The words landed like a fist to my ribs.
I lowered my head.“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”She waved a dismissive hand, but there was nothing careless in it—only exhaustion.“You didn’t kill him.The Russians did.This…” Her voice broke for the first time.“This is the price we pay for the ugliness of the world we live in.”
My throat tightened around something ugly and familiar—rage.
“The Russians have paid.”
She lifted her gaze, eyes keen and wet all at once.
“All of them?”
“Every last one.”
Zelda exhaled, relief sagging through her shoulders—but grief still anchored her down.
“Good,” she whispered.“He deserved peace.”
Quiet settled again, thick as incense.
“Sit,” she repeated.
“I’m not here for?—”
Her glare sliced through me.
“What do you have to lose, Atlas?”
Everything,I didn’t say.Everything I pretended not to feel.Everything I feared I’d already lost.
“A few minutes of your time… please.”
Neve’s face flashed through my mind—the fear in her eyes that night, the courage, the softness I didn’t deserve.
I exhaled, a slow surrender, then sat at the small round table with her.
Zelda gave a faint, knowing smile.“Good.Now let’s see what the cards have to say about you.”
She shuffled the deck—slow, deliberate, like she was coaxing something dangerous awake.The tent hummed with incense and tension.When she laid the first card down, she frowned.
“Hm.”
My brow lifted.“What does ‘hm’ mean?”
“It means the path is broken,” she said cryptically.“The traveler fell.The ground opened beneath them.But the light—the light pulled them home.”
I blinked.“English, Zelda.”
She flipped another card.
A chalice.A starburst.A figure wrapped in white.
She sucked in a breath.“My, my.Someone was spared.Someone you believe dead… still breathes.”
My heartbeat stuttered.Once.Twice.
“You’re looking for her in the wrong place,” she informed me.