The weeping and unsilence surrounded me, heavier and thicker for no reason except that we were trapped without the key. It would be impossible to tell how long we’d been in here, or what was going on outside. The everywhere-light glowed with ever-unwavering determination.
“Meuric had a device. Right before Templedark, he tricked me into coming here, then followed with the intention of leaving me locked in so I wouldn’t cause trouble. I took the key from him.” And then trapped him in here, caught between life and death. Now he was out, finally dead on the steps of the Councilhouse.
Stef raised her eyebrows. “And you’ve been coming and going since? Why?”
“Not because I like it here. I need to learn what Janan’s trying to hide. I came here before because I thought I could find answers.” I almost wished for ignorance again; it had hurt less than the truth. “Now I have even more questions.”
“Oh.” Stef shifted and handed back my SED. “Well, feel free to start explaining things to me any minute. Even the questions.”
“Okay.” I stuffed my SED into my pocket, wishing I’d brought my knife instead. It was at home, since my dress had only one small pocket, but if I’d known I was going to get shoved into the temple again… “Have you been exploring?” As much as I hated moving around the temple without the key, especially when I wasn’t sure if they’d throw Sam in after us, it would give me the illusion of doing something.
“A little,” Cris said. “But it’s empty.”
They clearly hadn’t reached the spherical room, or the sideways-gravity room. Lucky them. “Stay close, then.” We headed toward the nearest archway, and I began telling them the truth about Templedark, my disappearance since then, and the books I was trying to translate.
I told them what Janan was doing to newsouls.
“No,” Stef whispered. “Surely no.”
Cris’s eyes widened with horror. “Why? How? How could that possibly be?”
“Meuric told me,” I said. “He might have lied, but I don’t think so.” Even as I said it, cries grew louder, thicker on the smothering air until they were like black smoke clinging to our clothes and skin. Cris and Stef said nothing, just looked like they wanted to be sick.
It was painful, watching them react to the truth about newsouls. I changed the subject. “I found the guesses you left in your house, Cris. For the symbols.”
Cris looked up. “You were in my house?”
“We couldn’t find you outside and it was snowing. None of your plants were covered, so we were worried.”
“Ah.” He glanced nowhere, as though he could see his frost-coated roses. “I was studying the symbols again when someone knocked. I tucked the paper under the tray, and then Deborl, Merton, and a bunch of others took me.”
“Why would he take you?” I stepped off a narrow stairway, onto a floor that looked like white water. It held my weight. For now.
“I don’t know.” He eyed the floor like it might change its mind about being solid. “Well, Deborl did ask about books and symbols. He said he wanted to know what I knew, which wasn’t anything, since you didn’t give me details.” The last part sounded a little accusing, but I forgave him because it was my fault he’d been kidnapped.
“He asked me the same questions,” said Stef. “But I really didn’t know anything, because you didn’t give me even a hint.” That definitely sounded accusing, but I forgave her because she was right and it was my fault she’d been kidnapped, too.
Deborl must have assumed Sam and I had told her because they were best friends. If Sarit hadn’t left for Purple Rose Cottage, would they have taken her, too? And I couldn’t stop wondering what they were doing with Sam right now.
I found an archway out of the water-floor room quickly, before I lost control of my stomach. Stef looked green, too.
The souls around us continued weeping.
“I didn’t remember the symbols from anything in Range like you thought I might.” Cris’s voice was low as we entered a long hall, white everywhere; I dragged my fingers along one wall to make sure I didn’t walk into it. “The symbols came from writing I’d seen in the far south, in jungles. I was collecting samples of plants for medicine and experiments, and found giant ruins. A white wall…” His voice grew soft and faraway.
I’d been right the day of my gardening lesson: the wall had been white, like the wall Sam found in the north.
“I climbed to the top of one of the tallest pieces to get a good view. It was hard to make out with trees and vines and creatures everywhere, but it looked like the wall had once been a ring, like the one around Heart, but there was no evidence of a city inside. Only a razed building in the center, with enough rubble it might have been as big as our temple.”
“The ruins looked like a circle with a dot in the middle?”
Cris nodded.
That was the symbol Meuric had said meant Heart or city, but there’d been no city in the jungle. There’d have been some kind of evidence otherwise, even if the jungle had mostly overgrown it. “And the symbols?”