Jodi Meadows - Infinite

Slowly, others filed inside and made themselves comfortable on the bed, sofa, and the floor. Soon, I’d have to tell them exactly what this place was, though some could probably guess its purpose.

And would I tell them that the machine was making poison right now? Sam had only told me the other night, before the earthquake.

“Now what?” Sam asked me as we finished helping bring in supplies. The others would stay here only a few days, just long enough to recover from their injuries.

“Now we hope the sylph come.” I’d been certain they would be here waiting for me. They’d found me at Purple Rose Cottage, and then followed me here when I decided I needed to study what my father had done to them.

As Sam and I helped the temporary residents of Menehem’s lab clean the area and prepare an evening meal, I kept an eye on the forest outside. The sylph had to come. I needed to know what they wanted from me, and if they could help me stop Janan.

But when darkness fell, only natural shadows filled the woods.

MORNING DAWNED COLD and still, only a few flakes of snow spiraling down. But the vehicles were dusted with white, and the mountains looked like upside-down icicles. The frozen world made Heart and all our troubles seem far away, like a fading memory.

There were still no sylph, but I reminded myself they’d taken a while to come before. And Cris . . .

I gripped the windowsill and closed my eyes, suddenly back inside the skeleton chamber with Cris lying on the stone table, next to Janan’s body. The walls glowed red, and the silver knife flashed as he plunged it into his own chest. White and wind filled the chamber, and it seemed the world had been ripped open. Now he was cursed. A shadow of himself. Incorporeal.

Soft, peaceful snoring brought me shivering back into the present, and I picked my way between the sleepers and headed into the lab.

I’d been in here only briefly last night. It had been dark, and I hadn’t wanted to draw attention to what was going on.

Lots of metal bits and curiosities lurked in the back of the lab, most coated with dust and grime. The groaning machine that made poison was only the size of a bookcase, with a conveyer through the bottom, which pulled canisters under a spout, then pushed them onto the solid floor where they waited to be dealt with. When I’d come in last night, twenty big canisters huddled around the conveyer. I’d moved them aside and added a few empty ones to the “in” side.

Menehem had made a lot of extra canisters. But whatever his plans had been, death had delayed them.

Though the canisters were large, the metal was lightweight and they were filled with aerosol, so they weren’t too heavy for me to carry. One by one, I lined them up by the door at the rear of the lab and draped a heavy cloth over them. The door was too big to open now; cold air would shoot in and wake everyone.

Menehem’s notes indicated he’d taken six with him for Templedark. And according to the notes, Janan and the sylph developed a tolerance to the poison swiftly, but so far we had almost three times as much poison, and there was more coming.

Maybe it would be enough to stop Janan during Soul Night.

Finished, I sneaked back into the living area and crouched next to Sam. In sleep, his face was peaceful and soft. I touched his cheek and traced the contours of his jaw and neck. He smiled a little as he opened his eyes. “Ana.”

I leaned down to kiss him, quickly because groans and rustling blankets indicated others were waking, as well. “Make sure the back door gets opened later so I can take the poison outside without everyone noticing.”

He squinted and rubbed his face. “Why?”

“I want to hide it.”

“From everyone?” Alert now, he pushed himself up and whispered by my ear. “Is there someone you don’t trust?”

“No.” I glanced at the people stretching in their sleeping bags and speaking to neighbors. “It’s not that. I just don’t think they’d understand. Not everyone. Someone—any of them—might get the wrong idea and destroy the poison.” I didn’t have a plan for the poison yet, but I wanted as many options as possible.

“Do you have to tell them what it is?”

I shrugged. “If they ask, I’ll have to tell them the truth.” These people were on my side because they didn’t want newsouls to suffer. But that didn’t mean they were willing to give up their own immortality for the possibility of more newsouls. They didn’t know—wouldn’t understand—that reincarnation was over anyway.

Sam looked dubious but didn’t say anything else about it, and we spent the next hour assisting with breakfast while Aril and Lorin complained bitterly about Armande’s absence.

“He’d be able to deal with this. Somehow.” Lorin glanced over her shoulder at the dozens of people wandering around the living area. “And there’s only one baking sheet. How are we supposed to feed all these people?”

“You’ll manage,” Sam said, putting on another pot of coffee. The morning passed quickly as Rin went around and treated injuries again, checking on my arm as well. While everyone was busy, I sneaked the canisters outside.

Taking them with us when we left was out of the question. Who knew where we’d travel? But I didn’t want to leave them just sitting in the lab. If Deborl had looked at Menehem’s research, he’d know where the lab was.

There was a wide, clear yard in front of the lab, but behind it was densely forested with spruce and pine and cottonwood trees. Rocks and boulders jutted everywhere. A deer path along a cliff face led to a shallow cave, its entrance mostly concealed by snow-covered brush. Perfect.

Two hours later, I had all the canisters tucked inside the cave, heavy blankets draped over them to insulate them from the cold. Thank goodness Menehem had kept so much junk in his lab.

When I returned, sweaty and gross, everyone was settled down and discussing where to go next. Sam lifted an eyebrow as I sat next to him, and I nodded, ignoring the conversation I had nothing to do with, in favor of thinking about where we might go next, and when I might get a chance to work on translating the temple books.

“Ana,” Lidea said, “what is this building? How’d you know to take us here?”

I shifted and wanted to look to Sam or Stef for help, but everyone was waiting. I had to appear confident.

“This is Menehem’s laboratory. It’s where he disappeared to after I was born.”

Dozens of faces turned to me, not hiding the revulsion and loathing at the mention of Menehem and his experiments.

“Is this where he started Templedark? Is this where he started killing our friends?” someone asked.

I resisted the urge to lower my eyes. “Before you say anything, let me tell you what happened.

“The Council told you that Menehem admitted responsibility for Templedark, but that’s not the whole story. It starts almost twenty-five years ago, when he was looking for ways to control the sylph. One night, while he was experimenting in the market field, Ciana was dying in the hospital. He was working with a gas, and there was a minor explosion. Wind took the vapor toward the temple, and the temple went dark.”

Everyone looked pale and sick. Lidea said, “What does that have to do with this place?” She squirmed, as though this air might be contaminated.

“Well, you know Ciana died when the temple was dark. And in the Year of Songs, I was born instead.”

“The gas did it?” Whit asked.

I nodded. “Yes. Once he realized what he’d done, he left Heart to figure out the details. The mixture he’d been working with had been a mistake, one he wasn’t sure how to reproduce. So he built this place, and eighteen years later, he had a breakthrough.