Page 79 of Veil of Night & Flames

Tia and Riley ring Chase’s bell at seven on the dot, for which I’m grateful. “Any earlier and they might have gotten an eyeful,” I tell Chase as I head over to unlock his door.

“At least they were invited,” he mutters, so low that I almost can’t make out the words.

I turn back slowly. “What?”

He shakes his head and says, “Nothing.” But it’s clearly something, and O-M-G, right then, it hits me. And I know exactly what that something is.

Adric.

I can’t help but grin.

“You actually like the idea,” Chase says, not so much in accusation, but in bewilderment.

“Well, yeah. Maybe a little,” I admit. “Is that terrible?”

He just runs his fingers through his hair, looks baffled, then tells me to open the door in what is very clearly a diversionary tactic.

That’s okay, I can tease him later when we’re in bed. Maybe we can even give Adric a little more to enjoy.

I’m fighting a probably inappropriate smile as the doorbell chimes again, courtesy of my impatient bestie. I mentally shove the sex stuff aside, then bound across the room. I open the door to find Tia and Riley bearing dessert—specifically, a box of pastries from the place behind the campus bookstore.

I’m about to squeal with glee, because I am in severe eclair withdrawal, when Tia beats me to it with a high-pitched, “Cora! Holy fuck, girl, you did it.”

That’s when I realize she’s staring around me at the small leather book on Chase’s table. Then she looks at me, her hands together as if in prayer. “Is it really?” Her voice is a reverent whisper.

I nod. “Don’t thank me, though. Thank the book. It found me more than me finding it.”

Her grin is so wide it’s probably painful. “You, my friend, are a steely-eyed missile man.”

I just laugh, remembering the time we’d camped out on her bed with popcorn and Apollo 13. That had been only a few weeks ago, in reality. But, man, it feels like decades.

Already, Tia’s bounded across the room and is now settled with the book at Chase’s tiny dining table/desk/all-purpose flat surface.

“Oh,” she says, now gently stroking the leather binding. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Oh, Cora.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, like seriously...”

“Careful,” I say. “You’re going to make Riley jealous.”

She rolls her eyes and cuddles the book closer, stroking it as if it were a purring kitten.

I take the seat opposite as Riley moves behind the counter to put the pastries on a platter while Chase makes a fresh pot of coffee. Which is a good thing. It’ll probably be a long day, and I figure we’ll need pretty much all the coffee we can get.

Tia cuddles the book for so long, I begin to wonder if she knows something I don’t. Like the book is actually alive, bred in the dream realm to be a pet.

Finally, she opens it and carefully flips the pages. “This really is the book,” she says, almost to herself. “This is it. The book Riley and I have been hunting.” She looks up at me, and there’s something close to awe in her face. “Cora. You realize what this is?”

I shake my head. “You’re lucky I found it. I tried to read it, but it’s gobbledygook. Good luck making progress.”

“It’s gobbledygook on purpose,” she says. The author wasn’t writing for just anybody. He was writing for the three other monks in his order who already knew what he meant. Every word looks like a regular Latin word, but he’s using it sideways. By the time you figure out one term, you realize you’ve been misreading six others, and you have to start over.”

She shakes her head. “I’m going to lose my mind on this, but seriously, girlfriend, this is not only gonna be key, but it’s going to be a blast to translate. I already have an idea how to write a program for the heavy lifting.” She cradles the book to her chest. “Seriously, I’m going to lose my mind.”