Asunder (Incarnate) Page 5

  “Is it working?” He stood and glanced out the window. His expression didn’t change, though, which meant the sylph must still be out there.

  “Nope. She can call me whatever bug she wants. I’m not a butterfly.”

  “No.” Sam gave a quiet half smile. “You aren’t.”

  Shortly after we’d met, Sam had compared my life to a butterfly’s, saying that to others I was fleeting, inconsequential. I’d long ago forgiven the insult, but I’d made the mistake of wearing a butterfly costume to a rededication masquerade earlier this year. The nickname had stuck, mostly as an endearment, though knowing my distaste for it, Sarit searched tirelessly for alternatives.

  “It sounds like we’re going back to Heart sooner than scheduled?” Sam hesitated, then sat on the corner of the bed. He’d been sleeping on the sofa only a few strides away, and he claimed he wasn’t uncomfortable there, but I kept wondering if we might both be more comfortable if he were here. With me. I didn’t say anything, though.

  “Yep.” I stretched to put my SED on the small nightstand, next to my private notebook. “We’ve been invited to a rebirth, and I really want to go. I think we’re done here, anyway.”

  Sam tracked my motions, something deep and undefinable in his eyes when I settled against the pillow again. “You know I’d go anywhere with you, Ana.”

  I smiled. “Keep saying that and I might start believing you.”

  “It’s true.” He scooted closer, now by my hips. “Where do you want to go?”

  “To the moon?”

  He grinned. “I like that you think big.”

  “What about to the bottom of the ocean?” I’d never even seen the top of the ocean, but why stop there? “We could go to the very bottom and explore. Can you imagine what kind of creatures must live under all that water?”

  “I think you can, and that’s what I—” He dragged in a breath. “I want to tell you something.”

  “What is it?” I pushed myself up straight, and suddenly we were very close together and the mattress sagged awkwardly under our combined weight. He hooked his arm around my waist to keep me from falling over as I let my hands slide downward so my fingers curved over his arms.

  “Ana—” He kissed me, gentle and sweet, but filled with an intoxicating urgency. His arm tightened around me, drawing me nearer. He kissed a trail down my neck, as far as he could go before my shirt collar stopped him, and then he stayed there. Breathing hard.

  I almost asked again what he wanted to tell me, but maybe I didn’t want to know. Maybe it was something bad and that was why he’d kissed me like that. Maybe he thought it would be so horrible I’d never speak to him again, but surely he knew he meant everything to me.

  “Sam?” I combed my fingers through his hair, soft and thick and dark. I liked the way he kept it, a barely contained disaster. “What is it?” I whispered.

  He drew himself up, kissed me again, and spoke the words against my lips. “I love you, Ana.”

  My breath caught in my chest.

  The words. They made my heart beat faster. I wanted to be able to tell him how I felt, and what he must have been waiting to hear, but even thinking the words made me sweat. Nosouls couldn’t love. That was what my mother had told me for eighteen years, and she’d slapped me if I even said the word.

  But I wasn’t a nosoul. Newsoul, yes. Still, was I truly capable and deserving of love?

  “It’s okay,” he whispered, and his worry turned into understanding. Of course he understood; he always did. “It’s okay if you can’t tell me. Or if you don’t feel the same way about me. I just wanted to make sure that you knew I do love you.”

  The words sent chills across my skin. “Thank you.” I tried to smile to reassure him, but nothing would come.

  “I love you.” He said it as though repeating himself would convince me.

  The tightness spread up to my throat, making tears blur my vision.

  “Ana.” He turned my face up, brushing his thumbs across my damp cheeks. “Why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know.” A sob erupted with an ugly heave. I couldn’t breathe anymore.

  Sam wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight against his chest. My tears soaked his shirt, and when my nose ran, he pressed a clean handkerchief into my hand. I clutched the square of white cloth. Clutched Sam. Part of me wanted him to go away so I could cry in peace, but I didn’t want him to leave.

  He rocked me until my sobs waned to sniffles, not asking why again. And he didn’t take back the words. That word. I didn’t want him to take it back. I wanted him to feel that way about me.

  I wanted it. I couldn’t bear if he took it away.

  “Lie down,” he whispered.

  I did, wiping a dry corner of the handkerchief over my face as he pulled a blanket over me.

  “Do you want a cup of tea?”

  “No.” Weeping had shredded my voice. “I want you.”

  “Okay.” He bent to untie his shoes, then kicked them off and stretched out on the narrow bed beside me. Achingly close. Too close, because our knees and elbows got in each other’s way, even through the blanket. Not close enough.

  I shut my eyes so I didn’t have to see his concerned expression, his confusion, or the hurt. If I could have explained somehow, I would have, but there was nothing where an explanation should be.

  He brushed hair off my face, strands stuck to damp skin, and finally I drifted in and out of restless sleep. But he was there every time I opened my eyes, stirring awake when I moved.

  Darkness blanketed the world as I crept up to wash my face and throw the handkerchief in the laundry pile. Night had fallen. Outside, sylph crooned half-familiar songs, making me pause.

  “Ana.” Sam rolled over to face me, and I darted back into bed before he decided to go to the sofa.

  The blanket was still warm from his body, even though he lay on top of the covers. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “For what?” He leaned on his elbow, face just above mine in the darkness. Kisses breezed over my forehead, my cheeks.

  For not running away when I started crying. For not taking the words back. For saying the words in the first place.

  “I don’t know. For everything.”

  Dawn slanted through the east-facing windows in gold banners. Sam was in the kitchen area, preparing coffee, and all our bags were waiting by the front door.

  He scraped the sides of the empty honey jar before stirring my coffee, then smiled over. “Hey.”

  “Are the sylph still out there?” I rubbed sleep from my eyes and scooted off the bed. The rest of the covers were cold; he must have been up a long time, getting ready for us to leave. “Do you think they’ll let us by without trouble?”

  “They haven’t bothered us yet.” He took our mugs and came to sit beside me, handing me my coffee.

  It was true. We’d gone outside to clean, to get fresh air, to take care of Shaggy, and the sylph hadn’t done anything more sinister than study us.

  Ceramic warmed my hands as I breathed in bitter and sweet steam. “Sam, about last night…”

  He inclined his head toward me, black hair falling across his eyes.

  In all the months I’d known him, he’d never said my feelings were stupid. He never made me feel wrong or dumb. He’d always taken me seriously. I could trust him.

  “I don’t know why I reacted like that, after you said—” I stared into my coffee. “I didn’t want to start crying. It’s embarrassing. I’m sorry.”

  He caressed my cheek, my neck. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed or sorry. It’s fine. I think…I think I understand.”

  “Can you explain it to me?” I choked a laugh. “Because I don’t understand at all.”

  “No, because if I’m wrong, I’ll be really embarrassed.”

  “Thank you.” I leaned on his shoulder.

  He kissed the top of my head, and we stayed quiet as sunlight moved across the floor. “After someone followed you home, I gave you a knife.”
r />   “Yes.” I shivered closer to him.

  “Did it make you feel safer?”

  I considered. At first, I’d tried to squirm away from the weapon, but it was beautiful and had later saved me from Meuric. I carried it everywhere now, though I tended to use it for holding down paper more than stabbing.

  “Yes,” I said at last.

  “All right.” His voice grew distant, disturbed.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about.” Sam was a rule follower. He didn’t do things that might get him in trouble. He plain didn’t think about trouble at all.

  But whatever he had in mind now, it was as un-Sam-like as the sylph outside.

  6

  GRATITUDE

  A COUPLE OF hours later, the sylph watched us go. They stayed by their trees, moaning pitifully and huddling together when a chill wind snapped through, but they made no motion to follow us. I had pockets full of sylph eggs, just in case.

  As Sam and I headed west into the woods, the pony on a lead behind us, the sylph wailed and sang part of a symphony we’d been listening to the other night.

  I shivered deeper into my coat. What did they want? Nothing in the lab had offered an explanation. Aside from the poison, I was just as confused as before.

  “Come on,” Sam said, gentle as ever when pulling me from fearful contemplation. “We need to decide something very important.”

  “What’s that?” I tugged my hat over my ears and adjusted my fingerless mittens, trapping in as much heat as possible.

  “Which duet we’ll play for Sarit first. Do you have a preference?”

  I grinned and let him distract me with talk of music for the next several hours, though both of us kept checking over our shoulders for shadows that didn’t belong.

  During our hike from Purple Rose Cottage to Menehem’s lab, autumn had only been creeping into the leaves, weaving red and gold and russet with the green. Now, as we pushed toward Heart, an autumn carpet crunched beneath our boots.

  A deep roar sounded, long and rumbling. I stiffened and reached for my knife—as if it would do any good if we were about to encounter a bear—but Sam just took my forearm and drew me off the road.

  “Stand back here.” As the roar grew louder and higher, Sam slipped one hand around mine and held tight to Shaggy’s harness with the other.

  It wasn’t a bear growl; the sound was too long and even and mechanical. A low-flying air drone approached in a torrent of leaves. Metal glinted in dappled sunlight, the only thing I could see through the leaf storm, and the noise grew so shrill I covered my ears.

  Then the drone was gone, its sound falling lower as it vanished down the road. Leaves rained down on the sides of the road, showers of gold and red and russet, leaving the cobblestones mostly clear.

  “It’s safe now.” Sam drew Shaggy and me back onto the road.

  “A drone to clear the roads?” I gazed after the thing, but it was long gone. Only flurries of autumn leaves gave evidence to its passing. “How does it know where to go? And why is it so loud?” Labor drones were typically quiet.

  “There are sensors under the roads, which tell if there’s anything covering it for long periods of time. Rain doesn’t matter, and moving traffic doesn’t set it off, but snow and lots of leaves do. Even dead animals. It can tell what kind of material is covering the stone, and appropriate drones get sent out.”

  “Stef’s idea?” It sounded like something she would insist on, keeping the roads clear even when traffic outside of Heart was uncommon.

  “And the noise they make.” Sam tugged Shaggy’s lead and the pony snorted, ears twisting to listen to the retreating drone. “We found out quickly that with the quieter models, animals didn’t know what to do. With the noise, they tend to run.”

  “Instead of waiting to get hit on the head?”

  “Exactly. Now,” he said, “we need to talk about your posture when you play your flute. You keep letting the end drop. Is it too heavy?” His tone was teasing.

  “No,” I mumbled, because he was right. It was just laziness.

  “You’ll get a better sound if you hold your flute straight.”

  “I know, I know. Do you keep yourself up at night coming up with new things to correct me on?”

  He chuckled. “Do you keep yourself up at night coming up with new ways to see if I’m paying attention?”

  “That’s exactly what I do.” Sighing happily, I lifted my face to the perfume of autumn. The scents of turning leaves and decaying grass tickled through me, and as we left the sylph and lab behind, a knot inside my chest began to loosen.

  A new tangle formed as we drew closer to Heart, and two days later we woke to clouds falling across the sky in great splashes. The air, so recently crisp and exciting, now felt heavy and close with waiting. As we finished packing our belongings, I hunched deep into my raincoat, wishing it would just rain already.

  The sky rumbled and the ground shook. Water poured from the clouds, soaking the remainder of the journey to Heart with misery.

  The rain pounded on us at all hours, dripping through the autumn foliage and revealing thin spots in our tent that night. The temperature dipped, and by the time we approached Heart the next day, my wool clothes were sodden and smelly, chafing my skin. I entertained vivid fantasies of a hot shower.

  At last, the city wall shone white atop the plateau, and beside me, Sam muttered something in relief. Beneath his hood, his expression melted into what mine must have looked like when we’d left Heart.

  But seeing the pristine white tower that soared into the clouds, muscles in my neck and shoulders crawled with tension, and all I could think about were Janan’s words to me: mistake. You are a mistake of no consequence.

  I jerked my gaze downward, pulled in a breath, and twisted my hands around in my mitts to distract myself. Even with the sylph, our weeks away had erased the stress I’d barely realized I’d been living with in Heart. And it took only one look to bring it back.

  “Are you all right?” Sam’s voice came just over the pounding rain. “Ana?”

  I nodded. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Geysers steamed fiercely in the cold, making the whole plateau misty and difficult to navigate.

  “Stay on the road,” Sam reminded me, though it wasn’t necessary. Some of the ground here was very thin; beneath us, an immense chamber of magma pulsed and boiled, releasing its energy in bursts of steaming water and bubbling mud. Nevertheless, I let him guide me to the Eastern Arch, and waited while he pressed his hand against the soul-scanner. A moment later, it allowed our entrance.

  Inside the guard station, we dried ourselves and Shaggy, and sent the pony with the guard on duty so he could be fed. The guard smiled at me. I sort of recognized him from Templedark. Had I warned him against dying? The whole night had been too chaotic for clear memories, and he took Shaggy and left before I could ask.

  “Do you want to wait here until it stops raining?” Sam asked when we were alone.

  “No, we might as well walk to the other side of the city now. Who knows how long it will be before the storm passes?” I pulled out my SED and sent a message to Sarit to meet us at Sam’s. “But we are going to have a big jar of honey waiting for us. Sarit likes rain, right?”

  Sam grinned and hefted four of our bags onto his shoulders, leaving two for me. Just those were more than heavy enough.

  We headed outside, into Heart, trudging under the weight of our belongings. East Avenue was dark and quiet, except for the driving rain, so we hurried down the road without interruption. Mills and warehouses of the industrial quarter watched us from the south; evergreen trees blocked the northeastern residential quarter, leaving only the occasional street as proof that people lived there.

  As we entered the market field—the wide expanse of cobblestone surrounding the temple and Councilhouse—Sam moved to walk between the temple and me. He didn’t say anything about it, and he knew I didn’t like the temple, but I wasn’t sure it was a
n entirely conscious move, either.

  We turned onto South Avenue. A side road here and there, and finally we came to his walkway, covered with wet leaves and broken twigs. The fruit trees were bare, and at one side of the house, chickens and cavies’ buildings were nearly invisible in the rain.

  “Ready to get out of the weather?” Sam asked, hitching his load of bags again.

  Yes, definitely, but I wasn’t eager to box myself into one of the identical houses of white stone. Walls shouldn’t have heartbeats. They shouldn’t. And as welcoming as Sam’s house was otherwise—pine-green shutters and doors, rosebushes below the windows, and a generous garden—it was still made from that stone. It had windows and doors in the same places as every other house in Heart. It wasn’t natural.

  Still, I didn’t want to stand out in the rain staring. I followed Sam indoors and dropped my bags on the mud rug. Water soaked the wool threads immediately, turning the gray a shade darker.

  Sam stripped off his outer clothes and boots, leaving them behind as he moved between all the instruments in the parlor. The sheets covering the piano, harpsichord, cello—all the large instruments on the floor—had been moved away already, probably courtesy of Stef or Sarit.

  I unloaded all my wet belongings and clothes, muscles creaking with relief, then hurried up the spiral staircase and into my washroom for a shower.

  When I was warmed through, dry, and clothed in a dove-gray sweater and thick black pants, I skipped downstairs to find Sarit and Stef making tea in the kitchen.

  “Ana!” Sarit abandoned the kettle and wrapped me in a hug. “You’re back! And just in time. I got a message earlier saying that Lidea went to the rebirthing center this afternoon, and Wend will send a message when we should come. They’d have been so sad if you couldn’t make it.”

  “Ugh, the rain, though.” I pulled my damp hair into a quick bun. “Our tent had a leak. I’ve had quite enough of the rain.”

  “But you’re going, right?” Sarit narrowed her dark eyes at me. “Because I will put you in one of my tiny bags and carry you if I have to.”