I swallowed hard.
“Anyway,” he said, “I wanted something special for tonight. I thought about taking you on the roof with a telescope, if we could find one. I would show you craters on the moon, other planets, and stars. But it’s too bright out to risk it.”
With the temple shining like the sun, we wouldn’t have a good view of the sky anyway. “The idea is noted, though.”
Sam took my hands. “You would have liked it.”
“What did you have in mind instead?”
“Music?” He searched my eyes and squeezed my hands. “I would give you everything if I could. Unfortunately, our options are limited right now.”
I stood on my toes and kissed him, deeper than before. “Music is perfect.”
He pulled away to dim the light until our world turned to dusk.
“Do you want to sit?” He glanced at a pile of blankets, rumpled from being used as a cushion.
“Yeah.” My nerves caught and tangled with our aloneness. It was like fire, the way I wanted to be with him.
He settled on the blankets. Feeling bold, I sat so close my leg pressed against his, and he put his arms around my waist. His skin was hot against mine, even through our clothes.
“You choose what to listen to.” I handed him an SED and watched as he scrolled through music. Titles flashed across the screen, pieces I’d heard only once, and pieces I loved so much they made my heart ache.
“Here.” His voice was low, husky. “You’ll like this one.”
He chose a sonata called “Awakening.” The piano began, its sound rich and warm as it surrounded me. Like air. Like blankets. Like Sam’s arms. That was Sam’s playing; I’d recognize it anywhere.
When the flute began to play, soft and low and mysterious, I shivered. “How are you playing both instruments at the same time?”
He gave a soft chuckle. “How can you tell they’re both me?”
I twisted and raised my eyebrow. “Haven’t you realized? I’ll always know.”
He smiled a little. “They were recorded separately. This recording was meant to be a test only, but I never got around to finding a partner for it.”
“Ah.” I let the music envelop me, growing sweeter, bolder, more seductive.
Though they were recorded separately, the flute and the piano blended together to make a new sound that flew through me. It was neither wholly flute nor wholly piano, but it made my heart soar higher than it had ever been. This sound, the way he played those instruments, was too lovely and strange to be real. I wanted to hold it inside of me forever, like I’d wanted the night he’d played my flute for the sylph, the night he’d seemed to conduct the orchestra of nature by simply holding an instrument.
When I looked at Sam, he seemed faraway, somewhen else. “What are you thinking?”
His face flushed. “Nothing. Sorry.”
“No, tell me.” I shifted so I could meet his eyes, and his hands breezed over my waist, as though he were afraid I’d fly off.
He breathed into my hair and held me tighter. “I’ve been having this dream since we returned to Range.”
I waited.
“It’s a little different every time, but in it, I’m always in a forest listening for birdsong. I used to do that a lot. I liked to figure out ways to mimic their calls and try to understand what they meant. But in my dream, I hear something amazing. Not just a bird whistling, but a whole group of them singing with different voices, like an orchestra. Everything seems to join in the performance: the wind and water and leaves, the insects and mammals and birds. It’s this beautiful, joyous music that’s wild and unpredictable, but my heart feels like every note and beat is the most familiar thing in the world. It makes me feel like home, and every morning I wake up haunted by it. The emotions linger, but the music fades; I can’t remember themes or melodies, no matter how much I try.”
“That sounds frustrating.”
“Incredibly.” He sighed. “Now, after having the same dream so many times, it feels more like a memory of something long ago.”
Maybe it was. “When Cris and Stef started to remember things in the temple, they said the memories were dreamlike. This could be more of Janan’s memory magic shattering. And the way you describe the music . . .”
He looked up, hopeful.
“Remember when we went for a gardening lesson at Cris’s house, and we both stopped to listen to the wind in the plants?”
“Yes.” A sort of reminiscing sorrow stole his expression. “We both heard music.”
I nodded. “And outside the cave, when you played the flute for the sylph? Did you notice anything about that?”
He seemed to search inside himself. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“What you described before, about the music in your dream—that’s what I heard that night. It seemed like you were conducting an entire symphony, like magic.”