“No, he didn’t.” I kicked a fallen branch off the road. Pine needles scraped the cobblestone. “He just sat there at his desk. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t acknowledge us. He barely moved.”
“He’s grieving,” Sam said gently. “He lost souls very close to him.”
“Then why does he go to the guard station every day?”
“What else should he be doing?”
“I don’t know. Staying home? Staying with a friend?”
Sam’s eyes were dark as dusk, and his voice deep with a hundred lifetimes. “It doesn’t always make sense, the way others grieve. I can’t imagine what I’d be like if I’d lost you, but it would probably seem very strange to others.”
Because I was the newsoul, and why would anyone grieve that much over me?
Then again, I knew how I’d behaved during Templedark. Fearing for Sam’s life, I’d hurtled through fields of dragon acid, dodging sylph and laser fire. I’d felt like someone other than myself, like I might do something crazy if I didn’t find Sam, because how could my world be right without him?
“I don’t like the way grief feels,” I said at last. “And I don’t like the way it feels when other people grieve.” Which sounded like I thought they should avoid the emotion because it made me uncomfortable.
No, what did I really mean? “After the dragons attacked the market, I wanted you to feel better. I wanted to do anything I could to help, to make you stop hurting, but I didn’t know how. I tried and…”
Sam nodded. “It makes you feel helpless.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Me neither.” He pushed a strand of black hair from his eyes. “I’ve felt like that about you, helpless to make you feel better.”
“Really?”
He flashed a strained smile. “When we first met. You trapped the sylph in an egg, letting your hands get burned so you could rescue me.”
Sylph. Just the word made me shudder and check the woods for unnatural shadows. Too easily, I could remember the inferno racing through my hands, up my forearms, and the red-and-black skin all bubbling with blisters.
“You tried to be so strong after that,” Sam said. “And you
“Even though we’d just met?”
Sam only smiled and touched my hand, and we shifted to the safer topics of music he wanted me to learn, and debating whether or not Sarit would actually make good on her threat to come after us if we didn’t return to Heart before winter.
Late summer bathed Range in shades of green. Clouds drifted across the sky, catching and tangling on mountains like gauze. A hawk careened in from above, calling his territory, and a family of weasels startled at the sound. They tumbled to hide in the brush, even though the hawk was far away.
When night fell, we set up a tent and sleeping bags and discussed music over dinner, then went outside to take turns on the flute he’d packed. I liked waking up across the tent from him; seeing his messy hair and sleepy smile first thing chased away my lingering fears and sadness.
We made good progress across Range, and finally we reached our destination: Purple Rose Cottage.
The last time I’d seen Purple Rose Cottage, the roof bore daggers of ice, and the path uphill had been slippery with snow. Li had stood in the doorway, tall and beautiful and fierce, and she’d given me a broken compass so I’d lose my way and fall prey to sylph.
Now Sam and I stepped out of the forest shade and trudged up the hill. Sunlight warmed my face and arms and made the cottage glow brown and almost unfamiliar with how welcoming it looked. Rosebushes huddled around the wall, indigo blooms just fading as summer came to a close. Vegetables lay half-eaten and rotted in the garden; no one had been here to harvest and put them away for winter.
We spent a couple of days getting the cottage cleaned up, arranging our things in the bedrooms and kitchen, and not discussing anything more difficult than who was in charge of coffee each morning. It was nice living with Sam without the heartbeat-filled walls boxing us in.
Our third evening in Purple Rose Cottage, Sam asked me to wait for him outside.
The cool air gave me goose bumps, but I waited on the grass by a bush of indigo roses. Low sunlight shot around the cottage, casting the forest in shadow and gold-green and hints of russet. The door shut, and Sam walked over carrying a large basket.
“Help me with this?” he asked. Together, we spread a blanket on the grass to sit, and his eyes shone in the dimness. “I want to give you something.” From the basket, he removed a long wooden box. Faint light from the window made the polish glisten. When had he packed that? “This is for you.”
“You didn’t have to get anything for me. I have everything I need.”
He smiled and regarded the box, his hands covering the gilt latches. “It’s a gift, like friends gave Tera and Ash for their rededication ceremony.”
That had been a special occasion, celebrating their eternal love. Today was nothing, as far as I could remember. Still, the idea of a gift delighted me, and I tried to squeeze my fingers between his to look.
There were patterns carved into the wood, but I couldn’t see them. “What is it?”
His hands trembled as he pulled up the latches, and the box was soundless as he turned up the lid.
Light glimmered across two lengths of silver, catching on a row of keys and delicate swirls engraved into the metal.
It was a flute, one I’d never seen before.
A rush of wind stirred the trees and stole my quiet “Oh” as Sam pulled the flute from its case and pieced it together. His eyes were dark, wide with anticipation and something else as he offered the instrument with both hands. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“I hoped you would like it.” The flute nearly vanished in his hands, though it seemed normal-sized when I rested my fingertips on the cool metal. “Take it,” he urged. “It’s yours.”
“Why?” My question didn’t stop my fingers from wrapping around the flute, from pulling it to my lips.
My breath hissed over the mouthpiece as my fingers found their places on the keys.
The heat of his body warmed me as he leaned closer. “Here.” He nudged my right thumb farther down the tube. “And your chin.” He tilted my face up slightly, his fingers lingering over my skin.
Our eyes met, both of us suddenly aware of his other hand flat on my ribs, unconsciously adjusting my posture. “Better?” I breathed.
He watched my mouth and nodded. “Play for me.”
Play what? He hadn’t brought out music. But as sunlight began to fade, making the indigo roses turn ink-dark and early snow glow on the mountaintops, I played a long, low note that filled the cottage clearing with a haunting reverberation.
The note created a bubble of warmth around us. It tangled around vines, caught in rosebushes, and pushed out toward the mountains that rose like distant walls. I found a breath, and my fingers climbed a half step up.
The flute stretched its sound. It fit me as precisely as though it had once been part of my body and now we were reunited. My hands and mouth and lungs knew this flute, and I knew this flute would do anything I could ask of it, and more.
I climbed notes until a pattern emerged, as sweet and haunting as the flute’s sound. The melody took shape and flew on sure, steady wings. Music filled me until it seemed I might burst.
When I lowered the flute, Sam leaned toward me, a satisfied smile on his lips. “It suits you.”
“It’s perfect.” I caressed the silver, engravings sharp and new beneath my fingertips. They looked like ivy, or something delicate and twisty. “Did you make it?”
“Some. I had a friend do a lot of the work. How was I going to hide it from you otherwise?”
The metal was warm from my playing, and I couldn’t stop staring at the way it looked in my hands. It was
“Good.” Sam grinned widely. “Because you will.” His tone turned conspiring. “I wrote some duets for us.”
My heart stumbled over itself. “Really?”
“I want to keep this moment forever, the way you’re smiling right now.”
