“Didn’t you get lonely?”
“Sometimes, but I had my SED.” He patted his breast pocket. “Which is how I heard about something called Templedark. What happened?”
I shuddered, and Sam pressed a strong hand on my spine. “My father made Templedark,” I said. Though maybe I shouldn’t claim Menehem. I hadn’t known him—only through his diaries and the way just his name seemed to make everyone roll their eyes. I’d met him for only a short while the night of Templedark, before he died. “Menehem did something to the temple to stop Janan from being able to reincarnate anyone who died that night. He captured dozens of sylph from outside of Range, then released them in Heart. Dragons came that night, too.”
Cris jerked his gaze toward Sam, who’d gone still and pale at the mention of dragons. “And you—” Cris smoothed his perplexed expression. “You made it through. That’s good.”
“Ana saved me.” Sam’s hand settled on my hip, pulling us close. “She saved me from dragons twice.”
Questions stretched in the air between Cris and us, a piano wire pulled so taut it might snap. “So, Ana,” Cris said, “you know about Dossam and dragons?”
I nodded.
Sam was still ashen. “I told her about the way they come after me. She knows.”
The thinking line had carved itself between Sam’s eyebrows; sometimes it was a worry line, or a stress line. I rested my hand on his knee and drew his gaze, and when our eyes met, the line melted away. “It’s okay,” I murmured. “I’ll protect you from the dragons.” It was a joke, mostly, just to make him smile. Because what could I do against dragons? They’d killed him thirty times.
Thirty.
But Sam wove his fingers with mine and smiled. “I know you will.” It didn’t sound like teasing at all.
“Fascinating.” Cris wrapped his hands around his mug, his tone light and amused, but tinged with something sad. He sipped his coffee, as though to hide the emotion. “One newsoul, and Sam’s problem with dragons is fixed.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” I glanced toward the window, like sylph or dragons might be peeking in right now. “There’ve been two dragon attacks since I came.”
“They always come in twos.” Cris rested his mug on his knee. “You were just unlucky enough to be here for their first visit in quite some time.”
“And we were all unlucky enough they chose to come during Templedark.” Sam lowered his eyes, the memory of Templedark still fresh and heavy. “The sylph and the dragons proved too much. Everyone panicked. We lost more than we should have before anyone realized what Menehem had done: he made the temple go dark.”
When I closed my eyes, I could still see the strange darkness where the iridescent light of the temple should be. Except it shouldn’t illuminate. What kind of building glowed in the dark?
One with Janan in it.
“Stopping reincarnation. What a thing to do.” Cris shook his head, then leveled his gaze on me. “Did Menehem—before? You?”
Oh, Cris was quick. “By accident. That was why he left eighteen years ago—to find out what he’d done.” I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Only Menehem knows why he wanted to end so many others. Maybe he’ll tell us when he’s reborn.”
That wasn’t quite true, I knew. But not knowing how Cris felt about Janan—some people really cared, while others hadn’t believed for millennia—I didn’t say any more. Menehem had given me two explanations. The first made it sound as though he were doing me a favor: attempting to let more newsouls be born.
The other reason Menehem had given me seemed most genuine: he’d wanted to prove Janan’s existence either true or false. It had been scientific curiosity, nothing more.
Cris glared into his coffee. “I’m sure the Council will be very curious to find out exactly how he created Templedark so they can prevent anyone from ever doing it again.”
“I’m sure they will be.” Did my voice shake? It seemed like Menehem’s research notes were a bright beacon shining from my room. He’d left them for me after he died, and I hadn’t wanted to leave them in Heart. The folders and diaries, the door device, the mysterious books I’d stolen from the temple—it was a wonder everyone didn’t know about them just from the guilt on my face.
But I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about my visit into the temple or Menehem’s research, and Sam had agreed. I didn’t know exactly how the Council would react, but it definitely wouldn’t be good.
Sam looked at Cris, a strange and awkward hopefulness in his tone. “You’re on your way back to Heart now?”
“I think I’d better be,” Cris said. “Sine’s message indicated they’d need assistance reorganizing the genealogies now that so many won’t return.”
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate your help,” Sam said, not explaining to me how a gardener would be useful for genealogies.
They talked until everyone’s mug was empty, keeping the conversation to simple things, like the best road to take into Heart, and warnings about bears and wolves in certain parts of the forest. They concluded with a polite argument about who would take the other bedroom, and Sam won, which meant he slept on the sofa.
As the calming herbs in my tea took effect, I wished the boys good night and went into my room, trying desperately not to think of the sylph.
Moaning wind roused me from fiery dreams.
My bedroom looked the same as it always had, dusty wood floors and walls all bathed in darkness, but something was different. Not the shadows, but the sounds. The wind had never made this particular wailing in the eighteen years I’d lived in Purple Rose Cottage.
I went to the window and pushed open the shutters.
Stars blazed far away, trees hugged the earth and sky, and the rosebushes breathed perfume that didn’t quite mask the lingering reek of ashes. The night was perfectly still, but the moan persisted.
A shadow moved.
They twisted all along the path up to the cottage, whistling, humming, singing. A melody I’d played earlier lifted and faded in the strange song. A moment later, another familiar tune piped up, and the others built on it with harmony and countermelody. Unearthly music filled the night, subtle enough that it might have been wind on the corner of the cottage. Strange enough that it had pulled me from sleep.
There had to be a dozen sylph outside my bedroom, and though they were eyeless, I could feel them looking at me.
A whimper escaped my throat.
A gasp sounded in the front room, and blankets crumpled to the floor. Soft thumps made their way to my bedroom door. Sam. I knew the cadence of his footsteps.
I raced to the door and dragged it open.
In the dimness, Sam glanced me over, as though to make sure I wasn’t bleeding—why would I be bleeding?—and then swept me up in a tight hug. “Are you all right? I heard you—”
He stilled as the sylph sang outside, echoes of music he’d composed.
“Oh.” His breath rustled my hair as he released me, and together we made our way back to the window. Warm air pushed inward, smelling faintly of ash and ozone.
One by one, the sylph finished their music.