Sam, who, five thousand years ago, had taken immortality knowing the price. How could I ever look at him the same way?
But I couldn’t bear to pull away from him. Maybe I wouldn’t tell him; it would be hard enough for both of us to deal with the fleetingness of my existence.
I would just die.
Where would I go? What would I do?
So lost in myself, and in Sam’s arms, I almost didn’t notice the commotion around the curve of the temple.
“What’s going on?” I swallowed more tears.
“Sylph. Don’t worry. They’ll capture it and set it free outside Range.” He started to adjust his hold on me, but I straightened and pulled away. “What is it?” Concern lined his face.
“I just had a horrible thought.” I wanted to be wrong, but my mind worked no matter how I tried to ignore it. “Help me get there before they put it in an egg.”
He looked uncertain, but kept me upright as I limped toward the crowd gathered around a panicked sylph. The tall shadow hummed and sang, caught in the circle of people with brass eggs. It could have burned any of them, but it stayed in the center and shifted as though trying to decide what to do.
Then it saw me.
I gathered my strength and gave Sam’s hand a squeeze. “Let me through.” My voice cracked, and I had to say it again, but the team with sylph eggs backed off. Maybe they remembered Deborl’s claims that I could control sylph.
I stepped through the line of people, Sam close behind, and Stef after him. The column of smoke and shadow grew still and its songs silent. It looked at all of us and slumped, somewhere between relief and exhaustion.
It was too human.
“We shouldn’t have let him do it, Stef.” I lifted my hand toward the black smoke. People hissed, but when my fingers passed through, there was only uncomfortable warmth. The sylph hummed, calmer.
I raised my other palm toward the midnight curls, but it shivered away from me as heat grew, like it had lost control.
“Oh.” Stef sounded like she wanted to be sick. “Cris?”
The sylph twitched—acknowledgment—and a tendril of shadow blossomed like a black rose, then fell to my feet.
I clutched my chest, my heart caged inside. We’d let him sacrifice himself for us, and now he was cursedCursed.
Sylph were cursed.
Cris had said there’d been no sylph in the beginning. I still didn’t know how they’d been cursed, but I knew what Cris had done.
“Oh, Cris.”
The shadow rose vanished, and the sylph floated between a pair of guards—who stepped aside to let him pass. He flowed like ink down East Avenue, and Sine muttered into her SED. “There’s a sylph going through the Eastern Arch. Open the gates wide and let him be.”
31
HEARTBEAT
AFTER SPENDING A few days in the hospital, I was taken to the Council chamber. The remaining Councilors were there—nine now, since Deborl was in prison—but none of them looked happy to see me.
Most just stared at the items on the table: a stack of leather-bound books, a handful of diaries, and a small silver box.
This wasn’t quite everything Deborl had stolen from me, but these things were the most incriminating.
The music…
I slumped in my chair, grateful when Sam sat next to me; they hadn’t let anyone visit while I was in the hospital.
“Today’s session is closed.” Sine focused on me, her gaze hard and holding back all emotion. “And it will probably stay closed. Typically we are in favor of sharing our decisions with everyone in Heart, but this—Ana.” She said my name like heartbreak.
Everyone stared at me, but I didn’t look away from Sine. I just waited.
“Deborl’s methods were reprehensible, but he did uncover several unfortunate truths.
“First, you were in possession of Menehem’s research.” She pressed her palm on the diaries, as though she could crush them into dust. “The same research that describes how he created Templedark.
You
I clenched my jaw and said nothing, because nothing I might say would help. I had kept the research. I had lied. Those things were true.
“Second, there’s Meuric.”
The name alone conjured memories of his stench, his grating voice, and his manic laughter when he told me that Janan ate souls. I shuddered and swallowed the taste of acid in my throat. Below the table, Sam took my hand and squeezed.
“Is what Deborl said true, Ana?” Emotion cracked through Sine’s voice when she asked, “Did you kill Meuric?”
Had I? I’d thought so before, but then he was alive in the temple. He would have stayed alive, but Deborl brought him out. Both Deborl and I were responsible, but if I hadn’t stabbed and kicked Meuric to begin with… “It was self-defense. He tricked me into the temple. He was going to trap me there. We fought. I won.”
“And you decided not to tell anyone.” Sine glanced at Sam, probably knowing I’d told him, but if she was going to punish him for not coming forward, she wasn’t going to do it now. “That brings me to the third complaint.” She touched the temple key and books, and confusion flickered across her face. The other Councilors, too, seemed unsure what they were looking at.
“Those were Meuric’s,” I offered. Technically the books weren’t, but he could have shared them with the community. He’d decided not to.
“And yet,” Sine said, “when you came into possession of them, you hid them.”
It wasn’t like anyone else would have remembered them. Deborl would have taken everything, and I would have no answers.
Maybe I had too many answers.
“Do you remember what happened to Cris?” My voice caught on his name.
The Councilors glanced at one another, muttering, until Sine shook her head. “He was killed during the mob on market day.”
My fists balled up and my jaw ached from clenching it, but there was no point in arguing. They wouldn’t remember that Cris had become a sylph, or what Janan did to newsouls, or that they’d all agreed to bind themselves to him in the first place. The forgetting magic was too strong.
They’d only remember that they didn’t trust me. That I’d lied. That I’d kept things from them.
“Ana.” Sine leaned on the table. “I know the newsouls are important to you.”
She had no idea.
“The Council had several emergency meetings after market day. We did listen to what you had to say, and we’ve already put laws in place to make sure newsouls are protected. Anid and Ariana are safe. So are any others born.”
And me? I’d never feel safe again. Neither would those inside the temple. Still, it was more than I’d expected. “Thank you.”
“But,” she said, “I’m afraid given what we’ve discussed today, the Council has decided to revoke your status
