Page 184 of Ex Somnis

I let my hands glide flat across the steel.

Five fingers each. No breadsticks.

This is real.

It still feels like a dream anyway.

I hop down and head out, catching sight of Nevan through the reception doorway, phone pressed to his ear, looking like he’s back in his element. I leave him to it and slip back outside, heading for the others in the cottage, but then find Seraphine in the garden, crouched toward the herb bed, a basket resting on her hip.

She glances up when I come to stand in front of her.

“Herbs for more tea, or⁠—”

“Everything costs something.”

Okaaay, ominous.

“Seraphine.”

“Sometimes, we have to sacrifice ourselves for the people we love.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

She straightens, then reaches out and taps the moonstone on my chest twice.

“With this, everything becomes stronger.”

I don’t love how she says that.

“Dreams?”

“Dreams. Promises. Contracts.” She gives me a long look before she turns and walks toward the door. “Sometimes, we have to sacrifice ourselves for the people we love.”

I don’t know what to do with any of that. My brain is already running in six directions at once, because yes, I would, obviously I would, sacrifice myself for them, but why is she telling me this?

“I heard you the first time,” I mutter when she opens the door and steps inside. “God, Seraphine. You and Lucien are the same brand of creepy.”

What does she know that we don’t?

Jasper said she told him that it will work out, that Tessa will be able to leave, wake up, and…

“I think I’m going to go wait in the car,” I say to no one, then head around to the front of the inn.

I’m almost at the parking lot when I hear Sydney’s voice. “No.”

I keep my eyes forward. I haven’t seen her since Halloween, and I genuinely don’t know if she remembers me trying to rip a fistful of her hair out at that party, or if she was too many drinks deep to remember any of it at all.

I don’t want to chance it.

“Don’t be like that.” Comes Simon’s voice, the one I have been avoiding on principle since he started working here. I’m the reason Nora fired him, and he hates me for it, which is fair. We’ve achieved a fragile, unspoken peace where I walk past him at the reception as though he’s part of the architecture, and as long as he keeps his mouth shut, I let him keep existing in my general orbit.

I’m three steps past the inn when I hear Sydney again.

“I said no.” This time there’s something underneath it that wasn’t there a second ago.

She’s scared.

I turn and march right back toward the inn and find Simon pinning her against the side of the building, one hand braced on the wall by her head, his mouth at her neck while she’s pushing at his chest with both hands.