One by one, the sylph drifted down the cottage path, leaving nothing more threatening than a song.
“What does it mean?” Sam whispered. He cocked his head, as though listening for sounds of Cris stirring in the other bedroom, but relaxed. Cris must have been a deep sleeper, or tired from walking everywhere.
“It means I need to stop avoiding Menehem’s research. The sylph were terrified of him during Templedark, and it was his research on the sylph that affected Janan’s temple. I need to understand why. And why they’d sing outside my window.” Though it was unlikely Menehem would be able to answer that question. As far as I could tell, he’d never been concerned with thoughts or feelings or motivations of others; he couldn’t grasp them.
Sam dropped back his head in resignation. Our peace was too short-lived. “What do you want to do?”
I stared into the darkness, but nothing moved, and the sylph odor abated. “I wish we could stay outside of Heart, just playing music all the time. But in houses. I don’t want to walk around for four years like Cris.”
“Pianos are too heavy to carry in a backpack, anyway.” He kissed my forehead, stubble scratching my cheek. “You know people there like you.”
“Sarit, Stef, Sine—other people whose names begin with S.”
He chuckled. “Armande, Lidea, Wend, Rin, Orrin, Whit. Lots of others. Templedark was horrible, but it did show people you cared. How many did you save that night?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. The night had been so frantic, and mostly I’d been looking for Sam.
Warm fingers curved over my cheek, and he drew my gaze upward. “Are you worried they’ll change their minds about you?”
How did he always know my real fears? “No one calls me nosoul anymore, but how long will that last when they find out sylph don’t chase me anymore? Cris saw them reacting to my playing.”
“He won’t tell anyone. You can trust Cris.”
I wished I had Sam’s confidence that people would remember I wasn’t out to destroy their existence. Maybe that was why I was reluctant to look into Menehem’s research, but I couldn’t let fear of others’ reactions stop me anymore.
“All right. We go east of Range, where Menehem did his experiments.” I closed the shutters, locked them. “I don’t want anyone to know we’re going there. The Council won’t like it.”
“No,” Sam whispered darkly. “They won’t.”
“We leave as soon as Cris does.” And then, I hoped, I would find out what Menehem had done to the sylph, and their connection to Janan. But mostly, I needed to find out what they wanted from me.
3
SCORCH
CRIS LEFT THE cottage as the sun rose. I lay in my lumpy bed, listening to a stranger move through the next room, through the washroom, through the front room. I was still getting used to other sounds in this house belonging to Sam, not Li, and Cris’s sounds were different yet. His steps were longer than Sam’s, and not…heavier, but more solid somehow.
Just as I realized I should see him off, low voices came from the front room. “Will you tell Ana I said good-bye?”
“She’s awake, if you want to tell her yourself.” Sam’s voice was groggy, but he’d probably awakened as soon as Cris’s feet hit the floor.
“I’m sure she’d rather go back to sleep. I’ll see you both in Heart.” Cris hesitated. “You mentioned she’s taking lessons from people. Perhaps she’ll want to try gardening.”
“Perhaps.” Sofa springs made their someone-sitting-up groan, but it wasn’t Li’s motion. It would never be Li again. Sam’s voice came almost wistfully. “It was good seeing you again, Cris.”
“And you.” A moment later, the front door squeaked and shut.
It was hard to find time to practice while traveling, but Sam insisted there was more to music than playing an instrument. Theory was just as important, and we listened to as much music as we talked about, our SEDs synced to play the same things.
Sonatas, minuets, arias, symphonies: these things accompanied us through the forest, all golden-green woven with the fire of oncoming autumn as we walked northeast through Range.
“Are you worried sylph will hear the music and come after us?” I asked Sam once.
“No.” He paused. “Not too worried while we’re in Range, at least. And we have sylph eggs. Purple Rose Cottage is at the edge of Range, so there weren’t as many traps between them and us. It’s unlikely they’d follow us.”
Unlikely, but not impossible. Sylph had been doing all sorts of unlikely things lately. A few heat-sensing traps might not make much of a difference. “What about when we get to Menehem’s laboratory?” I asked. The map he’d included in his diaries indicated the building was just beyond the border of Range, drifting into troll territory.
“We’ll have to be more careful there, but I’m sure the building itself is well protected.”
“Hmph.”
I shouldn’t have been worried, though. When we arrived at the coordinates Menehem had left, we found an ugly iron building the size of a barn. Solar panels covered the roof, while cisterns hugged the sides.
Trees stumps dotted the area, some as big as dinner tables. Here and there, the grass had been scorched black. Not by lightning. Sylph? But how?
I knelt and dragged my fingers through fine, midnight powder. Ash. It trickled away in a gust of wind, leaving my fingers stained with dusk.
Sam stopped beside me. “What do you think happened?”
As if I had any clue.
“Not sure.” I pulled out my SED and made a quick video of the entire area. “Eerie,” I muttered as I saved it in a private, protected folder Stef had taught me how to make. I doubted she realized exactly what I’d be doing with my privacy, though; she’d probably assumed it was simply because I didn’t want to risk any of them finding my secrets, since I hadn’t yet started a diary for eventual sharing like everyone else.
A message flashed in the corner of my screen. Sarit had sent a photo of a jar of honey with a teal ribbon tied around it, and “For Ana” written in her flowing script.
“What are you smiling about?” Sam nudged me with his elbow.
“Sarit.” I showed him the photo. “I think it must be a form of bribery.”
“She misses you. I would, too.” Sam gazed up at the monstrosity of a building while I sent a message back to Sarit, letting her know her bribe would have more effect if I hadn’t remembered to pack a small jar. She would try again when I ran out. “Ready to go in?” Sam asked.
“Ugh. I can just imagine how comfortably we’ll be living until we go back to Heart.”
He chuckled and motioned toward the cloudy sky. “At least we won’t get rained on. Do you want to take the bags in and I’ll put Shaggy in the stable?”
I looped bags over my shoulder and blew Sam a kiss as I headed for the front door. Menehem had left me a key and a code, though it could have been easily broken by anyone who cared enough to try. A soul-scanner would have been more secure, but maybe he’d been planning on leading me here; I wasn’t in the main database and wouldn’t have been able to get in. He couldn’t have predicted I’d have Sam with me.