Page 120 of Somnium

The festival’s clamor faded with every step, replaced by the gentle rhythm of crashing waves. Moonlight pooled across the water, shimmering off the flowing tide as it broke against the sand below.

Cadi set their drinks down and leaned her back against the weathered rail before turning to where Elias had slumped beside her after setting the food between them. She watched him closely, eating in silence and noting with no shortage of smug satisfaction that her theory about fried dough and sugar was entirely correct.

His posture visibly changed with each bite. The tension evaporated from his shoulders, his face relaxed. It wasn’t until she felt the muscles in her own back settle that she realized how much tension she had been holding on to just trying to keep Elias’s bear- and teenager-induced fury from spilling out onto the unsuspecting citizens of Fiddler’s Green.

She sipped her drink and made a face when the mix of sugar, grease, and carbonation blended together to form a brick in her stomach. Any more of that and she knew that her body would quickly revolt in a way she was not interested in experiencing with Elias so close. Turning around to lean over the edge, she brushed her hands together and sent a flurry of white powder down onto the waves.

As she pulled in a deep breath, she let the sea air fill her lungs, savoring the salty tang that settled at the back of her throat. A gentle prickle skimmed along her skin, and when she turned, her eyes met Elias’s. The fervor she saw behind them, the way he still managed to look at her like he was trying to see and memorize every piece of her, stole her breath.

She thought she would be used to that by now, but heat pulsed under her skin when her gaze flicked to his lips, only for it to stutter at the dusting of sugar that clung to the corner of his mouth. She pressed her lips together to fight the laughter bubbling from her chest.

“What?” he asked, his brows creased.

“You have sugar right …” She reached up and used her thumb to brush the particles from his skin. “There.”

Her hand lingered at his jaw, and a soft warmth began to spread up her arm. Elias shifted closer, and she saw a familiar flash of longing spark in his eyes for a moment before he turned away, bracing his palms against the rail.

Through every coffee date over the past week, his touches had just teetered on the edge of bold. A brush of a hand, the touch of a shoulder, a gentle hug. She knew he would keep waiting, and it meant the world to her that he didn’t push, that he read each of her signals with careful intent, but the slight tremble in his shoulders and the way his fingers flexed against the wood told her everything he would never say. He was unraveling, and she held the thread.

“How’s work?” he asked, his voice strained.

Cadi huffed a laugh and shook her head at the obvious redirect. “Work has been good. Busy. Like always.”

“Did they give you any grief? For missing days?”

Her mouth went dry. After what happened, even moving from Sera’s couch had felt impossible, so going to work had been completely out of the question. When he lifted his gaze to look at her, the pain in his eyes gripped her heart like a vice.

“No,” she said, with a forced smile. “No problems.”

His thumb brushed the edge of his ring, but he didn’t look away from her. The weight of her own ring pressed against her skin, its comforting presence shadowed by the reminder of why it was necessary.

Elias’s low grunt of pain invaded the peace as his hand flew up to press his fingers against his forehead.

“Is it him?” Cadi asked. She recognized the symptoms, the telltale signs that Oneirios had just tried to pull Elias’s string. He nodded, and squeezed his eyes tight.

“We’re down to only once every few days,” he said once he’d caught his breath. “So that’s an improvement.”

Cadi watched him for a moment, unable to hold back the question that had been burning through her mind for the last week. “What did he say to you? That night.”

Elias’s eye flew open, his form going rigid.

“Nothing worth repeating,” he murmured as he looked away from her.

“Elias,” she said, taking a step forward to rest her hand on his arm. “Please.”

His entire body seemed to shake as he pulled in a breath before he turned back to meet her eyes. He studied her for a moment, and Cadi began to worry he may shut her down again, but instead, he nodded. “He knows you were in his office. He said he—he wants you for himself.”

She sucked in a breath as a chill raced the length of her body. “What? Why?”

A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Because he knows the easiest way to hurt me is by hurting you.” Elias took a step forward, and all doubt and fear was gone from his eyes, replaced with a resolute fire. “I won’t let that happen.”

She swallowed hard. His promise did nothing against the slow dread that crept through her like a poison. What had begun as a war between cosmic siblings, a battle for power and influence, had just become personal.

And she was the new target.

“Do we have a plan?” she asked, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. “Anything that will stop him?”

Elias tapped his knuckles against the rail. “Just what you got us. Sera says it’s everything we need. She wants to talk Friday.”