Page 106 of Somnium

Her hand stilled against Cadi’s back as her voice trailed off into a thick silence. Cadi turned to look at her, a pit forming in her stomach at the look of dread she found on Sera’s face.

“What is it?” she asked, confident she didn’t actually want to know the answer.

Her friend hesitated, as if she were carefully considering the consequences of each word she was about to speak. “You said his eyes were different,” Sera said, the slightest shake to her voice. “How?”

Cadi closed her eyes. The image was seared into her mind: Elias staring at her in the mirror, his arm locked against her chest so tightly she could barely breathe, the barrel of his gun pressed to her temple. She pushed out a slow breath and forced the words past the growing lump in her throat. “They were hollow. Empty. Like staring into a bottomless pit.”

Sera swore and pushed off the couch, knitting her fingers behind her head.

“What?” Cadi asked.

Sera paced the living room, eyes wild as her lips formed silent words. Cadi’s stomach dipped at the look of terror on her friend’s face. Whatever Sera had just realized, it was bad. Really bad.

“Sera, what is going on?” she demanded.

Sera froze and turned to look at her with an expression that sent a chill running over her skin. In a few steps, she was back on the couch, gripping Cadi’s hand so firmly she hissed through her teeth at the pain that lanced through her joints.

“Sweetie, what you just went through is fucking awful. I won’t even pretend to know what you’re feeling … but I need you to hear me.”

Cadi’s pulse hammered.

“That wasn’t Elias.”

Cadi froze, a tight breath pulling itself from her lungs. “What the fuck are you talking about? I just told you⁠—”

“I know what you told me.” Sera said, squeezing Cadi’s hand harder, pulling her close. “And everything you saw was real. That was his body … but he wasn’t pulling the strings.”

Cadi scoffed, her body and mind physically rejecting what she was hearing. “What, like he was fucking possessed?”

Sera’s hands took her face and forced her to focus only on her. There was no doubt in her eyes. No question. Only a single, burning truth. “Yes.”

Bile threatened to crest Cadi’s throat as she stared into the certainty reflecting back at her. Fresh tears traced a path down her cheeks, her voice barely a whisper as she asked, “What?”

Sera released her, moving her hands to Cadi’s shoulders with a steadying pressure, mooring her against the shock that was trying to drag her under. “Everything you just told me, the way his eyes looked hollow, empty … that’s exactly how I would expect them to look if someone else had fully taken control of him. Forced him to do those things to you. I just don’t understand how … he’s never been able to …”

Sera’s words faded out and her eyes went distant. Something pricked against the base of Cadi’s spine, something sinister. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. “When you say ‘someone else’ … ”

Sera’s focus returned to her, and she nodded, her expression grave. “Oneirios.”

Cadi pulled in a breath, shrugging free of Sera’s grip. Everything felt too close, her skin too hot beneath the fabric of her sweatshirt. “How … ?” she asked, the air in her lungs barely able to hold the question.

Sera shook her head, and Cadi could see the wheels turning as she tried to make sense of everything that had transpired. “I don’t know,” she said, her tone thick with defeat. “His power is over dreams. He’s their custodian, their caretaker. He’s always been able to enter them, alter them, manifest them, but to reach through them into the waking world … that violates the rules of the dream itself.”

Cuba appeared at Sera’s side, drawn from her plush bed in the corner of the living room by her mistress’s distress and nudged her fingers with a velvety nose.

Cadi squeezed the delicate glass in her hands, twisting it between her fingers, anything to distract herself from the thickness roiling in her gut. This time it had been Elias, but next time … oh gods …

“Could he … could he do it again?”

Sera looked up and reached forward to grip the back of Cadi’s neck. “I won’t let that happen. We’ll figure this out. Until then, you stay here.”

Cadi nodded, though Sera’s steadfastness barely made a dent in her fear.

“I’ll be right back,” Sera said, her fingers tightening against Cadi’s neck before she turned to Cuba. “Stay with her.”

Cuba hopped onto the couch to take Sera’s spot and let out a deep sigh as she rested her head in Cadi’s lap.

Cadi sank back against the cushion, the movement shifting the fabric of her hoodie. Her pulse spiked violently when a wave of pine and sea air washed over her.