Page 456 of Shadowblood Souls
There has to be more I can do for the woman I love than offer up a temporary physical escape.
Whatever that is, it isn’t coming to me in this moment. We cuddle together in a silence that’s as contented as it can be, given the circumstances.
Then there’s a tentative knock on the door. Zian’s voice carries through. “Dominic? Riva? We made some dinner, if you’re hungry.”
I sit up slowly with Riva in my arms. A weight still drags down my spirits, but not as badly as before.
And a jab of hunger prods at my stomach.
“That would be great,” I say. “Thank you.”
Riva gives me one more kiss and squirms back into her leggings. When we open the door, Zian is waiting in the hall.
His gaze travels from her to me, not judging, just with a glimmer of envy that tells me he knows we weren’t only having a friendly chat.
My gut twists. I wish I knew how to do more for my friend too.
The wounds getting in his way aren’t the kind my powers can seal over.
As we head down the hall, Zian drifts back behind me. Sensing he’s got something on his mind, I let Riva pull ahead of us.
He glances sideways at me, and the corner of his mouth lifts despite his previous solemn expression. “Getting your mojo back, huh?”
A faint flush tingles across my cheeks, but it’s hard to be really embarrassed around any of my friends when we’ve shared Riva together. “It’s not that hard when I have her as inspiration.”
“Yeah.” Zian pauses and seems to gather himself. “I—Dom— There’s something I’ve been thinking about. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to try it. But I think I could use your help.”
A flash of hope lights in my chest, small but potent. I tap his arm with my knuckles. “If I can, I will. Why don’t you tell me about it after dinner?”
Nineteen
Riva
It’s hard to say how exactly I stumble on the hidden passage. Maybe it’s luck or random chance, but it feels almost like some higher power took pity on our troubles, finally, and showed me the way.
The night after Dominic was returned to us, I’m even more restless than usual. I prowl through room after room in the blanket of darkness, never making a sound.
I’ve been in all of those rooms before. I’ve scanned every inch of them. But Balthazar’s people use them too, and it’s always possible they’ll have left some hint of their work behind that I can use.
At least that’s what I’ve told myself night after night. By the time I slink into the sitting room that holds the bookcases, the idea is striking me as about as plausible as the possibility that Martians will beam down from outer space and rescue us.
And then I see the book on the floor.
It’s lying a few feet from the nearest bookcase, just beyond the edge of a table by one of the armchairs. Like maybe someone sat there reading it and set it down so idly it teetered off after they left.
I’d swear it wasn’t there when Dominic, Griffin, and I wandered in here after dinner. Dom and Griffin each took a book to pass the time, but they brought those back to their bedrooms.
Did one of the other guys come in even later? It’s hard for me to imagine any of them lingering in one of the common rooms alone, relaxing with a book.
I steal over and crouch down to pick up the book. The heft of it and the bland title—Theories on Geographic Migration—convince me that there’s no way any of us was reading this for fun.
So who was reading it? And does it matter why?
While I’m hunkered down like that, my gaze skims the darkness again—and catches on a crooked tile right where the dim strip of security light streaks through the far window.
In this room, along the two walls that aren’t covered by bookcases, the tiles creep right up from the floor to about knee height. The upper ones are maybe a foot squared, a yellowish tan with a typical intricate leaf-and-flower design painted across it.
They’ve always stood in a straight row, but now one cants just a smidge to the side like a slightly crooked tooth.
