Her green eyes flicked upward, and she smiled like she knew every secret I’d never planned to confess.
“No.I could see that you had survived some trauma.”
I didn’t breathe for a second.She already had the deck in her hands.Her long fingers carried numerous silver rings.She shuffled once, a clean and practiced fold, then began laying cards down.
She turned over the first card with a casual flick of her wrist, like she’d done it a thousand times and already knew what she’d find beneath.
“I can’t pay you!”I blurted, half rising from my chair, already twisting toward the exit.
“Friends don’t pay,” she stated, catching me by the sleeve and tugging me gently but firmly back into place.
“I really do have to go,” I insisted, even though the words felt weak, flimsy, transparent.
She laid the card down face up between us, then lifted her gaze to mine—steady, knowing, strangely patient.The look made my stomach flip.
“You have nowhere else to be, child,” she murmured, as if she wasn’t guessing, but certain.
Her eyes skated back down to the card sitting between us.
The Tower.
A cracked stone spire, lightning tearing it in two.
She made a low sound in her throat.“Your past.”
“I don’t want to talk about my past,” I muttered.
“I don’t need you to talk.”She tapped the card.“This speaks for you.”
The second card.
The Moon.
Shadowed water.Hidden things.Half-light.
“Your present.You pretend to be fine.But you aren’t.You walk in sunlight but you are still drowning.”
My fingers curled around the edge of the table.
At the third card, she paused and smiled slowly.
The Lovers.
But not the gentle, romantic kind.
The card showed two figures bound by something invisible, standing back-to-back, both reaching for each other without turning.
“This is your future.”
I scoffed, rolling my eyes to hide the way my heart pounded.“I don’t want a man.”
“Oh honey…” She leaned back, crossing her arms.“He isn’t a want.”
She tapped the card once, her green eyes locking onto mine.
“He is a fate.”
A reluctant smile pulled at my mouth.“Is this where you tell me he’s tall, dark, and brooding?”