“Didn’t you get lonely?”
“Sometimes, but I had my SED.” He patted his breast pocket. “Which is how I heard about something called Templedark. What happened?”
I shuddered, and Sam pressed a strong hand on my spine. “My father made Templedark,” I said. Though maybe I shouldn’t claim Menehem. I hadn’t known him—only through his diaries and the way just his name seemed to make everyone roll their eyes. I’d met him for only a short while the night of Templedark, before he died. “Menehem did something to the temple to stop Janan from being able to reincarnate anyone who died that night. He captured dozens of sylph from outside of Range, then released them in Heart. Dragons came that night, too.”
Cris jerked his gaze toward Sam, who’d gone still and pale at the mention of dragons. “And you—” Cris smoothed his perplexed expression. “You made it through. That’s good.”
“Ana saved me.” Sam’s hand settled on my hip, pulling us close. “She saved me from dragons twice.”
Questions stretched in the air between Cris and us, a piano wire pulled so taut it might snap. “So, Ana,” Cris said, “you know about Dossam and dragons?”
I nodded.
Sam was still ashen. “I told her about the way they come after me. She knows.”
The thinking line had carved itself between Sam’s eyebrows; sometimes it was a worry line, or a stress line. I rested my hand on his knee and drew his gaze, and when our eyes met, the line melted away. “It’s okay,” I murmured. “I’ll protect you from the dragons.” It was a joke, mostly, just to make him smile. Because what could I do against dragons? They’d killed him thirty times.
Thirty.
But Sam wove his fingers with mine and smiled. “I know you will.” It didn’t sound like teasing at all.
“Fascinating.” Cris wrapped his hands around his mug, his tone light and amused, but tinged with something sad. He sipped his coffee, as though to hide the emotion. “One newsoul, and Sam’s problem with dragons is fixed.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” I glanced toward the window, like sylph or dragons might be peeking in right now. “There’ve been two dragon attacks since I came.”
“They always come in twos.” Cris rested his mug on his knee. “You were just unlucky enough to be here for their first visit in quite some time.”
“And we were all unlucky enough they chose to come during Templedark.” Sam lowered his eyes, the memory of Templedark still fresh and heavy. “The sylph and the dragons proved too much. Everyone panicked. We lost more than we should have before anyone realized what Menehem had done: he made the temple go dark.”
When I closed my eyes, I could still see the strange darkness where the iridescent light of the temple should be. Except it shouldn’t illuminate. What kind of building glowed in the dark?
One with Janan in it.
“Stopping reincarnation. What a thing to do.” Cris shook his head, then leveled his gaze on me. “Did Menehem—before? You?”
Oh, Cris was quick. “By accident. That was why he left eighteen years ago—to find out what he’d done.” I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Only Menehem knows why he wanted to end so many others. Maybe he’ll tell us when he’s reborn.”
That wasn’t quite true, I knew. But not knowing how Cris felt about Janan—some people really cared, while others hadn’t believed for millennia—I didn’t say any more. Menehem had given me two explanations. The first made it sound as though he were doing me a favor: attempting to let more newsouls be born.
The other reason Menehem had given me seemed most genuine: he’d wanted to prove Janan’s existence either true or false. It had been scientific curiosity, nothing more.
Cris glared into his coffee. “I’m sure the Council will be very curious to find out exactly how he created Templedark so they can prevent anyone from ever doing it again.”
“I’m sure they will be.” Did my voice shake? It seemed like Menehem’s research notes were a bright beacon shining from my room. He’d left them for me after he died, and I hadn’t wanted to leave them in Heart. The folders and diaries, the door device, the mysterious books I’d stolen from the temple—it was a wonder everyone didn’t know about them just from the guilt on my face.
But I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about my visit into the temple or Menehem’s research, and Sam had agreed. I didn’t know exactly how the Council would react, but it definitely wouldn’t be good.
Sam looked at Cris, a strange and awkward hopefulness in his tone. “You’re on your way back to Heart now?”
“I think I’d better be,” Cris said. “Sine’s message indicated they’d need assistance reorganizing the genealogies now that so many won’t return.”