Page 141 of Ex Somnis

I don’t bother going through the inn to get to the cottage. Instead, I walk through the garden, past the swings, and knock on the cottage door.

Jasper’s eyes go wide when he opens it, but then he grabs me, hugging me hard enough that I can hear his crystals clattering against each other between us.

A laugh escapes from me as I hug him back.

“I had this feeling you were awake,” he says into my shoulder, and then pulls back to look at me, equal parts relieved and accusatory. “Why didn’t you text?”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

He looks me over from head to toe while the crystals settle, and his brow furrows. “You are,” he says. “But not for me.”

“What, you’re psychic now too?”

“No, I know you. And your yellow aura is even more shadowed than the last time I saw it, which is strange, because it can’t be your men. I made sure they all understood the assignment.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Which is?”

His smile is way too self-satisfied for my liking. “Remember the Ace of Wands?”

“Oh, shut up.”

He chuckles. “I just let them know they’re all destined for you. That’s all.”

“And they believed you?”

He tilts his head, eyes bright as he says absolutely nothing more.

I think about Paul in the dreamscape, holding out his hand. Ridge saying, “You’re mine, and I’m yours.” And Nevan’s, “Something is always pulling me toward her.”

“Apparently they did,” I say under my breath, and Jasper’s smile widens a degree.

“Okay. What do you need? Books? Crystals?”

I reach under my sweater and pull out the moonstone on its chain. “I still have mine, thanks. But I wanted to ask your mom about her herbs. The tea she told me to make, I think, could help a friend reach the dream space. Is she home?”

Jasper steps back and opens the door wider. “Sure. Come on in.”

I step inside, then eye him suspiciously. “Wait, why are you home? Isn’t it a school day?”

He shrugs, walking ahead of me into the living room. “Mabel had some things to sort at the inn now that Nevan’s on his little vacation. So I’m here with Mom.”

I open my mouth to say something about missing school for that, but then it hits me. Nevan is on his vacation because of me. He’s not at the inn because he’s been sleeping on Ridge’s floor watching over me, and the ripple of that…

Shit.

I hadn’t thought about it extending to Jasper, Mabel, and the inn.

The very real consequences of my absence sit somewhere uncomfortable under my ribs as we find Seraphine on the sofa in front of the television, her long, silver hair loose, a cup of something cooling on the table beside her.

“Mom, hey.”

Seraphine’s eyes find mine, then drop to my chest. She stands up faster than I’ve ever seen her move and crosses the room to me, closing her hand around the moonstone pendant. The chain pulls taut at the back of my neck as she pulls hard enough that I stumble forward.

“I thought it was lost,” she gasps out.

“Mom.” Jasper pries her hand off the moonstone, and I take a few backward steps as I reach behind me, checking the chain.

“My moonstone,” she whispers, her gaze still locked on it. “My dream stone.”