Incarnate

No matter Sam’s real reason for taking these books, the Council would find a way to make this look bad.

“I wonder how long he’s been doing this,” Li mused. “He’s got a lot on Menehem here, and you remember what Menehem was researching?”

“Sylph,” Meuric muttered. “Ana, weren’t you attacked by sylph on the edges of Range? Twice?”

They didn’t wait for me to nod.

“Menehem was experimenting on sylph, trying to find out if he could control them with some kind of chemical.” Li glanced at Meuric. “He was close to discovering the right mix of hormones, if I recall. Do you think Sam—”

“Sam wouldn’t.” I couldn’t stop the tremors inside me, the way my heart raced and ached. It had to have been Li. Sam couldn’t have known about the experiments until after we met, because he didn’t associate with Li or Menehem. Right? “Li knew about Menehem’s research. I bet she figured out how to control the sylph and send them after me.”

Li looked at me like I was the stupidest person she’d ever met.

“Sam just happened to be in the area both times you were attacked?” Meuric shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ana, I know you wanted to trust him, but this is all very incriminating. You may have to realize that, while his feelings for you might be real, they aren’t healthy or safe.”

“Not feelings,” Li said. “Obsession. What he’s done is unacceptable, beyond what anyone would do to someone they claim to have feelings for. He followed her into the woods, coerced the sylph into chasing her, and rescued her so she’d trust him. He’s been doing variations of the same thing ever since.”

“No, he wouldn’t—”

“Now, Li, that’s quite an accusation. You’re assuming a lot about what Sam can do, and some things may be coincidence.” Meuric almost sounded reasonable, but his words were clipped. If they hadn’t planned all this ahead of time, he already believed her. “I do find the timing eerie, though, considering the dragon attack on the market, and”—he glanced at me—“other things.”

“What other things?” I asked. “Me?”

He actually did look worried for a second. “If you’ve read as much history as you claim, you know what inevitably follows these small attacks.”

Big attacks. It hadn’t happened in a long time, but dragons always returned. They hated Heart. Hated humans.

He didn’t give me a chance to respond. He snapped photos of everything on the floor, the bruises and scrapes on my face and arms, and then announced we were finished. He didn’t care how much I pleaded.

Li held fast to my wrist as we marched downstairs and outside. I barely had time to put on shoes, let alone get any of my things.

The moon had fallen below the wall by now, leaving only dull starlight to illuminate the yard. I searched for a place to hide, but as soon as I looked interested in my surroundings, Li’s grip tightened.

“Don’t even think about it.” She squinted as lights darted across the lawn and reflected off the cold stone of the house. Wheels ground over cobblestones and stopped.

Corin exited the vehicle and motioned all of us in. “Sam’s in with the others. None of them are happy about it.”

“No,” said Meuric, “I imagine they’re not.”

“I don’t want to go with Li.” It was futile to keep protesting, but the minute I stopped was the minute I started thinking about all the things Sam had been keeping from me. He’d left the house after I went to bed so often, and was always so secretive about whatever he was working on . . . “Please, Corin. Sam said you weren’t bad.”

He herded me into the backseat of the vehicle, everyone blocking my way so I couldn’t escape. Li slid in on one side of me, and Meuric on the other. Trapped.

We drove down the walkway and through the twisting cobblestone streets of Heart, away from Sam’s house. Aside from when I’d been an infant, this was my first time riding in a vehicle, and I couldn’t even enjoy it. I was a prisoner, as surely as Sam had been. We all knew I’d have run if they’d tried to make me walk to Li’s house.

“I know you’re worried, Ana.” Li’s voice was heavier in the confined space. “I realize I neglected your education before. I’m going to do a better job this time.”

Whatever Meuric had offered her—I was sure he was responsible for this—she must have really wanted it. “Sam and I had it covered.”

She kept talking as though I hadn’t spoken, listing all the plans she’d made for my life. When we drove by the Councilhouse, eerily lit with remnants of the masquerade and the glow from the temple, I caught a light go out near the base of the building, in an otherwise dark corner I’d never been. The prison?

Li would never let me out of her sight now, but I was certain that was where they were keeping Sam.

Chapter 25

Trapped

LIFE TUNNELED ON my new focus: guarding myself from Li.

There was no music in her house; she’d removed all recordings in preparation for my arrival, insisting such nonsense would only distract me.

Every morning, she woke me before dawn, rushed me through breakfast, and had me running laps around the house by the time the sun crested the city wall. Fifteen the first day, and twenty when I got through fifteen without trouble. A few more laps left me winded to her satisfaction, but after a week, she decided I should run thirty. Only my loathing kept me thrusting foot before foot when I couldn’t see straight anymore. The sulfuric reek from a fumarole on the other side of the wall didn’t help.

After I caught my breath, I worked on strengthening exercises until lunch. As far as I could tell, she just liked to watch me struggle. I’d never thought of myself as weak or out of shape, but after meeting Sam and his friends, it had become apparent I was smaller than average. I’d never be as tall as Li or as muscular as Orrin—not in this lifetime—so there was no point in making me strain.

She explained about working at the guard stations and showed me the equipment, but I wasn’t allowed to touch anything. She taught me nothing about weapons or how to defend myself.

Maybe she was afraid I’d use my training against her, but I was more concerned about the attack Meuric had hinted about. If a hundred dragons descended on Heart, I didn’t want to be the only one without a laser.

Sam’s knife stayed under my pillow where Li wouldn’t find it.

After lunch, I got to study fascinating subjects like plows, irrigation systems, and the first efforts to install sewers beneath Heart, made even more challenging by the caldera and geothermal everything around the city. Most days, I fell asleep across my books, and woke to Li’s smirk and declaration that I’d never be a productive member of society.

I was not permitted to continue the training Sam had scheduled for me, let alone visit Sarit or Whit. I didn’t dare ask about Orrin or Stef, and mentioning Sam earned me a sharp slap on the wrist. Apparently that didn’t count as harming me, because when Meuric was present, he didn’t care.

“Can I see Sine?” I tried one evening. “She’s on the Council. Hardly a corrupting influence.”

“Keep your sarcasm quiet.” Li finished her soup and slid the bowl aside. “You’re not fit for company until you can hold a conversation that doesn’t revolve around what you want.”

Not counting Sam and his friends? I wanted music and dancing, to translate little dots and bars into something unimaginably gorgeous and real. I wanted to know why I’d been born, to understand this mistake that gave me someone else’s life. I wanted to know if I’d be reborn after this life, allowed to continue everything I wanted to begin.

“I hate you,” I whispered.

Li slammed her palms on the table, making spoons and bowls clatter as she stood. Her glare darkened. “Whatever you think you feel? It’s not real. You’re a nosoul. You don’t feel. You barely exist. In a hundred years, no one will remember you were ever alive.”

“You’re wrong.” I knew I shouldn’t have spoken, but my muscles shook with the strain from a fortnight of physical exhaustion and emotional torture. “People will remember. Sam made sure of it.”

The rage cooled from her eyes. “Is that so?” Dread cut me deep as she crossed the kitchen and reached into a drawer. “Paper is so temporary, don’t you think? Many of our oldest records have been copied dozens of times, simply because the pages don’t last. Like someone else I know.”

I kept my eyes on the bundle of pages she carried. “What is that?”

“The other problem with paper is if you spill something on it, or burn it, whatever you kept on there is lost.” She dropped the pages on the table; they spread out and settled without order. Even so, I knew what they were. Music. Bars and notes and tiny doodles in the margins. AI-4, AI-10: they were pages of a longer piece.

My hand was as heavy as a brick as I reached for the title page and turned it toward me. “Ana Incarnate,” it read, no fancy flourishes or underlines with it, just a tiny butterfly in the corner.

It was the waltz Sam had written for me. My song.

“Don’t hurt it,” I whispered.

“Paper is so temporary,” she repeated, looking pointedly at the fireplace.

“No!” I threw myself across the table and scooped up pages, but Li was faster.

She ripped the pages from my hands and tossed them at the fire. Paper fluttered, some into the flame, and some drifted to the ashy hearth.

I lunged across the room and rescued as many sheets as I could, but fire singed my hands. No matter how many I saved from the flames, Li balled up more pages and threw them in, laughing.

When she was bored, she wiped her hands on her pants and headed for the door. “Go to bed. You have a long day tomorrow.”

I patted out the last of the embers with a dish towel and struggled to put the pages in order. My hands stung as I sifted through the delicate sheets. Some were salvageable; others were burned so badly they hadn’t been worth rescuing, as black blotted out the bars of music.

Those pages went in back. Maybe Sam would know how to save them. Determined to see him try, I eased the pages of my song into a stiff notebook for safekeeping.

Forget Li. Forget the Council. If this was life in Heart, I would give up my quest. I’d rather never know where I came from than let Li destroy everything that mattered to me.

I went upstairs to get my knife.

There wasn’t much to pack. My song fit inside my backpack, along with a few other necessities. For the last two weeks I’d been too scared to escape. There were guards—Li made sure I saw them every morning—and I’d been afraid of what would happen if they caught me. Now I was more afraid of what would happen if I didn’t try.

I waited until the sun dipped behind the wall, casting the city in hazy indigo. Within minutes, it would be full night.

Dressed in the darkest clothes I could find, I tied and tucked my hair into a cap and picked the lock on the window. Stef had taught me, saying I shouldn’t be the only one in Range who didn’t know how; Sam had called her a miscreant.

Clouds covered the sky, threatening some kind of unfortunate weather. In the inky-dark yard, I found only fir trees and bushes, a small garden. Normal things. Most people had what they needed to be self-sufficient between market days, even Li.

Bored-sounding voices came from the north side of the house. No footsteps or swishing brush accompanied them, so they were standing still. Chances were they faced my window, hidden at an angle so I wouldn’t be able to see them unless I leaned out. And then they’d see me.

I hurled an old shoe outside. It landed inside a thick copse of conifers. Two pair of footfalls followed, and I hauled myself out of the window, turned to catch my toes on a ledge, and reached for a bare cottonwood branch. I hung two stories up as the footsteps came toward the house again.