Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,47

the same, and the one before that. The names in the second column are as scattered as ever. Was a whole family of Solarians victim to the soul trade? Confused, I look at the first-name column, trying to make sense of it. Then something makes my veins turn to ice.

Nahteran.

Suddenly, everything snaps into place. The first column isn’t surnames at all. It doesn’t refer to the Solarians whose souls are ripped from them and used for petty magic. It’s buyers. Traders.

S.P.…

Footsteps from outside bring new terror rushing in, real-life horror to add to what’s on the page. They’re too close—can’t be more than a few yards away from Cadius’s office door. Setting the top page aside, I shove the records back into the cabinet—no time to reaffix the ribbon—and let the door fall shut. It clangs, making me flinch, and my hand darts out reflexively, but the noise is already made. All I can do is fold the sheet of paper with Nate’s name on it and shove it into my bra. I take a quick sweep of the office to make sure everything appears just as it did before I came in, before tiptoeing to the door.

When I pause before it, everything is quiet. I wait, not even breathing, but I don’t hear a sound. Maybe the person passed by. Or maybe I imagined the footsteps, all the fear I’ve been shoving down bubbling upward in the form of delusions. I’m not sure which I like less, but I wait a few moments before reaching out to open the door, in case I didn’t imagine them—to let whoever I heard put some distance between them and me.

But when I do reach for the doorknob, it turns before I even touch it. I stare dumbly for a second, wondering if somehow Cadius’s stolen magic has rubbed off on me—and then my brain catches up with reality and I throw myself backward, falling onto the bearskin in my scramble to hide.

But it’s too late. The door opens, and a man’s silhouette fills the threshold. I freeze, going entirely still as if that’ll save me, as if Cadius will only see me if I move.

But then I realize—it isn’t Cadius in the doorway.

My lips move, but nothing comes out.

Nate?

13

It’s as if time has frozen around me, like my body and mind and the world has suddenly been encased in glass. I’m pretty sure my heart stopped beating. For a long, long, long moment, all I can do is stare at the boy in front of me, his name ringing in my head.

Nate.

Nate, the little boy in a red apron, singing along to the radio with Mom as he helped her make brownies.

Nate, who pushed me on the swing set and taught me how to make snow angels.

Nate, whose screams have haunted my nightmares for ten years. Nate who I thought for so long—so long—was dead.

He’s not dead. He’s standing in front of me. Grown up. With black hair now instead of blond, wearing Fiorden clothes, a leather breastplate, leggings, and a cloak. I’d recognize him anywhere, at any age, with any hair or clothes. Nate.

He steps inside and shuts the door behind him. His movements are quick and confident. He stares at me, head cocked. “Losir a sedyn?” he asks.

Through the haze, I remember the words from Graylin’s lessons, and put it together. Who are you? But my voice doesn’t work.

His accent is strange. It’s Fiorden, but there’s something else beneath it. A hint of the long flat vowels of our middle-America upbringing. And there’s something else too, a musical, almost singsong quality to his words that’s familiar from somewhere, but I can’t place it.

Nate steps forward, glancing over his shoulder at the door before reaching down toward me. He asks something else in Myr’s language. I think he asked me if I’m all right.

I open my mouth. Close it again. Open it, try to speak. Nothing comes out but air, a faint gasp. Nate looks concerned. His chin furrowing in the exact same way as when we were kids. It feels like a knife in my chest. He says something else, the strange words flowing out. Finally, I manage to push myself to my feet. I shake my head, my thoughts slowed to a sluggish crawl.

“You’re not Fiorden,” he says, switching seamlessly to English. “Solarian?”

I shake my head.

He cocks his. “Byrnisian?” His eyes flick along my face, checking for scales, maybe.

At last, I find my voice. “I’m human,” I croak out.