“I wasn’t planning on leaving Range.” He crouched in front of me and closed my fingers over the device. “You hang on to it.”
My first instinct was to decline. Did he think I was afraid? I didn’t deserve to be coddled or given special things. I’d done well enough last night. No, I’d ended up in the lake.
I tried not to let my relief show. “Thanks.”
“Get your coat and boots. We’ll take down the tent while Shaggy eats, then drop our things off at my cabin. It’s only a few hours south, so we can sleep there tonight. Your bag shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
Considering I didn’t even know where it was? Maybe it wouldn’t be hard for someone who knew every inch of the world.
I followed him outside. Morning hovered on the other side of the mountains, bathing the clearing in shades of indigo. Ospreys and smaller birds took flight, dark against the clear sky.
My first full day of freedom from Li.
I helped Sam pack the tent and load Shaggy, trying to memorize where everything went so he’d know I wanted to earn his help. It annoyed me that he’d just assumed I needed help, like a poor little nosoul couldn’t even get to the city on her own. But it bothered me more that he was right.
“Is the cabin the reason you’re out here?” I couldn’t fathom why anyone would willingly traipse about the wilderness in the middle of winter. Maybe this body was insane. Madness didn’t carry through different bodies, according to Cris’s books. There was a physical component to it, which geneticists and the ruling Council had mostly removed from society by allowing only certain people to have children, but every now and then there were surprises.
Sam took Shaggy’s lead and tugged him west. “Yes.” We walked, and he never answered my unspoken question of why. Not that I’d expected it. “You and Li were staying in Purple Rose Cottage, right?”
I mm-hmmed.
“It’s been, what, eleven years?”
Maybe not insane, just stupid. “Eighteen. She moved us when I was still an infant. I thought everyone knew all about the nosoul.”
He winced. “You shouldn’t call yourself nosoul. New doesn’t mean you don’t have a soul. The Soul Tellers would have known the day you were born.”
Like he knew anything about it.
“Why did you decide to leave yesterday?”
He sure was nosy. Instead of answering, I watched a family of weasels scramble into the brush as we approached; they continued their play hidden in a tangle of snow-covered branches.
Sam was still waiting for a reply.
Fine. He should know exactly what kind of thing he’d offered to help. “It was my birthday. I decided it was time to find out what went wrong.”
“Wrong?” He sounded appalled.
I struggled to stay calm, keeping myself deep inside my coat, and my eyes on the ground. “When I was young, I overheard Councilor Frase telling Li that a soul named Ciana was supposed to be reborn. It had been ten years since she died—twenty-three now—and that was the longest it had ever taken someone to come back. And she didn’t.” I could barely say it, but he’d asked. “She’s gone because of me.”
He didn’t disagree, and his gaze was far off, like he saw worlds I didn’t. Couldn’t. Lifetimes, anyway. What if he and Ciana had been friends? “I remember the night she died. The temple went dark, like it was mourning.”
I said the first thing I could think of that didn’t have anything to do with Ciana. “When is your birthday?”
“I don’t—” He flashed a smile, uncertainty evaporating from his voice. “Yesterday. I think that puts us at the same age.”
Sure, physically. Counting from the 330th Year of Songs. But his soul had been around the 329 before that, and all the years between. “I think you’re missing about five thousand years in that math.”
Silence was, apparently, his favorite response. He gave me a breakfast bar, thick with oats and dried fruit, and continued leading Shaggy down the road. Sunlight reflected off snow, making my eyes water. I pulled on my mittens and hood.
I strode ahead, though he could easily catch up with his long legs. It was nice that he didn’t try to outpace me like Li would have, though maybe it was just because of the pony, and being mindful of hooves on slick ground.
Pine boughs draped across the road, heavy with shiny snow. I ducked around them, underneath them, but still got powder on my coat. I brushed it off.
“That Li’s coat?” He maneuvered around the trees without difficulty.
“I didn’t steal it.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
I shrugged.
“What about those boots? Passed down as well?”
What was his problem? I stopped and turned on him, but there were no words sharp enough for what I wanted, so I mumbled, “A nosoul doesn’t need her own things,” and ducked my face.
“What was that?”
“I said”—I glared up—“a nosoul doesn’t need her own things if she’s only going to live the one life.”
“Newsoul.” His expression was a mystery. Li’s tended to range from anger to loathing, and though his eyebrows were drawn in and that was definitely a frown—he didn’t look like he was about to lock me in my room for a week. “And don’t be ridiculous. You should have your own things. Your body is still unique, and not only do these old things not fit you, they’re . . . old. They’re falling apart.”
Old. He should know. “Doesn’t matter. She’s not part of my life anymore. Ever again.” I started back in the direction we’d been going. “I’m not going to waste time being angry about things I can’t control. If I only have one life, I should make the most of it.”
Sam and Shaggy caught up with me. “Wise.”
“Just what Li insisted every time I said I hated her.” Maybe he wasn’t like Li, but he certainly wasn’t like me. Then again, no one was. I was alone. “She said I shouldn’t waste my time hating her, or Menehem, or anyone else. That’s her wisdom. I just happen to agree.”
He hesitated, and his voice lowered like he didn’t want the wind to hear. “The last time I felt like this much of a jerk was when I told Moriah his idea for keeping time by using gears rather than sun on a slab of stone was stupid. And then I found out he’d built a huge clock in the Councilhouse and was unveiling it later.”
Okay. I could forgive him. A little. “Don’t worry about it.”
He sounded more cautious when he spoke again. “Does it scare you, knowing you might not come back?”
“Not especially. Death seems so far away.” Last night notwithstanding.
I climbed onto a snow-covered stump, careful of the slickness beneath my boots. That was where I spotted my backpack, a brown and gray thing trapped in a tangle of pine boughs. I hopped off the stump, trotted into the brush, and retrieved my bag. Before I could put it on, though, Sam loaded it onto Shaggy, like he didn’t think I was strong enough to carry my belongings.
Or maybe he was just being nice, because I did ache after my leap into the lake. “Thanks,” I muttered. “So, would you be scared if you knew this was your last time?”