it had hurt less than the truth. “Now I have even more questions.”

“Oh.” Stef shifted and handed back my SED. “Well, feel free to start explaining things to me any minute. Even the questions.”

“Okay.” I stuffed my SED into my pocket, wishing I’d brought my knife instead. It was at home, since my dress had only one small pocket, but if I’d known I was going to get shoved into the temple again… “Have you been exploring?” As much as I hated moving around the temple without the key, especially when I wasn’t sure if they’d throw Sam in after us, it would give me the illusion of doing something.

“A little,” Cris said. “But it’s empty.”

They clearly hadn’t reached the spherical room, or the sideways-gravity room. Lucky them. “Stay close, then.” We headed toward the nearest archway, and I began telling them the truth about Templedark, my disappearance since then, and the books I was trying to translate.

I told them what Janan was doing to newsouls.

“No,” Stef whispered. “Surely no.”

Cris’s eyes widened with horror. “Why? How? How could that possibly be?”

“Meuric told me,” I said. “He might have lied, but I don’t think so.” Even as I said it, cries grew louder, thicker on the smothering air until they were like black smoke clinging to our clothes and skin. Cris and Stef said nothing, just looked like they wanted to be sick.

It was painful, watching them react to the truth about newsouls. I changed the subject. “I found the guesses you left in your house, Cris. For the symbols.”

Cris looked up. “You were in my house?”

“We couldn’t find you outside and it was snowing. None of your plants were covered, so we were worried.”

“Ah.” He glanced nowhere, as though he could see his frost-coated roses. “I was studying the symbols again when someone knocked. I tucked the paper under the tray, and then Deborl, Merton, and a bunch of others took me.”

“Why would he take you?” I stepped off a narrow stairway, onto a floor that looked like white water. It held my weight. For now.

“I don’t know.” He eyed the floor like it might change its mind about being solid. “Well, Deborl did ask about books and symbols. He said he wanted to know what I knew, which wasn’t anything, since you didn’t give me details.” The last part sounded a little accusing, but I forgave him because it was my fault he’d been kidnapped.

“He asked me the same questions,” said Stef. “But I really didn’t know anything, because you didn’t give me even a hint.” That definitely sounded accusing, but I forgave her because she was right and it was my fault she’d been kidnapped, too.

Deborl must have assumed Sam and I had told her because they were best friends. If Sarit hadn’t left for Purple Rose Cottage, would they have taken her, too? And I couldn’t stop wondering what they were doing with Sam right now.

I found an archway out of the water-floor room quickly, before I lost control of my stomach. Stef looked green, too.

The souls around us continued weeping.

“I didn’t remember the symbols from anything in Range like you thought I might.” Cris’s voice was low as we entered a long hall, white everywhere; I dragged my fingers along one wall to make sure I didn’t walk into it. “The symbols came from writing I’d seen in the far south, in jungles. I was collecting samples of plants for medicine and experiments, and found giant ruins. A white wall…” His voice grew soft and faraway.