Asunder

“Thanks. I look forward to it.” I offered back the indigo rose, but he shook his head.

“That’s for you.” With a quick smile, he headed off, almost lost in the crowd again, except he was so much taller than everyone. Did he have to duck to get through doorways? How did someone even get that tall? I stared enviously as he vanished behind a crumbling statue of someone riding a horse.

Armande shifted his weight and hmmed. “That was kind of odd.”

“I agree. Why would he just give me a rose when people are supposed to pay for them?” Maybe he’d request payment during the lesson, or hint at Sam later since I, of course, had no credit.

A dark figure appeared around the Councilhouse, hair tousled as he scanned the thinning crowd for me.

I placed the rose and my coffee on the bench and met Sam halfway. He hugged me so tightly my feet lifted off the ground, and then he pressed his mouth against my neck.

“Everything okay?” His coat collar muffled my voice.

“Better now that I have you again.” But he didn’t sound happy, and across the market field, someone made rude comments to their companion. Something about how boring it must be, being with a newsoul.

Sam cringed and dug his fingers into my coat. “Don’t listen to them. There’s nothing boring about you.”

Face red, I stood on my toes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you for standing up for me in the Council chamber.”

“I don’t know if it will make any difference, but it’s better than silence.” His voice sobered further.

“Stay away from Merton if you can.”

That guy again. Had he gone into the Council chamber after I left? Perhaps that was why Sine wanted me to leave. Perhaps she yelled at him for the way he’d behaved in the hospital, and the way he kept holding public rants. “I hadn’t planned on asking him to be my new best friend.”

Sam didn’t smile. “I think he’s the person who attacked us after the masquerade. With Li.” He held me tighter when I winced. “I don’t have proof, but I asked Sine if someone would keep watch on him. For now, the best we can do is avoid him.”

“I understand.” I glanced at the temple, so high it made me dizzy to watch the clouds drift around it.

“Can we go home now?” When I was aware of it, the building seemed more solid, taller and wider and hungrier. It seemed like it hated me, and if a building could hate, it would be the one Janan inhabited.

Sam kissed my forehead. “Home sounds good.” He slipped his hand around mine as we headed over to wish Armande a good day.

“Hi, Sam.” Armande stood, and his gaze flickered toward the bench where I’d been sitting.

Sam’s followed. “Someone gave you a rose?”

It took me a second to realize that was a question for me, not Armande. “Cris did. I’d accused him of abandoning the ones at Purple Rose Cottage. I guess he wanted to prove he hadn’t.” I plucked it off the bench. “He offered gardening lessons. I said we’d call him.”

“Okay.” Sam and Armande exchanged more silent communication—most of which came from Armande—but it was the kind that came from knowing each other forever. I couldn’t read it.

When we left Armande with his pastry stall, I tossed my coffee cup in a recycle bin and asked, “What was that look about?”

Sam didn’t answer.

Okay. Question for later, then. “What happened in the Council chamber after I left?”

He just shook his head and didn’t speak until we turned onto his street, like he’d been putting the words together the entire walk home. “They wanted me to remember the truth about newsouls.”

12 SPIRALING

“THE TRUTH ABOUT newsouls?” I couldn’t breathe.

“No one’s sure how to respond to Templedark,” he admitted at last. “At first, the community was in shock. We reacted how we always react to battles: tend to the wounded; rebuild the city. We could do that in our sleep. But eventually, we woke up and realized.” Sam’s voice broke, and he stopped walking.

“So many souls are gone forever. We’ll never see them again. No one knows what happens after you die like that.”

Almost a year ago, he’d said the scariest thing he could think of was no longer existing. True death.

Living in Heart and witnessing Templedark gave me new appreciation for how frightening that thought was. I still didn’t know what would happen to me when I died.

I didn’t want to stop existing either.

“People are born in patterns. For me, it’s just usually being male and being born in the Year of Songs.

Nothing special. But others have the same mother or father so often it’s eerie. Most keep their close friends through generations.”

I knew all that. Sam and Stef had been friends since the beginning—five thousand years—and Whit and Orrin had practically built the library together in the first Year of Binding.

Sam went on. Fire-colored leaves floated to the ground behind him. “Some of those best friends and perpetual parents are gone. I keep thinking, what if Stef had been one of them? Or Sarit or Armande or Sine? They’ve been my friends for thousands of years.”

I couldn’t imagine. Didn’t want to imagine. I just wanted him to stop hurting.

He began walking again, fast, clipped steps like he could outrun the pain. “People want revenge.” His words almost didn’t carry over the breeze, the rustle of conifers, and the tapping of naked deciduous branches. “But Menehem is gone, at least for now. There’s no one to punish.”

Waiting for his return had to be unsatisfying. I was the next logical choice.

“The Council wants to search your room for anything Menehem might have left you.”

“Why?” I hugged my notebook to my chest as we turned onto his walkway. A chill breeze tugged at the rose in my fist, and leaves skittered across the cobblestones.

“They’re afraid Menehem might have left clues for you, and they’re afraid of what would happen if you knew how to put Janan to sleep.”

“Oh. Even though I just told them it isn’t possible?” Maybe they’d seen through my lie after all. The thought made me sick and dizzy. “Anyway, how could they think I’d risk sacrificing my friends? Or you?”

For a moment, I hoped he might joke about being upset that he wasn’t my friend, but he just turned his face to the sky and sighed.

“You know I’d never risk you.” The wind nearly stole my words away. I stepped closer, heart aching.

“You know I’m not like Menehem. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I’d never do what he did. You know that, right?”

“I know.” He stared far away, cracks showing in his normally calm demeanor. They’d planted something nasty inside of him, and it was growing, bursting out. “I think they’re imagining what it might mean, you not being the only newsoul anymore. Having more has never been a possibility before, but if you knew how to do it—”

“I’d never risk you. You know how I feel.” Didn’t he? Maybe he didn’t, if I couldn’t say it. “And it seems like everyone else knows how I feel, too.” Given how often they gossiped about our relationship.

I shifted my belongings to one hand and touched his shoulder. We stood there in the middle of the walkway, underneath one of the skeletal fruit trees and a sky full of clouds. Chickens and cavies rustled in their pens, softly clucking and wheeking as they waited to be fed.

The world moved around us while I waited for him to look at me. While I waited for him to believe me.

“You know how I feel,” I repeated, heart twisting into knots. “But maybe the newsouls being born, like Lidea’s baby, won’t have the same problems I did.” I stopped myself before adding, “Still do,” but only just. He knew.