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 an 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.