Page 99 of Somnium

“Mmm,” was all he said before pushing away from the rail. “We should rejoin the others before we are missed.”

Cadi nodded, following him as he turned back to the group.

When they got closer, she could see that Sera was about to combust. Her friend’s gaze locked with hers, and Sera threw up a single hand to silence whatever Elias had been about to say.

“We’re going to Bacchus. Don’t let your boyfriend tell you anything different, because he’s wrong.”

Cadi looked between Sera and Elias, brows raised. Elias just rolled his eyes and tossed his hands overhead before turning away in defeat. She let out a gentle laugh, then moved to wrap her arm around his waist. A sigh escaped her when he draped his over her shoulder in answer and pulled her to his side, his closeness dampening the soreness in her body the tiniest bit more as they walked together to his car.

29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CADI

Not only did the ritual work, it got them closer than Sera had even thought possible. According to her, they typically resulted in flashes of surrounding areas, maybe the exterior of a building if they were lucky. The power that Cadi and Elias had helped them generate, however, had guided her sight to Ananke’s precise location, down to the exact room where she was being held.

The goddess was located in the basement of an old aviation hangar a few miles past the city limits, and after some legally questionable digging on Kai’s part, they learned that the building belonged to a shell corporation known as Renard Industries. Neither Kai nor Seth had ever heard of them, and with no other paper trail to speak of, it quickly became clear that the name was a front.

Now, Cadi was flitting around the sacristy, scrambling to finish everything on her list before it got too late in the evening for her to have a reasonable excuse for still being there. They knew where Ananke was, but they still had almost no information about what magic Oneirios had used to bind her to the gods’ powers. Sera had assured them that both would become apparent once they were on-site, but any information they could obtain about what they were walking into would be invaluable.

Cadi couldn’t explain why, but something in her gut told her that she needed to get inside that office. Tonight.

She puffed out a hard breath in her third attempt to remove a stray curl that insisted on dangling in front of her face, then groaned when half the contents of her dust pan completely missed their mark and ended up back on the floor. The quality of her work already bordered on abysmal, and the last thing she needed was a random dust pile raising eyebrows. Stooping low, she gathered up the rebellious grit, this time making sure the pan was fully contained within the wastebasket before she tipped it in.

Casting one last look around the room, she accepted that, with her current time crunch, it would have to do. If Polly questioned her, she could just blame it on her fake illness from the week before. Cadi huffed a dry laugh, noting that her story may not be much of a stretch, considering the palpitation in her chest that typically came and went ever since the first night she had felt it at The Crow, had decided to hang around as a constant feature following the ritual. At least the sensation was not nearly as bothersome as it had been at first. Over the days, it had settled comfortably into the background, though still never fully receding like she was used to. Now it felt almost as normal as breathing.

Yanking off her robe, she quickly stashed it in the closet along with her supplies, then grabbed her bag and slipped out into the corridor. Her footsteps echoed off the stone walls as she wound her way through the temple, stopping to peer around each corner she passed as if her mere presence on the grounds might arouse suspicion.

When the mouth of the corridor she was searching for came into view, Cadi’s heart was practically trying to climb out of her throat. She slowed her steps as she approached, darted to the side of the hallway, and pressed her back against the cold stone to check that the coast was clear.

Totally casual.

A low breath blew past her lips. The passageway was completely deserted. Creeping from her pathetic hiding place, Cadi scurried toward the door, shuffling her feet to avoid making any more noise than was absolutely necessary. She pulled out her sigil and looked in both directions to confirm no one had decided to pay her a visit at the least opportune time possible before she pressed it firmly against the black security pad.

A cold sweat broke out across the back of her neck when the tone confirming her entry didn’t come. What if someone saw her last time? Changed the access level to keep whatever was inside safe from nosy attendants⁠—

A welcoming chirp interrupted her panic, and the light on the pad smoothly shifted from red to green.

This was not the time to spiral. Her fingers trembled as she gripped the metal handle, gently eased the door open, and slipped inside.

She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the office. Moonlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling window that made up the far wall, casting its silvery beam across the polished surface of the desk that stood in the middle of the room.

The wall to her left was less a wall and more an enormous bookshelf containing what had to be at least a thousand tomes, and across the room, a very promising looking line of filing cabinets ended flush against a massive wardrobe. If the sigil on the door hadn’t been enough to tell her that this office belonged to someone high up in the Order’s ranks, its contents removed all question.

An electric tingle danced over her skin, followed quickly by a hollow pit that formed in her gut. The chances of finding something useful had just skyrocketed, but so had her risk. If she got caught digging around in the office of some Order official … well she just couldn’t get caught.

Cadi nearly tripped over a pair of chairs that she hadn’t noticed in front of the desk as she rushed forward to the line of filing cabinets and tugged the top handle, only for it to tug right back. Locked. She groaned, moving to the next. And the next. Her hope dwindled with each one she tried, and each one that refused to open. At last, one of the drawers gave way, revealing thick rows of folders. She ran her finger over the tabs, looking for anything that stood out as important, but was met with only names and dates that seemed to relate to various members of the Order.

Easing the drawer closed, she moved on to the wardrobe. The doors swung open easily, the moonlight casting its ethereal glow across the fabric of two black robes hung meticulously from the metal rod across the top. A quick scan told her there wasn’t much else inside, so she decided to try her luck with the bookshelf. She turned around, and her shoulders sagged. The shelf was massive and completely packed. This was going to take a while.

Standing there sulking was not going to help her find what she was looking for, so she stepped forward and pulled the first book from the shelf, not even bothering to look at the title. She made her way down the rows, flipping through pages and looking for anything that seemed out of place: highlights, notes, secret cutouts, creepy hidden passageways leading to mysterious subterranean chambers. Anything.

After what felt like an eternity, she stepped back to take in the expanse of literature she still had left to check. There was no way she would get through all of these before someone found her. Deciding to finish the section she was on before moving to the desk, she picked up a stray stack of paperbacks. When she got to the third book, lifting it up and running her fingers over the soft pages, her breath caught as a small piece of paper tumbled from between them, drifting to land at her feet.

Crouching down to pick it up, she noted that the fibers felt worn and old, as if it had been through a lot before finding its home in this office. She gently pulled at the corners, careful to avoid damaging it as she stepped to the window and held the paper up to the moonlight.

Cadi gasped when her eyes fell upon the rows of sigils drawn onto the paper in faded ink. Words wrapped around each design, though they were in a language she had never seen before. She had no idea what it was or if this was even what they needed, but Sera definitely would.