As he, Seth, and Azazel waited in Inanna’s drawing room the next afternoon for the other Ancients—including Inanna herself, who’d been woken by both Lilith and Ishtar—to arrive, Cain told the two males of the incident last night.
Azazel leaned forward in his seat. “She what?”
Cain lifted his brows. “I really need to repeat myself?”
“Yeah. Yeah, you do. Because she should be dead.”
Cain flexed his fingers before splaying his hand on the sofa’s armrest. “I’m aware of that.” It was his creature, having woken from a light doze, who’d alerted him that she was gone. “When I realized she was in the garden, I expected to find her swarmed by so many snakes I’d barely see her.” And he’d felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time—panic.
“None of them harmed her?”
“No, not one of them even so much as touched her. Nor did they hiss in warning or get in her way. They just slithered along the path either side of her. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought they were following her to protect her.”
At the other end of the sofa, Seth shrugged. “Maybe they somehow sensed she was yours. They wouldn’t harm anything that belongs to you. Theymighteven go so far as to protect it.”
Azazel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re sure she was sleepwalking?”
Cain felt his brow furrow. “What else would she have been doing out there?”
“I don’t know,” replied Azazel. “But you’ve got to admit it’s weird that she’d go to the one place she’d find uncomfortable truths if she knew where to look. So I’m asking, are you certain she was sleepwalking?”
Cain thought back to last night. “She was moving like someone in a daze. Slow and awkward, not with purposeful strides. She only snapped out of it when I touched her, and then she looked freaked out. Wynter’s got an amazing poker-face, but I don’t think she was faking. She went pale. Started trembling. She seemed disoriented and confused.”
Seth scratched at the side of his neck. “You don’t think … No, there was no way he would have called out to a random witch even if hewasawake.”
“He isn’t awake. I’d sense it if he was.” Cain ran his tongue over the front of his teeth. “She’s been to the garden before. She likes it. She isn’t fussed by the snakes. It’s not strange that she’d go sleepwalking to a place she likes. But you know whatisstrange?”
Azazel gave him a pointed look. “A lot of things are strange lately.”
“Exactly,” said Cain. “And it all started with Wynter’s appearance. Yet, Demetria didn’t see her coming. Nor did she foresee the appearance of Wynter’s old coven, or that the Aeons would suddenly turn their attention our way. In fact, she’s had no visions whatsoever since shortly before Wynter came here.”
Seth blinked. “None?”
Cain shook his head. “Demetria came to me the day after Wynter moved here. She said that for a few days she’d had a gut feeling that something was coming, but that no vision had accompanied the feeling. I had another brief conversation with Demetria earlier. She still isn’t having visions, and she still feels that she’s being blocked.”
Seth frowned. “Wynter can’t be responsible for that.”
“No,” agreed Cain. “She’s powerful, but she couldn’t block any attempts that a deity might make to contact their Favored. Demetria maintains it is a ‘presence’ that is causing the interference.”
Azazel’s head twitched to the side. “What kind of presence?”
“She isn’t sure,” said Cain.
Azazel rubbed at his jaw. “A deity could do it.”
“We’d sense the presence of a deity,” said Seth.
“Only if they wanted us to.”
“True enough,” allowed Seth. “But whywouldn’tthey want us to?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Azazel twisted his mouth, resettling his gaze on Cain. “I’m guessing you’ve had a good, long look at Wynter’s body naked?”
“Every inch,” Cain confirmed.
“She has no marks to declare that she’s Favored by a deity?” asked Azazel.
Cain shook his head. “We wouldn’t need to see a mark to know a deity had their eye on her. The Favored are easy to recognize. They’re all the same. Arrogant. Overconfident. Superior. You’d think they were deities themselves the way they act. That isn’t Wynter.”