Page 34 of Fallen Stars

“Before his mind and soul separate so far from his body that no tether could ever bring him back.”

Silence enveloped the room, only a steady tick of a grandfather clock breaking it.

Elara swallowed once. Twice. Cleared her throat. “How exactly do I find this tether?” she finally whispered, all bravado gone.

“A lot of questions, considering I only allowed you one.”

Elara leaned forward. “You want to help me. I know you do. Because you want an end to Ariete’s reign as much as I do. I just haven’t discovered why yet.”

Eli clenched his jaw and leaned away from her. “Well, he wouldn’t just tell you, obviously,” he said, answering her earlier question.

“Sooooo…”

“So you’re going to have to find the location of it subtly. And I can hazard a guess to exactly where he’s hiding it.” Eli was smiling again now.

“You’ve already thought this all through?”

“As you said, I have my reasons.”

Elara truly observed him then, the cold clever energy that radiated from him, the way his eyes were pinned on her.

“What exactly can your powers do?”

He thought for a moment. “I suppose mortals would name it telepathy, being able to read someone’s mind, although I don’t know if they have a name for manipulating it. I can do both.”

“Okay, so why not just rummage around in Ariete’s mind, find where Enzo’s tether is being kept, and save us the trouble of a long-winded quest?”

Eli rolled his eyes. “You don’t think I’ve tried entering his mind before? Ariete has wall within wall within wall inside his mind. I can use my charm with him for…banal things.” Eli’s lip twitched at that as though he were sharing a joke with himself. “But I certainly can’t read his thoughts. The subconscious is a fascinating, tricky thing. If there was the merest suggestion that I was trying to enter it while he’s awake, I would be shut down completely, and likely my own mind ravaged. The few gates I’ve managed to pry through undetected reveal nothing. The answer of where the tether is must be hidden deep, deep, deep within his mind. He is the God of war after all. If anyone knows how to lay defences and traps, it’s Ariete.”

Elara let the information sink in. “So pray tell, how do we extract the information we need?”

Eli flipped his book of matches from a breast pocket in his shirt, lighting yet another tobacco roll. Gods, did he ever breathe a lungful of clean air?

“That’s where you come in, dearest Elara.” She raised an eyebrow. “The most vulnerable both man and God are is when they are asleep. Defences left unchecked. Have you never noticed that the slightest suggestions during the day can play out in entire fantasies at night? The mind greedily soaks it all in as the subconscious lays wide open.”

“Get to the point,” Elara drawled, crossing her arms.

Eli leaned forward again, blowing tobacco smoke around them in a sharp exhale.

“I don’t think Lorenzo’s tether is in this realm. I think Ariete has hidden it well. And to find it, you’re going to walk through Ariete’s dreams.”

Chapter Eleven

Enzo plucked the blue grassbetween his fingertips, desperately trying to do anything to distract his mind. He hadn’t seen Elara for what felt like days although she had warned him she wouldn’t be able to visit for a night or two with her plan for Eli. But still, the thought of her out there, without him?

It made him want to burn shit.

A pity then that he couldn’t use his powers in this godsforsaken place. And although he didn’t want to admit it, Enzo was spooked.

That river the other day… He didn’t know what the fuck was in it or why it had drawn him in the way it had, why it had conjured the exact memories that he had experienced, the same feelings he had felt. But what scared him the most was that he couldn’t think of anything else except going back to it.

He’d tried to distract himself. Had tried to ‘create’ in the small studio Elara had built in her dreams. But emptiness had filled him, as always, since he knew none of it was real. But those memories… They were real.

Those memories were connecting him to the physical world, to himself. The only thing right now confirming that he was a human, that he had lived a life and fallen in love with an angel.

He sighed, standing, his feet already walking even while his mind warred. He shouldn’t go back there, shouldn’t mess with whatever kind of magick flowed in those waters.

But the pain was past manageable now, every waking moment leaving him starving and tired and thirsty.

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