Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

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I blink owlishly at my mates for a moment. "Um, hi?" I manage to hold back my groan at my awkward response, but that's just how I roll. I'm pretty sure if you look up "awkward" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of me staring wide-eyed as the definition.

"Hey, everything go okay with Dido?" Saint watches me carefully, ruffling his dark hair as he does so. He's perched on the table to my left, the only one of them on this side with me.

"Yeah. Why?" I ask, my forehead scrunching in confusion.

Saint's gray eyes flick between mine for a moment before he informs me, "You were in a trance for half an hour."

"Oh. Huh. I guess Dido had a lot to say." The whole conversation felt like it took only a few minutes, but I guess time moves differently in my mind. I fill them in on everything Dido said about her sister, leaving out our private conversation on loss and grief.

Malachi's eyes light with recognition as I finish relaying the information. "That must be who the goddess Anna Perenna is based on. I don't know why I didn't connect that. Her festival was on the Ides of March, which was the first month of the Roman year. Romans, mostly plebeians, prayed to her for a good start to the year. Ovid recounts her backstory differently, but I trust Dido has a more accurate version of events."

No one says anything for a beat, until Bastian grins at Malachi who sat down next to him at some point. "You're such a nerd, Kai." Malachi flips Bastian off, and I snort at their sibling interaction, which makes Bastian's smile widen.

Xander's sitting on Bastian's other side, shaking his head at his twin's comment. When he turns his emerald eyes on me, I'm momentarily mesmerized, unable to look away. His deep voice breaks me out of my daze. "Did Dido know what the prophecy means?"

"She said there are many interpretations, and it's up to us to decide what the correct one is. So, in short, no. Or, if she does, she isn't willing to share it." I scrub a hand over my face. It feels like an impossible task to find the right meaning for an incredibly vague poem. Of course, it being who knows what o'clock in the morning probably doesn't help the situation any.

"We'll figure it out, pretty girl. Don't you worry. Between the five of us, I know we'll find everything we need to kick some serious ass." Bastian reaches across the table and holds out his hand for me. I place mine in his, trying to absorb some of his optimism.

"It's three in the morning, so I think we need to call it a night." When I open my mouth to protest that I can keep working, Saint raises an eyebrow at me. I snap my mouth closed to let him finish. "We're all worn out. Coming back in the morning fully rested is our best shot at getting answers."

As much as I want to just push through to get the answers faster, Saint's right. It's hard to think clearly when I'm exhausted, so it won't be productive to keep sifting through the books right now. I give him a reluctant nod. "You're right. We should at least catch a few hours of sleep. Can we portal out of here?"

Saint's mouth twists in a frown. "No, I tried that already to get something from the hotel. The only magic I can do is spells preapproved by the library, like the location spell."

I push up from my chair, stumbling slightly as I straighten up. Saint catches me before I can face-plant. My cheeks flush, but I mumble a thank-you to him. Shaking my head to clear it of the soul-deep exhaustion, I start toward the stairs we came down.

"On one of my trips to and from the second floor, I found a back way out. It's on this floor, so let's just go out that way," Malachi rumbles. Too tired to do anything other than give him an unenthusiastic thumbs-up, I take unsteady steps toward where he pointed. I don't think much of the deep sigh I hear behind me until I'm swept off my feet and held in his arms bridal style. I squeak at the sudden change of position. Before I can protest, Malachi cuts me off. "Don't, baby girl. You're tired. I'm tired. Just let me fucking carry you so we can sleep."

Laying my head on his shoulder, I wordlessly agree to his demand. His smooth gait as we trek through the library lulls me almost to sleep. Even the stickiness of the portal isn't enough to fully wake me up. When we get to our hotel suite, I do my nighttime routine in a sleepy haze, not remembering much of it.

When I crawl into bed between my four mates, I feel so safe and at peace that I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

"Are we sure it's even here?" I look up at Bastian who's sharing a table with me. We've been here for almost twelve hours. Within thirty minutes of waking up, we were back at the library. We've only taken quick breaks to get lunch and dinner at a nearby café. Other than that, we've been poring over book after book. Any hope I had that we'll find what we need here is steadily slipping away like sand in an hourglass.

"If Dido and your mom say it's here, I'm positive it is. We're all almost through our sections, so I know we'll find something soon. Don't give up, sweet girl," Bastian encourages me.

He's right. We're almost through our parts. I'm not and never have been a quitter, so I'll look through every single book in this library if that's what it takes. Pushing my chair back, I stand up from the table and gather the eight books from my section I've been poring through. I carefully carry them back to the shelf and put them in their proper place. I don't know if anyone else will ever use this library, but I don't want to mess up the organization system regardless.

I worked my way from the bottom up, so I need one of the rolling ladders to reach the topmost shelf. Climbing up the worn wood rungs, I pluck the first three books off the top shelf. When I reach for the fourth one, a small piece of paper flutters down to the floor.

Huh. That's strange .

Making my way down the ladder, I set my armful of books down on the dark blue carpet and pick up the piece of paper. As soon as my fingers graze the surface, I feel like I'm transported somewhere else. I get a flash of an imposing Gothic cathedral. Startled, I let go of the paper and the library comes back into focus.

I look at the paper in shock. What in the double deep-fried hell on a stick is going on?

Staring at the paper isn't giving me any answers, so I guess I have to touch it again. Plopping down on the surprisingly plush carpet so I don't fall on my face, I reach for the paper again. Since I'm better prepared this time, I don't immediately let go of it when I'm transported to what feels like another world.

Looking around, I see that I'm in front of a towering cathedral that looks like a mash-up of Romanesque, Gothic, and baroque architecture. Deep red doors are inset in a series of arches that point up to six long stained glass panes topped by three cross-shaped stained glass windows. A green copper dome towers over the rest of the cathedral with smaller spires dotted around the rest of the large structure.

Judging by the layout of the cathedral, I'm on the south end of it. While beautiful, I have no idea what this cathedral is or why I'm here. I spot a billowing sign advertising something. Walking closer, I see the town name "Bayeux" on it before the whole image fades away.

Coming back to myself is jarring. One moment I'm looking at a gorgeous cathedral, the next I'm back in the oval library I've spent way too much time in the past two days. Letting go of the paper, I pick it up again to see if I can repeat the trippy experience. I can't, and I still don't know what I was supposed to get from it.

Unfolding the paper, I see blueprints to a building that I assume is the cathedral in the vision. An area on the north side of the cross-shaped church is circled and has an arrow pointing down. It also has a note written in French. Since my high school French is zero help with that, I'll see if Malachi can read it.

Hopping to my feet, I carefully place the paper in one of the books I pulled down. I gather up my stack and walk toward the table Malachi's sitting at. He looks up as I approach. After setting my pile of books on an empty corner, I take out the paper and put it down in front of him. "Can you translate this?" I point to the only words written on it.

"Yeah. I know some French." Malachi reaches for the paper before I have a chance to warn him.

"Don't!" I shout right as his hand grazes the worn surface.

He jerks away like the paper might bite him before looking at me in alarm. "What? What's wrong with it?"

I tilt my head in confusion. "Didn't you just get transported to a vaguely Gothic church?"

Malachi stares at me like I'm a few marbles short of a full game. "No. Was I supposed to?"

"That's what happened when I touched it." I look between him and the paper a few times, wondering what's going on. "Maybe try picking it up again?"

Malachi huffs a laugh. "I thought I wasn't supposed to touch it."

"I didn't want you to be freaked out by it like I was. It was weird, but I'm fine, so it should be okay for you to try again." I watch him closely as he reaches out to the paper again. When his fingers close around it, he doesn't seem any different. He stares down curiously at the blueprint for a moment before setting it back down.

"Nothing happened, but I did translate the phrase. It says, ‘In truth will she find the home.'" Malachi points to each word as he reads it, giving me a mini French lesson. Even when he's not in the classroom, Malachi often reverts to professor mode.

My eyes widen, and I rush around the other side of the table to stare at the map again. "That's a line from the prophecy," I whisper. Hope blooms inside me like the first flowers of spring—tentative, fragile, and easily crushed.

"It is. You definitely found something, baby girl. Any idea where this leads?" He leans back in his chair as he stares at me in contemplation.

I fidget under his intense gaze before grabbing the paper to have something to do with my hands. "I'm fairly certain it's blueprints to a historical cathedral in, um, Bayeux." I try not to butcher the pronunciation of what I think is a French town. It certainly sounds French.

"That's in Normandy," Bastian chimes in as he saunters over. Xander and Saint are close behind him, all of them wanting a chance to look at what I found. Bastian hops up on the table next to me and reads over my shoulder. Xander and Saint stand behind Malachi and wait for their turn.

"Fair warning, it might be a weird experience touching the paper." I hand it off to Saint who has no reaction. He gives it to Xander when he's done looking at it. I roll my lips between my teeth as I try to figure out why I'm the only one who reacts. "Hey, Saint? Do you know what magic would cause only certain people to see an image when they touch something?"

While I grew up in Hawthorne Grove, I left before getting much of a mage education. I'm supposed to be this super powerful hybrid, but I'm at such a disadvantage compared to the rest of mages. I know little about magic and have even less natural aptitude for it, apparently. Saint's our best hope if we need magic for something.

Saint rolls his neck back and forth in thought. "I'm not sure, but I know it requires extremely powerful magic and a very complex spell. It's a separate spell to hide a vision on an object and to make sure only certain people can see it. If I had to guess, the spell's keyed to your family line to prevent the information falling into the wrong hands."

"So, is this what we came here for?" I was kind of hoping for some neon sign that loudly proclaimed this is what you're looking for . Instead, we have a piece of paper with a vague prophecy line written on it that leads to a location only I can see.

Fabulous.

I'm sure there's nothing that could go wrong with this setup.

"It seems likely, but none of us have much of our section left to go through. Let's finish those up, and then we can figure out what we want to do." Xander waits until we all agree before heading back to his table piled high with texts.

I flop down in the chair at the end of Malachi's table since the books are all here. Putting in an earbud, I shuffle my playlist and Amber Run's "I Found" comes on. Cracking open the tome at the top of the stack, I start looking through it for answers I don't know that anyone has.

Around one in the morning, I finally close the last one from my section. Everyone other than Saint and I are done, including Malachi who had to read most of the foreign language books from everyone else's part. I thought I was a fairly fast reader, but Malachi has me beat.

Everyone gravitated over to what was originally Malachi's table. It's long enough that we're all able to spread out to get everything done. A few minutes later, Saint closes his book and looks up to see the rest of us watching him. He ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck at being the center of attention.

"Anyone find anything else?" I ask to take everyone's focus off Saint, "because I certainly didn't."

"Nope. Nothing," Bastian chimes in. Malachi and Xander both shake their heads.

"I didn't either but let me try the spell once more to make sure there's nothing we're missing." Saint chants the same incantation he did yesterday. The same sections of the library light up, in addition to all the books we have piled on the table. Even the piece of paper glows an eerie red.

I'm guessing that means we've looked through everything here that's relevant. "So, we need to go to Bayeux now?"

"Yep!" Bastian jumps up and walks around until he's standing behind me. He thrusts his phone at me. "Is this the cathedral, pretty girl?"

My eyes widen when I see the church from the spell. It looks slightly different, like it's aged a little or the surrounding area has changed over the years, but it's still very recognizable. "Yeah. How'd you find it?"

"I googled ‘Bayeux cathedral.' Luckily, the church is actually named The Cathedral of Our Lady of Bayeux, so it was pretty easy to find." Bastian gives me a wry smile at the name of the Gothic inspired cathedral. "There are a ton of Notre Dame churches all over France, and Bayeux is no different it seems."

"Thanks for finding that, Bastian. It's a huge help." Bastian glows at my praise. I give him a small genuine smile before pushing to my feet. Raising my arms over my head, I take a moment to stretch. I've spent way too much time in these hard wooden library chairs these past two days. It's fine with me if I never have to sit in one again. "Are we ready to head out after we put the books up?"

"Yeah, we should be good to go," Malachi answers for the group. He takes the paper with the cathedral map and carefully folds it along the existing creases before putting it in his black wool coat pocket for safekeeping.

It only takes us a few minutes to clean up everything and revert the space to how it looked when we got here. Following closely behind Malachi as we leave the library, I'm startled when he stops suddenly, a deep growl rattling in his chest.

Peering around him, I gasp in shock as I see the last person I expected to be here.