Page 141 of Somnium

For a moment, Cadi didn’t see Sera, she saw Hecate. Divine authority emanated through every line of her face, but it still wasn’t enough to hide the flash of pain that shadowed her eyes.

Cadi rested her hand against Elias’s arm to guide him back to the couch. She knew he was angry and scared, she was too, but the last thing they needed was for him to start a brawl with the only allies they had in this fight.

With her gaze still fixed on Elias, Sera angled her head toward Kai and Seth. “Tell me everything.”

Kai blew out a long breath and rubbed the back of his head. “What else is there to tell? It’s just like Seth said. We got there and Ananke was right where you said she’d be. It was uncanny. She looked so normal, like she was asleep, but the power coming off her …” Kai swallowed hard, and Cadi could see the muscles in his neck strain as he suppressed a shiver. “I could feel it calling me. We all could.”

He tossed up his hands. “But when we finished the rite, nothing happened. We were setting up to try again when I felt the Verdan receding, then Odin signaled, and we didn’t have a choice. We had to bail.”

Sera began to pace the length of the office again, chewing on her thumbnail. “If anything was off, even just a fraction, it could have led to this type of failure. Think, was there something that could have been drawn incorrectly, mispronounced? Anything?”

Kai shook his head as his gaze followed Sera’s path. “No. We had Freyja triple-check everything. There has to be another factor.”

Cadi felt Elias move beside her, and he stepped in front of Sera before she could hold him back. His posture was rigid as he stared down at her with ice in his eyes.

“What else could have done this?” he demanded. “Clearly it wasn’t bad art skills, so what else?”

Sera stared right back, her features hard with challenge. “Nothing,” she snapped, “the only other way this could have failed is if the power was split, divided into more than one location. But he could only do that if he had another god stashed away somewhere, or if he suddenly started dismembering Ananke. But since all of us are accounted for and there was no mention of her missing toes, that isn’t possible.”

“What about her blood?” Cadi suggested from the couch. It seemed that every ritual she had come across required some sort of blood or other bodily fluid for it to function properly. She saw no reason why storing or transporting power would be any different.

Sera lifted her eyebrows and dipped her head to the side in consideration.

“Blood is really more of a conduit than a vessel,” she explained, “he would still need to bind it to something to keep the magic stable. And with the amount of power we’re talking about, that type of binding would have to be⁠—”

Her words cut off and her eyes flared wide as they shot back to Cadi. “Give me your phone.”

Cadi looked between her and Elias, her brows knitted at the sudden demand. “What? Why?”

Sera surged forward, landing in front of her in two powerful strides. “Just give me your phone!” she cried.

Cadi shrank back as she dug into her pocket. From the corner of her eye, she saw Elias step forward, his features twisted with protective fury. She quickly waved him off and pulled out her phone to hand it to Sera.

Sera scrolled through the device, her wild expression illuminated by the harsh light of the screen. She was looking for something, but for the life of her, Cadi couldn’t imagine what clue lay hidden in the archives of her photos.

Sera froze.

“Fuck,” she muttered before dropping the phone to her side and pinching the bridge of her nose.

“What? What is it?” Seth asked as he stepped forward.

Sera held up Cadi’s phone to let him examine the image on the screen. He ran a hand down his face, then turned away to press his palms against Elias’s desk. Cadi watched in confusion before she caught Sera’s eye and lifted her eyebrows in silent question.

Sera strode over and eased down onto the couch before she handed her the device. There on the screen was the image of a piece of paper, its surface covered with complex sigils and words, taken the night Cadi had broken into Oneirios’s office.

“That binding you found wasn’t what he was using for the Rite of Dedication,” Sera said, leaning forward onto her elbows. “He was using it to bind our power to something, which makes this infinitely more complicated.”

Seth suddenly straightened from the desk and stepped back to the middle of the room.

“Maybe not,” he said, “I doubt he would bind power like that to just anything. It would have to be something he kept close, something he could keep an eye on. Something like⁠—”

“A ring.”

Every head in the room turned to Elias where he stared blankly at the floor, spinning the gold band against his finger. He lifted his gaze to look at Sera, holding her stare for a long beat until she let out a breath and nodded.

“A ring like that stupid fucking ruby he always wears. But it isn’t a ruby; it’s our sister’s blood.”

Seth swore as he sank down into the armchair, and Cadi jumped at the bang that rang out when Kai slammed his fist against the door. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for anyone who might give her an explanation about what the hell was going on. She caught sight of Elias, but his eyes held a look of quiet defeat that made her stomach sink.