“This is all just so—so horrible. None of it’s fair.” She hugged herself and stared at the ceiling, tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes. Black hair cascaded down her back in inky tendrils. “Not everyone will believe that Janan will stop reincarnating us after he ascends.”
I waited, but she didn’t say what she believed.
“All those people will see your actions as a choice: a choice between oldsouls and newsouls. So.” She lowered her voice. “If you let Janan ascend, he’d keep reincarnating the rest of us. But he’d keep consuming newsouls.”
“And if I stop him,” I said, “then newsouls are born, but people I love won’t be reincarnated after they die.”
“Which means you decide newsouls. Over me. Over your other friends. Over Sam.”
“I wish this wasn’t my decision, but it seems it’s been given to me anyway,” I said after a minute. “I didn’t ask for this responsibility.”
“I can’t imagine having to make that choice.”
I was on the edge of admitting the rest of the truth, that everyone in Heart had agreed to the exchange knowing what would happen, but Sarit was already crying.
I kept my mouth shut. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Sam. It was too much. It would break them.
The only ones who knew were Stef and Cris. Stef was humiliated, and Cris was a sylph.
Sarit didn’t need to know.
She let out a long sigh. “I changed my mind. I’m staying with Armande.”
My stomach dropped. “What? Why?” She was supposed to come with me. She was my best friend. She’d said she was coming with me. “Is it because of what I just told you?”
“No.” She pressed her mouth into a line. “Maybe. But the truth is, I’m not good at trekking through the wilderness. I would, for you, but when Armande said he was staying, I realized I should, too. I don’t want him to be alone. Besides, I’m good at getting information. I’ll be useful to you here.”
She would be useful here. That didn’t mean I wanted her to stay.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told her about Janan. Maybe it was better to keep these things a secret.
We stood together for a moment longer, then she squeezed my hand and left the hall.
I stayed in the hall, staring at the phoenix painting and fiercely wishing my life were different. Better. I wished for a lifetime with Sam and my friends, a lifetime with music. Wasn’t that how life should be?
“I wish I were a phoenix,” I said to the empty hallway.
Soon it would be dawn. Yawning, I trudged back to the library and found they’d turned off all the lights but one. Several people had left, but a few were dozing in chairs, or had taken blankets into small alcoves. Sam was reclined in the chair he’d taken earlier, a blanket draped across his legs.
I didn’t see Geral and Orrin anywhere—they were probably somewhere else in the library with the baby—and no one else was sleeping curled up with anyone. Well, too bad if I made them uncomfortable. I’d been promised cuddling with Sam, and I was going to have it. Right now.
After kicking off my shoes and grabbing a spare blanket, I turned off the lamp and found Sam in the dark. No one said anything as I nudged him to one side of the chair and curled in with him. With the blankets over us, he wrapped one arm around my waist, and we adjusted until we found a comfortable position.
“Remember when you said you wanted to move into the library?” Sam murmured by my ear.
“I didn’t mean like this.”
He kissed my neck, all warmth and pressure. “Where’d you go?”
“To look at the phoenix painting.”
“Sarit followed.” When I didn’t respond, he added, “Did she help?”
“She said she’s staying here with Armande. That she changed her mind.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Did she say why?”
I closed my eyes and found his good hand, tangled our fingers together. “I told her the truth about newsouls.” Part of the truth. If I’d told her the rest, how would she have reacted? Her decision strengthened my resolve to keep the oldsouls’ choice to myself.
“She deserves to know,” he said. I couldn’t find a response that wasn’t selfish or whiny, so I kept my mouth shut.
I listened to others shifting in their chairs, muffled voices coming from behind the walls made of bookcases. As dawn crept through the library, I dozed half on Sam’s lap, half on the chair. It wasn’t comfortable, but I didn’t move. I needed to be close to him.
When I awoke hours later, still wrapped in Sam’s arms, most everyone had gone. A note from Stef waited pinned under a lamp, saying we’d be leaving not tomorrow, but tonight.
Because tonight, we were stealing back the temple books and Menehem’s research.
6
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