Asunder

17 KEY

THE WATER BOTTLE dropped to the floor, spilling open, and Meuric howled with laughter.

I threw myself up the spiral stairs, around in circles higher and higher. My thighs burned and my head throbbed, but I ignored my own pain. It was nothing. Janan was replacing souls, letting the old live and keeping the new for himself. The weeper, the non-voice that had comforted me in the blackness, was being consumed.

As I climbed, the sobbing and wailing grew louder, and I imagined the souls were calling me back, though whether to save them or die with them, I wasn’t sure.

Up the stairs, I emerged into a spherical room. I didn’t stop running, and the entire chamber rolled under my feet as though I were trapped inside a giant ball.

Remembering how the upside-down pit had sucked Meuric upward, I stopped while the hole was still on the side of the room, then fumbled for the door device with my pulse thundering in my ears. I pressed the combination that had opened a path to freedom before. Gray misted on the white stone, and I ran into scorching daylight.

Even as the door vanished, Meuric’s words pursued me: they’re being eaten.

All the weeping, all the whispered cries for help. Newsouls.

Light rained around me and the temple pressed against my back, echoing my pounding heartbeat. All I could see were the cobblestones under my boots and my shaking hands as I thrust the key into my pocket. I blinked to clear my vision, but it didn’t help.

I gasped at air, gulping the scent of sweat and burned coffee and sulfur from an erupting geyser beyond the wall. Steam wafted across the agricultural quarter, through the orchards and fields. Two more geysers erupted in the north and east, their loud gush and whoosh audible even over the market field din. Water sprayed high, reaching over the immense city wall.

Hands closed over my shoulders and yanked me close, and I screamed.

A man I’d never seen before shoved me and slammed me against the temple. Lightning snapped through my vision and thoughts, and I cried out as the stranger pinned me to the wall. I couldn’t get away.

The temple thrummed against my spine, and the back of my head ached where it had hit. The stranger dug into my pocket and seized the temple key.

“This,” he growled, “doesn’t belong to you.” He grabbed the front of my coat, jerked me around so I hit the wall again, and then he was gone.

My head pounded as I struggled to find my feet, to go after him, but I staggered a few steps and hit the ground. Stone scraped my palms and fingertips, all gritty and cold. I stared up at the real world, such a shock after an eternity of solitude.

At least two dozen people milled around the market field. Some gaped at me. I hadn’t seen them before, hadn’t thought to be mindful when I emerged from the temple. There wasn’t supposed to be a door.

Had they seen the man attack me? Had they noticed my appearance?

Had anyone heard the souls crying? The temple loomed behind me, immense and infinitely horrible.

Maybe it wasn’t a heart, but a stomach.

I tried to track the man who’d attacked me, but my eyes were bleary with pain and grief. His large form stopped by a smaller one—Deborl?—and moved on. I lost him.

I’d lost the key. I’d lost my biggest advantage.

I collapsed over my knees and sobbed.

“Ana!” Sam fell beside me, wrapped his arms around me. “Where have you been? What happened?”

“Someone took the key.”

“Your key? Who?”

“I don’t know.” I buried my face in Sam’s shirt and let tears fall. My eyes were heavy with the weight of them, like I could cry seas.

“Ana,” he murmured. “Oh, Ana. You’re safe now.”

I didn’t have the breath to tell him I wasn’t worried about myself. It was the others. It should have been me, too, except Menehem’s experiment had gone wrong. His meddling.

Trying to swallow my sobs so we wouldn’t draw a crowd, I burrowed deeper into Sam’s embrace. I inhaled the scent of sunshine on his skin, shampoo in his hair, and coffee on his breath as he squeezed me tighter.

“I was so afraid for you, but you’re here now. You’re safe. You’re safe.” He whispered comforting nonsense while he peeled my hair off my wet cheeks and neck. I smelled salty, sweaty, and perhaps I’d carried Meuric’s odors of blood and pee, because Sam dragged his hands over me as though searching for injuries.

My worst injuries were on the inside.

A narrow shadow dropped over us. Sam’s weight shifted when he looked up, and his voice rumbled in his chest against my ear. “What?”

“Just checking to make sure everything was okay.” Councilor Deborl’s voice was strained, as though he were trying to make it deeper than it really was.

“Thanks, but we’re fine.” Sam stood, drawing me with him. I had just enough time to dry my cheeks, not that it mattered. Dark stains on Sam’s shirt revealed the oceans of my crying.

“When people scream, it’s rude to leave them in the middle of the market field.” Deborl leveled his glare on me. “Especially when her guardian is the one to frighten her so badly.”

I edged closer to Sam. “There was someone else. He pushed me and took—” Deborl cocked his head. “And took what?”

Took the key, but I wasn’t supposed to know about the key. No one was supposed to be able to remember it, and what if the stranger hadn’t just paused by Deborl, but given him the key, too? If I accused Deborl of having the key, there’d be questions of how I came to possess it. Questions like what happened to Meuric, and why had I been hiding such an important object?

I slumped against Sam. “The man shoved me. He was big….” Everyone was big compared to me. “He had brown hair. He walked right by you.”

“I’ll look for him,” Deborl said, but he didn’t leave.

“Everything is okay, Deborl.” Sam kept his voice even, and only the way his arm tightened around me belied his tone. “Thank you for checking.”

Deborl glanced between us, scratching his chin where red lines marked cuts from shaving. “I hope you haven’t been letting her get hurt a lot. After all, the Council trusts you to care for her.” His eyes narrowed when he smiled. “You know, half the population thinks she’s responsible for Templedark, and the other half isn’t convinced that she’s not. And now they’re talking about the incident with the sylph.”

Sam’s hands curled into fists, and his shoulders pulled back as though he was ready to hit Deborl.

“Ana did more to mitigate a slaughter during Templedark than anyone. And where were you that night?

Did you turn over and go back to sleep?”

Their argument had begun drawing curious looks. Cris strode toward us as though on a mission. Most others just stared.

“Stop,” I said. “Both of you.” I couldn’t imagine how my voice didn’t shake. I locked my knees to stay upright, but it just made me light-headed.

Deborl smirked.

“Hello, Cris,” I said as he approached behind Deborl. I was so sore and tired. Maybe someone else could keep Sam and Deborl from coming to blows. Then I could curl up on a nice rock and go to sleep for a year.

He nodded in greeting, exchanging a questioning look with Sam. Something heavy passed between them, though I couldn’t decipher the flickers of expression.

“Is this your plan, Sam? Get people to feel sorry for newsouls by parading around a tearful Ana? It won’t work. It’s pathetic.” Deborl sneered. “People will never accept newsouls. Everyone knows you’re blinded by”—he eyed me—“whatever you two do together. Disgusting.”

Sam’s arm tightened around me. “Don’t you have something important to do?” He glared at Deborl.

“Maybe you could find whoever assaulted Ana?”

The Councilor showed teeth when he smiled. “Little Ana missed her progress report the other day, and you haven’t rescheduled. Some Councilors are wondering if she doesn’t really want to be a member of the community.”

The other day?

“I told you, she was sick—” Sam had needed to make an excuse for me?

“You have until the end of this week to report to the Council.” Deborl’s glare didn’t shift away from me. “That’s in two days. Be there no later than tenth hour, or your status as Dossam’s ward will be revoked and you will be exiled from Range.” With that, he marched into the dispersing crowd. A couple people patted him on the back, pleased with the idea that I might be kicked out.

Armande strode up, coffee in hand. He offered the paper cup to me, and I clutched it to my chest, trying to absorb its warmth.

“So.” Cris turned to Sam. “I see you found her.”

“You were looking for me?” He’d known exactly where I was. He’d been ready to go, too. How did I go from being sick to missing? What happened to the original plan of letting everyone assume we were off kissing somewhere?

“You were missing.” Sam’s fingers curled over the small of my back, as though to draw me close again. “We all went out to look for you that night, and the next. Cris and Armande stayed out late with me every night, but we couldn’t find you.”

That night? The next night? Every night? How many had there been? I reached back and touched the rose I’d braided into my hair, but it felt the same as it had when I’d put it there: a little brittle, but certainly not that old.

“We were all worried,” Cris said. “Sarit is a wreck. Someone should call her.”

My head throbbed so hard I could barely think. I just wanted to sleep, but the temple loomed at my back, a thousand times more frightening than it had ever been. Meuric’s words still haunted me. The souls still haunted me.

I licked my lips. “How long was I”—not in there, not with Armande and Cris present—“missing?”

“A week.” Sam’s expression was sober, lines around his mouth and between his eyes. His skin was pallid, his eyes bloodshot and circled with hollowed darkness. “You’ve been missing for a week.”

My cup slipped from my hands and slammed onto the cobblestones. The lid popped off and coffee splashed over shoes and pant hems, but I couldn’t muster the energy to apologize, let alone back away from the liquid flying everywhere.

Coffee seeped through the cracks in stones, like rot dribbling from Meuric’s eyeSam caught me when my knees buckled. “It’s all right now. I’ll take you home.”