“No. Just—” I shook my head. “She tried to burn your song. She’s going to keep doing things like that until—I don’t know—until I break. They’ll never let me see any of you again.”
“It’s going to be hard to see anyone if you leave.” Stef gave a one-shouldered shrug.
“That’s why I’m here. I came to free you all.” I met Sam’s eyes and hoped more than anything he’d say yes. “I thought you’d come with me.” It hadn’t occurred to me that he might not, but now, it seemed more likely he’d stay with his friends.
“Okay.” Sam leaned his forehead on the bars. His gaze stayed on mine.
Stef raised her eyebrows. “You know that when you’re reborn, you’ll be turned over to the Council. Your next life will be in here. And yours, Ana, if you’re reincarnated.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. Seventy or more years in this room, bars separating me from the world? It might not be my fate if I just vanished when I died, but it would definitely be Sam’s if he went with me.
“I don’t care.” Sam reached again, so I did too, and when our fingertips touched, he said, “It will be worth it.”
My shoulder hurt from pushing it against the bars. “I don’t know how to get you out.” Maybe I should have changed my mind now that I knew the price, but I couldn’t stay here, and I couldn’t survive outside Range by myself.
Not just that. Memories of the way he’d kissed me heated my insides. I’d always needed him, for music and refuge and reasons not to hate everything about my life, and now because he made my chest tight and he’d promised a thousand things. He was Sam.
“No.” Stef shook her head. “I’m not going to let this happen. Sam, you’re smarter than that. Ana, if you really cared for him, you wouldn’t sentence him to a lifetime of imprisonment and sewer maintenance.”
“He’s five thousand years old, Stef.” I pulled my hands off the bars in case she slapped my knuckles like Li would have. “Let him make his own decisions.”
Sam smirked, but the hint of a smile vanished when Stef turned on him. His voice deepened. “What Ana said.”
“Idiot.” She marched away from the window.
Sam frowned and turned back to me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the diaries. I was trying to hide them from you, but only because I didn’t want you to worry.”
“I don’t care about that anymore. I think I understand.” A quick glance over my shoulder revealed no one had found me yet, but it was only a matter of time. My knees ached, and my chest itched from pressing against the white stone. “How do I get to the prison from the Councilhouse? Or is there another door?”
“Li was trying to kill you.” His expression was earnest. “I was searching for proof that she wanted to murder you using sylph. Menehem was working on something that might affect sylph, but I couldn’t find anything else about it. I went to her house the day of the masquerade, but she hid any information she had. She, and whoever she’s working with.”
We’d been doing the same research all along. He wanted to prove Li tried to murder me, using sylph so she wouldn’t be imprisoned for it. And I— I’d stumbled onto it, though I’d never quite recognized the threat as he did.
“I know about all that.” I pushed myself up to my knees again and held on to the bars. “It’s okay. Just tell me how to get you out.”
He flashed a hopeful smile. “Go around to the—”
Footsteps. He must have heard them, too, just louder than the wind around the building. And before he could order me to hide, thunder rumbled again and his eyes widened. Stef and Orrin—who was out of my line of sight—swore loudly.
“Go, Ana. Hide anywhere, and don’t come out until the thunder stops.” When I didn’t leave immediately, frantically trying to sort through my thoughts and emotions, he shouted, “Run, Ana. Dragons.”
I lurched to my feet and hurled myself in any direction. Meuric had said they’d come. History books said the same thing—sometimes hundreds of dragons. So I ran until I hit a white wall with a door. Shivering, I twisted the handle and glanced over my shoulder—no one yet—and threw myself into somewhere dark and still and heavy.
The air pulsed.
I spun, heartbeat thudding in my ears. No, not my heartbeat. The air. The walls. White light shimmered across a vast chamber. This wasn’t the Councilhouse. It was the temple.
New panic surged through me, and I darted for the door to escape. I’d rather deal with dragons.
But the door was gone.
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Chapter 26
Impossible
I BANGED ON the wall until pain knifed through my palms. I yelled until my voice became shards of glass whistling through my throat. I kicked the wall until numbness raced up my toes and feet.