I took a few painkillers and brought some down to Sam, who was slowly cutting the cheese into slices.
“Here.” I handed him a few pills and finished slicing.
We ate without conversation. The food tasted old, sort of dusty, but it was better than starving, and it gave me the energy to check the windows for signs of anyone after us.
“This was Vic’s house,” Sam said after a few minutes. “He built most of the statues around the market field and carved the relief on top of the Councilhouse. Lots of other things, too, but those were the projects everyone talked about.”
“Is he the one who taught you carving?” Outside, the trees were white and motionless. “Like at your cottage and the shelves in your house?” Sam’s graveyard had been filled with beautiful statues of animals and people playing music. Even the benches had been art. And inside, the wall of bookshelves had creatures of Range etched into the edges. Herons, bears, elk, wolves, shrikes.
“Yeah.” Sam finished his water and stood. “He carved some of them, and taught me how to do it myself. I was never as good as him, and I had to be careful of my hands, but we became friends. I wanted you to learn from him, too.”
I moved away from the window and took in Sam’s wrecked appearance. Smoke stains clung to his shirt and trousers, and his hair hung in black mats. We both needed to shower, and there were enough of Vic’s old clothes upstairs we could surely find something to fit.
“Come on.” I motioned toward the stairway. “We’ve got a few hours.”
While he showered, I checked outside again. Nothing. No sylph. No Sarit.
She’d said she would follow.
But she hadn’t believed it. She’d known, then. She’d known she wouldn’t make it.
I slumped to the end of the bed and checked for messages that wouldn’t be there. Nothing from Stef. She was dead. Nothing from Sarit. She was dead, too.
My best friend was dead.
A sob burst from me as I fumbled for the message function on my SED. My thumbs slipped over the letters as I typed.
I miss you. I miss you. I can’t believe you’re gone and never coming back. I hate Janan and I hate Deborl. Even if I stop Janan tonight, how will the world be right without you? I wish you were still with me.
My chest ached as I sent the message she’d never receive.
Her image smiled at me from the screen. Sarit with her bees. Sarit and me, sitting in the market field with cups of coffee. Sarit dressed as an exotic bird for the masquerade last year.
Tears blurred the pictures, and I let my SED drop to my lap.
When Sam finished showering, I hurried to wash the stink off me, but there was no washing away the ache of loss. Sorrow saturated every bit of me like acid.
Dry and dressed, I found Sam sitting on the foot of the bed, listening to music.
“Let me treat your burns.” I sat next to him, but he stopped me before I opened the tube.
“I don’t want—” He touched my cheek and let his fingertips trail down my neck and shoulder, and suddenly I was too conscious of the way my borrowed clothes were too big and hung off my shoulders and hips. “Later,” he said. “The burns aren’t going anywhere.”
The burn cream and other medical supplies dropped to the floor with soft thuds.
“I just want you. I want you forever, and I’m afraid—” His hands closed over mine. “I want a life with you. I’d give anything to go back and start this one over, to be reborn into this lifetime. I wouldn’t waste it. I’d find you sooner. I’d take you somewhere safe. I’d show you music and love and life every day so you were never alone, never afraid. If I could start over knowing what I know now—” He released a desperate laugh. “I know how this sounds.”
“It’s okay.” My words were a breath, a gasp.
He squeezed my hands. “I’m afraid, Ana. I’m afraid, and I feel like if I don’t kiss you right now, I’ll break apart.”
The music ended. Silence tugged through the room. All I could hear was Sam’s shallow breathing. All I could feel was the pounding of my heartbeat.
He wanted this now? After everything that had happened? Before everything we were about to do? How could anyone—
No, I understood. A heavy desire for him wove through me. We’d lost so much, and we were about to lose even more. If we survived Soul Night, maybe we could have a life together.
But victory seemed an unattainable goal, and right now we had each other.
I wouldn’t waste our chance by hesitating.
“You won’t break apart,” I said. “I won’t let you.” I watched his mouth, the curve of his lips and the creases and the gentle parting between from the way he might have been about to respond but couldn’t seem to find words. The seconds spun longer as I caressed his cheeks and through his hair, all shaggy from weeks without cutting. Then I kissed him.
He let out a relieved groan and pulled me in, his mouth warm and firm against mine. Jaw muscles worked beneath my palms. Stubble scraped my skin. I didn’t care. I wanted only to drown in this kiss.
His hands slid down my sides and settled on my hips. I looped my arms around his shoulders and let him lay me onto my back, damp hair haloed around me. He kissed my throat and shoulders, gasped for breath over my collarbone.
I couldn’t think. I could only feel the way his hands glided over my stomach and down my legs. Emotions caught up and tangled in my throat as he helped me out of my shirt and trousers, leaving only a thin silk camisole and leggings beneath. I shivered in the cool air.
“Is this all right?” he whispered. “If you don’t want to, that’s okay.”
“I want to.” I sat up and stretched to pull his shirt over his head. In the dim room, his skin was dark and I couldn’t see the burns, just shadows and planes of muscle that shifted beneath my hands. “I’ve loved you my entire life. From the moment I first heard music, to when I saw your name inside a book, to the night you saved me from the water. No one has ever made me feel like you do: like I’m wanted; like I matter.”
He kissed me, long and beautiful and desperate, and he didn’t resist when I pulled him down on top of me, trying to draw him impossibly close.
But our lives were made of impossible things. I’d known him at the masquerade. We’d danced as though we’d been dancing for years and centuries and millennia. And when we’d kissed for the first time, we’d become a song with one breath, one voice, and infinite melodies. It was music, the way he touched me, the way our bodies fit together.
He caressed my ribs and hips and legs, then kissed trails of fire down my throat. The heat of his body over mine made me yearn for something deeper, but I let him set our pace as he kissed me, hungry and desperate, firm and fierce, and gentle as though I was the most precious thing in the world to him.
He drew off my camisole, making my whole body hum with anticipation and desire. The last of our clothes dropped to the floor with a soft whumph.
My heart filled up as he showed me a thousand ways he loved me, and in these glorious moments of peace, there was no fear or mourning or despair. There was only this boy. This body entwined with mine. This soul I’d always known.
Questions hovered in the gasp-filled inches between us, but I was too dizzy to think. I touched his face, his hair, smoothed back the black strands while I waited for him to say something. If we should say anything. A thread of awkwardness coiled inside me as the waiting grew longer.
Sam kissed me again, and in the dimness, he looked my age. Really my age, not the illusion of reincarnation. He looked like I felt: excited and hopeful, a little nervous. “I hope that was—”
“Wonderful.” Did I speak too quickly? My voice was high and giddy. I hardly sounded like myself. “It was wonderful.”