Page 87 of Bonds of Starfall

The silver of the elevators ahead made her pause. "Look for a sign that says staff-only," she murmured to Cyrus.

He tapped her shoulder, pointing behind her to a plain white door, a sign posted that said,Keep Out. Staff Stairwell.

Rin smirked, jerking her head toward it. Just in time, too, because the elevator doors slid open, a collection of weary doctors and staff pouring out, as the door shut behind her and Cyrus.

Atlas placedthe book down on the small table next to the chair in the hospital waiting room. The dark blue vinyl of the chair crinkled under him as he stood.

The receptionist glanced toward him, eyes glazing. "Can I help you, sir?"

Atlas placed his palms on the desk, tilting his head. "Open the doors," he demanded lowly.

In a daze, she reached for the keypad, and the doors opened.

He smiled and left, the hem of his black coat fluttering behind him. Vesperin should be grateful. If it weren’t for him, weaving the webs of fate just so, the receptionist never would have bent so easily to her clear bluff.

He loved his Vesperin dearly, but she wasnota good liar.

The flashlightbetween Rin’s teeth lit the papers strewn on the floor before her.

Cyrus was by her side, flipping through stacks of documents with much more care than she was.

Rin was past the point of giving a fuck. Too much was on the line.

She walked on her knees to a file cabinet, rattling the handle when it wouldn’t budge.

"Now who’s being loud?" Cyrus whispered, holding a thick stack of papers up to the light, shifting when her erratic movements made the strip of the flashlight sway.

She rolled her eyes, her lips wrapped around the end of the flashlight, stopping her from responding. In the low light, she watched as his purple eyes dipped to her mouth.

Trying the handle one last time, she growled lowly when it gave way, revealing a stack of perfectly organized documents. She flicked through the tabs, skimming past last names of patients, and pulling some out at random, reading completely normal patient charts. Nothing out of the ordinary. Rin pulled the flashlight free from her lips, holding it in her lap as she sat on the floor of Lucien’s office, her legs askew, shoulders slumped.

"This is useless," she whispered. "We’re never going to find anything. Maybe the documents from the Soul Searcher were falsified…"

Cyrus laid a folder back on Lucien’s desk, turning it just so to match how he had found it. "But why? That doesn’t make any sense, Ves. You said the Soul Searcher acted odd. What if he…"

Cyrus trailed off, and Rin rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, deep in thought as she watched the dust catch in the beam of her flashlight.

He went back to sifting through documents, not really knowing what he was looking for, Rin knew. This felt like a fool’s errand, but something kept her going. Lucien couldn’t be bad, could he?

Rin let her eyelids drift closed as she thought. She had known Lucien her whole life. Where would he hide something that he didn’t want to be found? He was meticulous and organized. And almost too smart. He wouldn’t leave something out for anyone to stumble upon, but he also loved to keep things near him. She thought of his apartment, how his favorite mug wasn’t set on the counter, where just anyone could see it, but was kept on the far back of the top shelf—close, but not too close.

Right before Rin opened her eyes, she felt a shiver of awareness cascade down her spine. She swallowed, somehowknowing what she would find before she looked. Opening her eyes, in the soft beam of the light held in a limp hand, illuminating the space under the desk, she saw the shape of fingers, reaching for the light at the end where the beam grew larger. Her lips parted, and she looked to Cyrus, finding his red hair falling into his eyes as he bent over a notebook, thumbing through it with his sensuous lips downturned at the corners.

Rin reached for the shadow-like fingers, the flashlight warming her hand. The shape of the fingers stilled, hovering there in the light, and she cocked her head, mouthing, "Is that you, my shadow?"

The shadowed fingers drifted up—the shape of a man’s hands.

A long, shadowy finger pointed, and she followed it, finding the shadow directing her to Lucien’s desk.

"I’ve already looked there," she whispered. The finger moved, as if urging her. "Do you want me to look again?" She found herself kneeling forward, the flashlight still held in her hands so the shadow would not leave her. She crawled on her hands and knees to Lucien’s desk, a sense of undeniable peace filling her as her knee brushed the fingertips—or maybe the fingertips reached for her, first. She didn’t know.

Rin’s finger skimmed up the underside of the desk. She had already looked in every drawer, so maybe there was something hidden. As she knocked lightly against the sides, a hollow thud made her pause. She knocked again, hearing a faint jostling sound.

"Cy, I think I’ve got something." His nickname slipped off her lips in the heat of the moment. He came to her side, his shoulder pressing into hers as he bent. His breath warmed her cheek. It was intimate. At the top of Lucien’s desk, there was a drawer, and underneath was a hollowed-out space. Rin tapped a fingeron it. "I think there’s a hidden compartment here or something." Her fingers skimmed along it until she felt a groove.

"Here." Cyrus nudged her aside gently with his shoulder. "Let me."

"What are you—" She broke off when blue tendrils of water twirled at his fingertips. The trickling noise of the water sounded far too loud in the hushed room.