“Mmm.” Noncommittal. I’d picked it up from Sam, and it seemed to work for whatever the other person wanted to hear.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to get out of here,” I said. The archway was still missing, and there weren’t any signs. No words or pictures to indicate what we should do next. “No key means we can’t control the walls. We can’t make doors or do anything useful. The good news is we won’t get hungry or thirsty, as long as we don’t think too hard about it.”
“Great, thanks. Deborl didn’t feed us before he trapped us. Do you have any idea how long it’s been?”
“A day? A week? Five minutes?” I shrugged. “Time passes differently here, and not even at a consistent rate.”
Moriah had told me time mostly mattered to the person measuring it, which had made me laugh because she built clocks. SEDs and clocks didn’t work in here, but now I was extra aware of every second and how they carried me closer to my end.
“So what we need is someone who can make doors.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Well, yes. Pretty much.”
“Stef?” He waved in her direction. “You don’t happen to have anything on you that would make a door in the wall, do you?”
Her glower was dragon acid. “Go roll around in rosebushes, Cris.”
“I don’t think she appreciates your humor,” I muttered. As if I could blame her. At this rate, we’d be out of Janan’s way in a few days because we’d have killed one another. Well, Stef would kill me, then Cris, and then she’d be here all by herself. And I wouldn’t feel bad for her.
“Few really do.” He kept pace with me easily. “Why are you walking?”
“It feels like if I stop, then I give up. But I don’t know what to do.” My throat tightened with the confession. He was going to think I was weak, just like Stef did.
“Hey.” He tugged my arm. I stumbled and he caught me, one hand on my back. “Sorry. Hey.” He faced me, expression serious. “We’re going to find a way out, okay? And then you’ll rescue Sam from the angry mob, reclaim your books, and find a way to stop Janan from ascending.”
“So while I do all these miracles, you’ll be where?” My whole body ached, and I really wanted to lose myself in the piano, but it was gone. Smashed. And my flute? Sarit had put it in the Councilhouse, but they might have found it.
Cris said, “I’ve been remembering, too.”
I waited.
“Being here has made me remember a lot of things we’re not supposed to know. The memories are so old they feel like dreams or someone else’s life, but I know they’re real.” He looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. No hint of a smile, no friendly stance. He looked sad. “I remember what Janan said he was going to do.”
“What is that?” I whispered.
“He wants to be immortal.”
“But—”
“True immortality. Not like we are, trapped in an endless cycle of birth and death and rebirth. And not like what he is now, trapped in these walls. Before, when he was still human, there was nothing in this tower. No rooms or light or shifting walls. It was meant to be a prison.”
Even before he started switching old and newsouls, he’d been imprisoned? “Why was he here? Who put him here?” Whatever he’d done, it must have been terrible, and as far as I could see, he was only getting worse.
“Before all this”—Cris gestured around—“Janan took his best warriors on a quest for immortality. People were so afraid of everything, like dragons and centaurs and trolls—”
“And sylph?”
Cris cocked his head. “No, we hadn’t seen sylph yet. Only after.”
“Okay.” That was odd, though. “Go on.”
“Well, he said he discovered the secret to immortality, but that phoenixes were jealous: they didn’t want anyone else to know their secret. They made this prison—and prisons all over the world—and locked Janan and his warriors away, one in each tower so they’d never band together again.”
“Phoenixes.” I’d known they were real, but I’d never heard of them making prisons or really doing much besides flying around, burning up, and rising from their own ashes. Well, Meuric had said a phoenix cursed the sylph, but Meuric had been crazy. Maybe. “The other prisons were towers, like this one? With a wall around?”
“I never saw them, but I think so. I think when we came to rescue Janan from his prison, it was just a tower and a wall.”
“Like the one you saw in the jungle.”
He nodded.