Jodi Meadows - Asunder

We sat at the splintering kitchen table, diaries and papers spread out around us. I pointed at a notebook. “This journal matches up with what we already know: he’d been trying to find ways to stop sylph. He started with iron and was looking for ways to make sylph power the eggs with their own life force; that way they’d keep sylph trapped long after the batteries ran out. But that didn’t work, so he went back to chemicals.”

“He was always best with chemicals,” Sam agreed.

“During the first Templedark—the night Ciana died—he was doing his experiments in the market field.” Then Ciana hadn’t been reborn. I’d replaced her.

“Because, of course, that’s a logical place to do experiments.”

“You know Menehem.” My heart pinched for only a moment—if Menehem hadn’t been so irresponsible, I wouldn’t be here—but Sam touched my hand. His knee bumped mine. His comment had been only about Menehem, and involved zero regret about the way things had turned out, even though the world had lost Ciana. I tried to smile.

Strong fingers tightened over mine, and he lifted his eyebrow, waiting for something. Acceptance. I was getting better at reading Sam, if not many others.

I smiled again, squeezed his hand, and we both relaxed. “So whatever he was doing in the market field,” I went on, “there was some kind of minor explosion, and a vapor went up. That’s when the temple went dark.”

“From the gas,” Sam said. “Then he came here to figure out how to reproduce the mistake, because he didn’t know what he’d done to get that reaction.”

“Right.” I flipped a few pages and pointed at a list. “These are the chemicals he used.” It was a long list.

“I don’t know what those are.”

“Hormones, some of them. I recognize a few from Micah’s biology lessons.” I glanced toward the lab in the back. “There are stores of the chemicals in there. Most of them are labeled, even. And he wrote down the final recipe, though I’d like to study his experiments a bit more first.”

“First? Before trying it yourself?” Sam frowned. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

I flinched. “You don’t think I’d try to make another Templedark, do you?”

“No, I know you’d be doing it for research, but what if the Council finds out? We both know what they’d assume.”

I slumped and planted my chin on my fist. “You’re right.”

“Besides, you’ve told me that sylph were fleeing Menehem during Templedark. That makes me think he was hurting them.”

“Are you worried about hurting sylph, Dossam?” I flashed a dry smile.

He spoke gently. “I just don’t think you’d want to hurt anything, even sylph.”

I lowered my eyes. “No, not even sylph.” After the weeks it had taken for my hands to recover from sylph burns, I might not have minded. But the night of Templedark, when Meuric had led me into the temple and tried to trap me, I’d stabbed him in the eye with a knife and shoved him beneath an upsidedown pit. He’d fallen upward, body still flailing. That had been self-defense, but the guilt still writhed inside me. I should have come up with a better solution to my problem, but it was too late now.

Sam put his arms around me.

“I don’t want to hurt them,” I said, “but the more I understand about this, the more I understand about Janan. Whatever Menehem did, it stopped Janan for a little while. The rest of you don’t feel it, but the white walls feel horrible to me. And the temple makes me feel—” I blinked away tears. “He’s not good, Sam. Whatever Janan is, it’s bad. It’s evil.”

“All right.” Sam pressed himself against me, as though he could shield me from something like Janan.

As though he could even comprehend my fear of Janan when he didn’t fear Janan at all. I probably sounded crazy to him, thinking the heat and pulse of the walls were wrong. My seemingly irrational dislike of sleeping close to the exterior walls of buildings was unique, but I couldn’t even lean against the wall. It made my stomach twist with unease.

I was right, though. There was something off about Janan. Inside the temple, he’d called me a mistake, which implied that he had a plan. He’d also said I was “of no consequence,” which implied that he didn’t view me as a threat.

I aimed to be a threat.

Sam combed his fingers through my hair, down the back of my neck. “I wish I understood what it feels like for you. I wish I could make it right.”

He didn’t want to make me right. He wanted to make things with Janan right.

I liked that he didn’t think I was wrong. I liked that he believed me. That he trusted me, in spite of how I must have looked.

The building creaked in the wind as night settled, and my hair muffled Sam’s words. “I’m just worried that if we go too far into Menehem’s research, regardless of our intentions, someone will think we’re creating another Templedark.”

“Even our possessing his research will be too much for some people,” I whispered. “Maybe I have more friends now, but Meuric wasn’t alone in his feelings about newsouls. Not nearly.” Right off, I could think of five people who’d made their dislike clear, and lots more who just didn’t bother acknowledging me.

Sam nodded, his expression etched with frustration.

“I don’t want anyone to think I want another Templedark, but Menehem’s poison is the only thing I know that affects Janan. I just—I want a weapon, Sam. You gave me a knife when I told you someone followed me home one night. A knife won’t work against Janan. We only know one thing that affects him, and this is it. I want to understand how. I want to discover if maybe there’s another way I can protect myself.” I wanted to feel safe, but that would never happen in Heart, and I wouldn’t ask Sam to spend this lifetime in a dusty cabin just for me.

“Let’s go through the rest of Menehem’s research,” Sam said. “I’m sure he recorded videos and every possible variation in his results. Will that help?”

“It’s a start.”

SAM WAS ALREADY sleeping on the sofa when the noise came, a soft shriek of wind that sent splinters of fear through my chest. I scrambled for the window.

Dusk had fallen, and the view from the window nearest my bed revealed only twin mountains against starlight, and lots of trees in between. Brittle leaves rushed in the wind, and I relaxed. Real wind. Real wind in a strange place. I didn’t know the sounds of this building like I knew those of Purple Rose Cottage. I wasn’t familiar with the particular way wind cut across the iron corner in the northeast, or which trees groaned. I didn’t know their voices.

The sound remained, but the branches, half-dressed with autumn, became motionless.

A square of light fell from my window onto the grass when Sam clicked on the nearest lamp. “What is it?” He stopped at the foot of the bed, yawning.

“They’re watching.” I grabbed my flashlight from the nightstand, gave the tube a few sharp twists, and shone the light toward the woods.

Shadows skittered away, yelping and whining, but they didn’t come closer. When I pulled the beam toward the lab again, the shadows relaxed and resumed their places at the tree line.

“Watching?” Sam touched my shoulder and peered out from behind me. “How many are there?”

“A lot.” I closed the window and pulled the shade. We were probably safe inside the iron building.

Probably. “Do you think any of these are the same sylph that attacked me on my birthday?”

“I don’t know.” Sam clicked off the light. “If they are, why behave differently now?”