Faith (Soul Savers Book 7) by Kristie Cook Page B

the moment if she’d actually been the one who did all
of the cooking or if someone else did. Who had it been? Had they been
replaced?
    Why was my recent
memory so freaking cloudy?
    When I finished my
coffee and still nobody had shown up, not a single mind signature
coming into my range, worry needled its way under my skin. I searched
the entire bottom floor for people. Owen, Vanessa, Charlotte, Sheree,
staff, someone . But the mansion was like an empty museum, with
sun streaming through the foyer and dust motes dancing in the rays.
    “They must be in
the village,” I said, knowing full well I spoke to myself, but
the silence was unnerving and I’d needed to break it. “Are we supposed to be in the village?”
    I tried to think if we
had a council meeting or special event we should have been attending,
but I couldn’t remember anything at all. Nothing. My
memory was more than cloudy; it was downright gone . I glanced
up at the ceiling, as if I could see two stories up to Tristan, but
decided to let him sleep a bit longer and make the trip myself. Just
a quick flash to the village to make sure everything was okay, and
then I’d come back to wake him.
    But when I tried to
flash, I went nowhere.
    I tried again and
again, until I could only imagine how ridiculous my face must have
looked with the concentration I put into it. What the hell? I
strode over to the double doors at the front of the foyer and pulled
on them. They refused to budge. I went to every door that led to the
outside on the first floor, and none would open. And at that moment,
I realized what had been off with the sheer curtain on our balcony:
It had been hanging still and shadowed. It didn’t billow inward
as it usually did from the breeze off the Aegean Sea, and the light
behind it hadn’t been right. Neither was the light here in the
foyer—there were no windows in the foyer for the sun to shine
through. The only light usually came from the fire sconces on the
wall.
    “What’s
going on?” I called out as worry blossomed into concern. “Where
is everyone?”
    Nobody answered.
    “HELLO?” My
shout bounced off the stone walls, reverberating back to me. Concern
exploded into panic. Something was wrong. I ran through the entire
first floor of the mansion, throwing open doors to offices,
bathrooms, staff rooms, parlors, the media room, closets … all
except the doors to the Sacred Archives, which wouldn’t open.
“Dorian? Owen? Vanessa? Blossom?”
    I yelled all of their
names as I ran. I thought I caught a flash of pink and then a glimpse
of white hair.
    “Ophelia! Is that
you? Are you here?”
    Still no reply. I ran
up to the second floor, throwing more doors open, and finding nobody.
And then to the third story, even daring to enter Rina’s wing
for the first time since she’d died.
    “Solomon?”
I called. “Where are you?”
    Not only was nobody
around, but there were simply no signs of anyone being here. No
coffee cup left on a side table. No hand towels in the bathrooms
looking like they’d ever been touched. Not a single piece of
trash in the bins—not a tissue or balled up sheet of paper to
be found.
    Adrenaline shot through
my veins, and my heart sprang into a gallop. I ran back to our suite,
throwing the doors open with a bang.
    “Tristan, wake
up! Something’s wrong. Everybody’s gone.”
    He didn’t so much
as stir, so I launched myself at the bed and gave him a shake.
    “Wake up. Come
on.”
    He continued to sleep,
which wasn’t like him. If anything, he should have shot
upright, fists flying in natural reaction. But he did nothing except
lay there.
    “Tristan,
please,” I begged as anxiety turned to fear. I straddled him,
grabbed his biceps, and gave him a violent shake. His head only
lolled side to side. I peeled back an eyelid, and still no response.
His pupil didn’t even constrict. “What’s wrong with
you? Wake up, Tristan! Please .”
    I yelled at him, jumped
on him, hit him with a pillow. A shiny, royal blue