Page 165 of Ex Somnis

Because if he doesn’t want anything from me, how am I supposed to get them out of this?

I press my thumb against the edge of the desk, the sharp bite of the wood a reality check in and of itself.

There has to be something I’m missing.

There always is.

The trick is finding it before somebody dies.

There’s a knock on my partially open door.

“Come in.”

Lennon pushes it all the way open with her shoulder. She’s wearing sweatpants with lemons printed all over them and a white T-shirt that is sheer enough that her black bra is visible. Her feet are bare on my floor, and something about that detail does something to my chest that I don’t have a clinical name for.

Probably should look that up.

“There you are,” she says, crossing the room toward me with a smile. “I was wondering where you went.”

I push my chair back and pull her straight onto my lap. She tries to keep some of her weight off me out of some misplaced sense of politeness, but I hold her tightly until she gives up and settles into my lap properly. She smells like lemon, and I breathe her in before I kiss my way up to her mouth.

“Sorry,” I murmur against her lips. “I had to take a call.”

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“How are you feeling?”

“Don’t deflect.” She frowns as she pulls back. “I feel like you’re tired. Hell, we’re all tired, and that has to mean something, given how much we’ve all been sleeping lately.”

I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Lucid dreaming isn’t sleep, not in the sense of rest.”

“I know that.” She settles deeper against me. “I still think you’re exhausted.”

I smile because she’s not wrong, but I’d hoped I was hiding it better.

“Mrs. Vaughn called,” I say, because if someone needs to know, it’s her.

Lennon sucks in a breath. “Tessa? Her breathing?”

I nod, watching her process it, the small swallow, the nod, how her jaw sets stubbornly. “Okay, that means we actually need to sit down and figure out what we’re doing. She doesn’t have time left for us to keep circling this and try stuff. We need a plan.”

I love those words. I love her.

“I’m all for plans.” I kiss her lips with a small peck. “I think we should all get together at the inn tomorrow. If Seraphine’s so knowledgeable, maybe she could help with that too.”

Lennon frowns at me. “That woman is not really reliable.”

“It’s worth a try.”

“Nevan is stuck on the idea that this could be the reason why he and his mom are not particularly close.”

“He’s not wrong to wonder, but he’s wrong to feel guilty about it,” I say, choosing the words carefully. “This Man may have been involved. But Seraphine started failing him long before that. She did that part herself.”

“Then why would he want that from Nevan? What’s the benefit to him?”

“Probably nothing.”

“Then why do it?”