Asunder

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 heatsensing 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 soulscanner 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.

Inside smelled like something had died months ago. Certainly the building was protected from sylph, thanks to all the iron, but it wasn’t protected from dust, small animals, or general grossness.

Lights flickered on as I dropped the bags and stepped into the front section, filled with cabinets and rickety furniture for a parlor, bedroom, and kitchen. Another room—a washroom, I hoped—was blocked off in the back.

Beyond the front area, I found a lab with tons of equipment I couldn’t identify, huge glass and steel containers, and stuff. It looked like Menehem had been collecting lab-type junk for a lifetime.

A stair to the upper story revealed a dark data console and a small library’s worth of research. It seemed he’d also stored off-season clothes and supplies here, because I discovered crates of jackets, skis, and other things. The scent of cedar—to ward off bugs—flooded the area.

“Ana?” Sam’s voice came from below, and I clomped back down the stairs. “Anything exciting up there?” He was gazing around the lab when I found him, probably looking for a mop or button that would miraculously clean the layers of dust and grime. Menehem hadn’t even been gone a year, but it didn’t take long for nature to start reclaiming things.

He probably hadn’t been the cleanest person to start with.

“Just lots and lots of research and junk.” I sighed. “This is going to be like reopening the cottage, but even worse, isn’t it?”

“Do you want to sleep in here with everything like this?” He lifted an eyebrow.

“We could sleep outside. I’d risk the sylph.”

“How about cleaning the living area today, then we’ll worry about the rest?”

“Fine.” I dragged out the word, but mostly I was complaining to complain. I didn’t mind cleaning up if Sam was nearby. “But my cooperation comes with a price.”

“What’s that?” His posture relaxed, voice warming like he knew already. And when I smiled and tilted my face upward, he kissed me so sweetly my entire body hummed with adoration and desire. Could anyone else ever make me feel this complete?

No. Only Sam.

It had always been Sam.

Almost a week later, we’d tossed out a decaying raccoon and scrubbed the living quarters and lab until they didn’t make us want to run back to Heart and shower. Sam fished twigs, dead bugs, and a snake out of the cisterns—I double-checked that the water purifier had new filters and solution—and finally we were able to get started on the research we’d come to do.

We sat at the splintering kitchen table, diaries and papers spread out around us. I pointed at a notebook. “This journal matches up with what we already know: he’d been trying to find ways to stop sylph. He started with iron and was looking for ways to make sylph power the eggs with their own life force; that way they’d keep sylph trapped long after the batteries ran out. But that didn’t work, so he went back to chemicals.”

“He was always best with chemicals,” Sam agreed.

“During the first Templedark—the night Ciana died—he was doing his experiments in the market field.” Then Ciana hadn’t been reborn. I’d replaced her.

“Because, of course, that’s a logical place to do experiments.”

“You know Menehem.” My heart pinched for only a moment—if Menehem hadn’t been so irresponsible, I wouldn’t be here—but Sam touched my hand. His knee bumped mine. His comment had been only about Menehem, and involved zero regret about the way things had turned out, even though the world had lost Ciana. I tried to smile.

Strong fingers tightened over mine, and he lifted his eyebrow, waiting for something. Acceptance. I was getting better at reading Sam, if not many others.

I smiled again, squeezed his hand, and we both relaxed. “So whatever he was doing in the market field,” I went on, “there was some kind of minor explosion, and a vapor went up. That’s when the temple went dark.”

“From the gas,” Sam said. “Then he came here to figure out how to reproduce the mistake, because he didn’t know what he’d done to get that reaction.”

“Right.” I flipped a few pages and pointed at a list. “These are the chemicals he used.” It was a long list.

“I don’t know what those are.”

“Hormones, some of them. I recognize a few from Micah’s biology lessons.” I glanced toward the lab in the back. “There are stores of the chemicals in there. Most of them are labeled, even. And he wrote down the final recipe, though I’d like to study his experiments a bit more first.”

“First? Before trying it yourself?” Sam frowned. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

I flinched. “You don’t think I’d try to make another Templedark, do you?”

“No, I know you’d be doing it for research, but what if the Council finds out? We both know what they’d assume.”

I slumped and planted my chin on my fist. “You’re right.”

“Besides, you’ve told me that sylph were fleeing Menehem during Templedark. That makes me think he was hurting them.”

“Are you worried about hurting sylph, Dossam?” I flashed a dry smile.

He spoke gently. “I just don’t think you’d want to hurt anything, even sylph.”

I lowered my eyes. “No, not even sylph.” After the weeks it had taken for my hands to recover from sylph burns, I might not have minded. But the night of Templedark, when Meuric had led me into the temple and tried to trap me, I’d stabbed him in the eye with a knife and shoved him beneath an upsidedown pit. He’d fallen upward, body still flailing. That had been self-defense, but the guilt still writhed inside me. I should have come up with a better solution to my problem, but it was too late now.

Sam put his arms around me.

“I don’t want to hurt them,” I said, “but the more I understand about this, the more I understand about Janan. Whatever Menehem did, it stopped Janan for a little while. The rest of you don’t feel it, but the white walls feel horrible to me. And the temple makes me feel—” I blinked away tears. “He’s not good, Sam. Whatever Janan is, it’s bad. It’s evil.”

“All right.” Sam pressed himself against me, as though he could shield me from something like Janan.

As though he could even comprehend my fear of Janan when he didn’t fear Janan at all. I probably sounded crazy to him, thinking the heat and pulse of the walls were wrong. My seemingly irrational dislike of sleeping close to the exterior walls of buildings was unique, but I couldn’t even lean against the wall. It made my stomach twist with unease.

I was right, though. There was something off about Janan. Inside the temple, he’d called me a mistake, which implied that he had a plan. He’d also said I was “of no consequence,” which implied that he didn’t view me as a threat.

I aimed to be a threat.

Sam combed his fingers through my hair, down the back of my neck. “I wish I understood what it feels like for you. I wish I could make it right.”

He didn’t want to make me right. He wanted to make things with Janan right.

I liked that he didn’t think I was wrong. I liked that he believed me. That he trusted me, in spite of how I must have looked.

The building creaked in the wind as night settled, and my hair muffled Sam’s words. “I’m just worried that if we go too far into Menehem’s research, regardless of our intentions, someone will think we’re creating another Templedark.”

“Even our possessing his research will be too much for some people,” I whispered. “Maybe I have more friends now, but Meuric wasn’t alone in his feelings about newsouls. Not nearly.” Right off, I could think of five people who’d made their dislike clear, and lots more who just didn’t bother acknowledging me.

Sam nodded, his expression etched with frustration.

“I don’t want anyone to think I want another Templedark, but Menehem’s poison is the only thing I know that affects Janan. I just—I want a weapon, Sam. You gave me a knife when I told you someone followed me home one night. A knife won’t work against Janan. We only know one thing that affects him, and this is it. I want to understand how. I want to discover if maybe there’s another way I can protect myself.” I wanted to feel safe, but that would never happen in Heart, and I wouldn’t ask Sam to spend this lifetime in a dusty cabin just for me.

“Let’s go through the rest of Menehem’s research,” Sam said. “I’m sure he recorded videos and every possible variation in his results. Will that help?”

“It’s a start.”