He nodded, as if encouraging me to go on.
I shrugged.
“She must have helped you learn to speak.” Again, I shrugged, and he chuckled. “Or not.”
Laughing at me. Just like Li.
I met his eyes and made my voice like stone. “Maybe she taught me when not to speak.”
Sam jerked straight. “And how to be defensive when no offense was intended.” He cut me off before I could apologize, though my mouth had dropped open to do so; I didn’t really want to leave the warm tent, especially now that the herbs and overall exhaustion were taking effect. I grew drowsy. “Do you know anything about the world? How you fit in?”
“I know I’m different.” My throat closed, and my voice squeaked. “And I was hoping to find out how I fit in.”
“By running through Range in your socked feet?” One corner of his mouth tugged upward when I glared. “A joke.”
“Sylph chased me and I lost my backpack. I planned on walking to Heart to search the library for any hint of why I was born.” There had to be a reason I’d replaced Ciana. Surely I wasn’t a mistake, a big oops that cost someone her immortality and buried everyone else under the pain of her loss. Knowing wouldn’t help the guilt, but it might reveal what I was supposed to do with my stolen life.
“From what you’ve said, I’m surprised Li bothered teaching you to read.”
“I figured it out.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You taught yourself to read.”
The tent was too hot, his surprised stare too probing. I licked my lips and eyed the door again, just to remind myself it was still there. My coat, too. I could escape if I needed to. “It’s not like I created the written word or composed the first sonata. I just made sense of what someone else had already done.”
“Considering how other people’s logic and decisions are rarely comprehensible to anyone else, I’d say that’s impressive.”
“Or a testament to their skills, if even I can figure out how to read.”
He gathered the empty mugs and put them away. “And the sonata? You figured that out as well?”
“Especially that.” I covered my mouth to yawn. “I wanted something to fall asleep to, even if it’s only in my head.”
“Hmm.” He dimmed the lamp and shifted bags around the tent. “I’ll think about repayment, Ana. Get some rest for now. If you want to find your bag and go to Heart, you’ll need all your strength.”
I glanced at the blankets and sleeping bag, wary in spite of exhaustion. “Like before?”
“Janan, no! I’m sorry. I thought we knew each other. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“It’s okay.” He was probably wondering how he’d managed to find the only nosoul in the world when chances were so much higher of him rescuing someone he already knew. He was showing me more kindness than anyone ever had, though; I should try to reciprocate. “There isn’t much space. I’ll face the wall if you’ll face the other way. That way neither of us is cold.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll face the wall.” He motioned me closer to the heater. “We’ll discuss other issues in the morning, and that’s”—he checked a small device—“in three hours. Get some rest. It sounds like you’ve had a difficult day.”
If only he knew.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Chapter 3
Sylph
MOVEMENT AROUND THE tent dragged me to the edges of consciousness.
Water murmured, a switch clicked, and something unfamiliar swished, like powder falling into ceramic. A heavy, bitter scent flooded the tent as Sam stirred water into a mug.
“Wake up. Time to go.” He touched my shoulder.
I gasped, fighting the way my mind conjured a similar image of him leaning over me, only a few hours old. The dark hair had been dripping, and the broad hands urging my heart to beat again.
Like an idiot, I stared at him until I saw only the present. Last night became a memory again. “Oh.” I’d been staring too long. “It’s just you.”
“Yes.” His tone was chalk-dry. “Just me.” Before I could apologize for insulting him somehow, he sat back. “Drink your coffee. We’re leaving in twenty minutes. That gives us enough time to pack and load Shaggy. We’ll eat breakfast while we walk.”
“Shaggy?” I sat, blankets knotting around my legs, and reached for the nearest mug of dark liquid. Then I answered my own question with a smirk. “The horse? Creative name.”
“His full name is Not as Shaggy as His Father, but that’s a mouthful.” Sam’s grin turned into a grimace when he tried his coffee. “Drink up. It’s not worth lingering over, trust me.”
I inhaled steam as I took a careful sip to test the temperature. Hot and bitter, with a strange sweetness to it, like honey. I gulped down the entire mugful. “I like it.” My skin felt warm enough to glow. “Li never let me drink coffee. She said it would make me short.” And it was too expensive to waste on a nosoul, but I didn’t need any more of his pity.
“Li was tall last time I saw her. What happened to you?” He suffered another taste and held the mug toward me.
“Apparently Menehem was short and I’m unlucky.” I eyed the coffee, judging whether he’d yank it back at the last second. If he did, he’d spill it on me. Better to ask. “You don’t want that?”
“A companion on a caffeine high will wake me up just as well, without the aftertaste.” He set the mug between us. I snatched it up and drank before he could change his mind. “Wait until you try real coffee, grown in special greenhouses in Heart. You’ll never want to drink this chemical imitation again.”
I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Something better than this? I looked forward to finding the greenhouses he described.
“Now pay attention to where everything goes. I’ll pack this morning, but if I’m going to help you get to Heart, you’re going to do your share.”
I stared. Why would he help me? Weren’t we supposed to talk about how I’d pay him back for saving me last night? Now that he’d offered, however, I couldn’t bear if he took it back. He seemed— Well, he seemed like he didn’t hate me, and he’d rescued me. Not that the latter meant anything, since he’d assumed I was someone he already knew. Not Ana the nosoul.
“That’s fair.” I cleaned the mugs and water heater. Everything went into the pouches I’d watched him store things in last night. “What else?”
He went outside to feed Shaggy, leaving me to roll blankets and check the tent floor for anything that had escaped its bag.
Only one thing. A brass egg the size of two of my fists together. A thin silver band circled the middle, covering a seam where you turned it. And to keep your grip on the slick metal, the top half of the egg had shallow grooves.
It was pretty, if you didn’t know it was for catching sylph.
Sam walked in as I turned the sylph egg over in my palms, inspecting the delicate latch that held the flat lid on one end. “You only carry one of these?”