He seemed reluctant to move away from me, but he nodded. “You’re right, and Stef gets cranky when she’s hungry. I’ll help you with the rest.”
We worked together without speaking, but I watched him from the corner of my eye. When he caught me, he offered a shy, hopeful smile. Relief warmed through me.
“Birdsong, hmm?” He shoved a strand of hair off his face, tucked it into his hood. “That gives us a lot to think about.”
“We’ll have to listen to all of your music to figure out if there’s anything you do over and over.”
“Like what?”
“Like rhythms or harmonies that appear in your music a lot.” I shook my head. “Or something else, even. I suppose you’d have noticed already if you used the same theme in multiple pieces.”
He frowned. “I like to think I would have.”
“Maybe it’s something in your preferred instruments. Or even just the way you play music, and nothing to do with what you’ve composed.”
“This could take years.”
Which we didn’t have. “But if dragons are afraid of it, it’s worth understanding.”
Sam nodded and lifted the bag. “We’re finished here.”
It was almost midnight by the time we ducked inside the tent. Stef had water boiling, and Whit was paging through the temple books and my notes translating different sections.
“Took you long enough,” Stef muttered.
“Sarit called.” Sam crouched next to her, and while they skinned the rabbits, he told her about the conversation with Sarit.
“Ana.” Whit looked up from his reading. “Come here a moment.”
I collapsed next to Whit and the lantern, all my muscles aching. He flipped pages, back to the beginning of a notebook.
“I’ve been thinking about Menehem’s research and your follow-up notes.” He placed the notebook in front of me and took out one of Menehem’s diaries. “I see here you were concerned about both the size and the delivery of the dose of poison to use against Janan.” He pointed at one of my notes. “So I went to see what Menehem had done during Templedark.”
“He had six of these big canisters of aerosol. We have at least twenty, and the machine has been on since we left, making more. We could have twenty-five.”
“You said the sylph gained tolerance exponentially, so considering the size of the Templedark dose, we might have enough to affect Janan for a little while. Ten minutes? Twenty?”
I didn’t argue with his optimism.
“But in these notes, you’re also concerned about the delivery. If I’m reading right, Menehem had his canisters set up on a timer. They were positioned around the temple, and when he was ready, he remotely opened the canisters in order to prolong the exposure. To help compensate for the tolerance, he did one, then two, then the final three.”
“That’s right.”
“I think you were right to worry about an effective delivery. Will we be able to do anything like Menehem? We have twenty canisters. How can we release the poison so it has an immediate effect?”
“All at once.”
“But then,” Stef said, looking over as she finished dropping meat into the pot of water, “the effect wouldn’t last. We’d get maybe a couple of minutes.”
I shook my head. “We don’t have enough to make it last. That’s what we’ve been talking about. There’s simply not enough.”
As he finished washing his hands, Sam looked down and didn’t say anything. He’d been the one to turn on the machine, hoping it would help.
“It’s like a knife.” My words drew Sam’s gaze again. “It may not be enough to destroy Janan, but if we time the poison to release at the right moment, it might hurt him. It might be just enough to give us time.”
“To do what?” Stef’s voice deepened and she crossed her arms, but it was because of fear, not anger. Soul Night was so close, and people we loved were dying. Forever. She was as afraid as I was. “If the temple is dark when Soul Night begins, is that it for Janan? Will he just go away then?”
That seemed unlikely. But would he be able to ascend? Maybe not. That might simply delay him, or everything might go back to how it was before. Newsouls included.
No, I had to find a permanent solution.
“There is one thing we can do that Menehem couldn’t.” I stood and fumbled through Sam’s coat pockets until the corners of a box bumped my fingers.
“It’s true,” Sam muttered. “I’d never allow Menehem to poke around my clothes. What are you looking for?”
“This.” I unzipped an interior pocket and removed the temple key. “Both times Menehem poisoned Janan, he did it from outside the temple. But we can release the poison inside.”
“Will that make a difference?” Whit lifted his eyebrows.
“Maybe it will buy us one or two minutes more than if we used it outside.” I started to put the key back into Sam’s coat, but he caught my wrist and pressed the box against my chest.
“You keep it. I meant to give it back to you, anyway.”
With a somber nod, I stashed the key inside my coat.
“If we use it inside the temple,” Sam asked, “will we be able to get out?”
I dropped my voice. “I don’t know.” Again, I wished we’d had time to test the key on the tower in the north. Would the temple still respond to the key if Janan were unconscious?
Sam touched my hand. Snow began to fall, tapping the tent in a soft rhythm until all outside sound was smothered. “We did have a small breakthrough about the phoenix song,” he told the others.
“Maybe.” I didn’t want to get their hopes up in case we were wrong. “We still need more information. I keep hoping the books will help.” I glanced at the pile, but sleepiness tugged at the back of my thoughts. The books hadn’t provided any new information during the time we’d been snowbound, and it was unlikely we’d find anything else before Soul Night.
While we ate, Sam repeated our conversation about birdsong and our guesses about the nature of the phoenix song.
“What’s the next step?” Whit asked.
“I’m going to listen to as much of Sam’s music as possible,” I said.
“Oh no.” Whit clutched his chest. “How will you manage?”
I grinned. “I know, but to save the world, I’ll do it. I’m also going to look at the scores on my SED if I can figure out how to do that and walk at the same time. I want to make note about any trends in style or instrumentation. All trends, really.”
“So you’ll need a volunteer to carry you back to Range, hmm?” Whit glanced at Sam. “You’re looking a little scrawny lately. I’ll carry Ana.”
Sam snorted. “If anyone’s carrying Ana—”
“I’m walking.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll manage just fine. Thank you.”
“I’m not burdened with youthful pride.” Stef leaned back on her sleeping bag. “Feel free to carry me.”
Whit chuckled and winked at me. “No, Stef, you may not have youthful pride anymore, but you certainly have every other kind of pride there is.”
She threw a mitten at his head and for a few minutes, smiles and laughter filled our tent.
When the lanterns dimmed and Stef and Whit climbed into their sleeping bags, Sam crouched beside me.
“Ana, I was hoping . . .”
I bit my lip and nodded. “I was hoping, too.”
The tension in his shoulders melted like ice in spring, and he arranged our sleeping bags so they were on top of each other, an extra layer of softness underneath as we both shimmied into the top one. I pressed my back against his chest.
“Are you comfortable?” His body curled around mine, solid and warm, and our legs tangled together. Our fingers knotted, his hand over both of mine.
“Yes.” I closed my eyes and listened to the rhythm of his heartbeat, the way he tried not to breathe too hard, like breathing might ruin the moment. “Sam.”