"Fate?!" I scoffed.
And then I immediately regretted it. The woman, Octavia, was smiling gently at me. Not like she was in on the joke, but that she truly believed that fate was behind our sort of reunion. I had basically just laughed in her face, after she had been so kind. I felt my cheeks heat with the awkwardness.
Fortunately, my disbelief didn't seem to offend her. Finally she gave a low chuckle, and swirled her cup, watching the leaves spin in the gentle whirl. "Yes, it does sound a little silly," she said. "What is it about fate that seems so impossible? You've seen more than your fair share of our world. Surely you're familiar with impossibilities by now."
"Maybe I just don't want to believe in it," I replied, my voice low. My gaze quickly darted to Anne and Sofia, who were still watching me. "Maybe I don't like the idea that all of this suffering was just waiting for me."
Octavia shook her head. "Not waiting—fate is not a set of directions you follow to the letter. It's the destination," she explained, still swilling her leaves. "However you get there, you end up right where you need to be."
I cocked my eyebrow. "And I need to be... in mortal danger?"
She huffed, tilting her head. She seemed to be getting exasperated that I wasn't catching on. "You need to be here. Fate led you to my door, just like it did last time. Fate wants me to help you."
I pressed my lips into a line, but said nothing else. The concept of fate still seemed ridiculous, insulting even. But I wasn't about to argue with the woman who was willing to help me.
It did take me back, though, to the night I first met Luc. It felt so long ago... Remembering myself, sitting at his simple table, in curtained-off half of his apartment, as he laid out the cards for my reading. I could see those very cards, laid out in a complex pattern, but I couldn't see what he did in them. He saw my growing attraction to him, saw that we'd fall for each other. A fate true enough that the Malix began its hunt...
Had it really been fate? Had fate drawn me to him? Had fate set up me for this? Running for my life while trying to save his?
Or maybe Octavia was right and I had landed right where I belonged.
Maybe fate had drawn me to him because it knew I would be the one to stop this.
Once and for all.
With a deep breath, I nodded my head. "We'll take all the help we can get."
Octavia smiled. "Good," she said, taking a long sip from her tea. "Thought you might." She smirked.
"So, what do we need to do?" I asked her.
She smiled again, and took her tea and drank deeply, draining the rest of the cup in one go. When she brought the cup down from her lips, she held it out for me.
I peered inside. Only the sodden leaves and a little liquid remained. It looked like nothing. I glanced up at her, wondering what she was expecting me to see.
What's this? Lillian asked, sounding like she had zoned out again. I don't read tea leaves.
Octavia chuckled, like she had heard her. "Reading tea leaves is a lost art," she said, pulling the cup back to her to inspect for herself.
"It's not exactly modern," Sofia said, leaning back in her chair now. She had settled down, resigning herself to Her voice had settled to an even pitch, an almost bored tone that sounded more like Anne's.
"Sofia just says that because she never practiced," Octavia said, giving me a little wink. "She wasn't immediately good at it, so she refused to bother with it."
"I didn't bother with it because it was boring!" Sofia grumbled. She turned to Anne. "Hope she doesn't make you slog through learning this one, cuz."
Anne furrowed her brow. "Why would I? What do tea leaves have to do with auras?"
"To develop your abilities, it's important to study many forms of psychic reading to push your boundaries," Octavia replied, still not looking up from the cup. She twisted and turned it, inspecting it from every angle. "Even if it may seem boring at first."
"Learning?" I asked, curious now. "Are you mentoring her?"
Octavia nodded, still studying away. "Yes. I mentored them both. Sofia is my daughter, so of course I taught her the ways, but Anne is my niece and a new addition to my practice." She looked only briefly to smile at her. "She only began trusting in her talent recently."
I looked at Anne, who was glaring at me again. "Yeah, all thanks to you."
"Me?"
"That day at the shop," she said, "when I broke through the glass counter? It wasn't some freak accident. Something pulled me through the glass. I suspect whatever is tied to you did that." She narrowed her eyes further.
I gaped at her, though the scene was replaying in front of my eyes. Blood everywhere, and Anne's blank confusion as it gushed from the wounds on her arm. How it all reminded me of when the Malix had torn through my own arms as a warning...
"That sounds about right," Lillian interjected. "Malixes usually do go after people who get in its way. You're lucky it was still mostly bound by that point, otherwise it would've probably just killed you."
The colour drained from Anne's face. "Killed... me...?" she sputtered.
"Which is exactly why I didn't want them around," Sofia muttered.
"You don't have to worry," Lillian continued. "The Malix can't hurt you. It's currently trapped at The Gathering with Matilda, with Luc."
This seemed to draw Sofia out of her surly pout. She sat up straight in her chair. "They captured one?!"
Lillian nodded. "Not just any Malix either. This one has been around for decades. Centuries, maybe."
Sofia's eyes went wide. "What? How? Don't they disappear—"
"Not this one, because it's trapped in a cycle," Lillian explained, "passed down from generation to generation of Luc's family line."
"A generational curse...?" Sofia whispered. "Who was stupid enough to cast that?"
"I don't know that. Someone truly filled with hate, I guess," Lillian said, shrugging.
"Or somebody filled with stupid," I added.
"Or both," Sofia said, her brows pulled tight in horror, her gaze distant. "Unleashing a Malix like that..."
"That's how I died, you know," Lillian continued. "That's why I was messing with dark magic. I was trying to seal it away so that it wouldn't hurt him or anyone else ever again."
Sofia's face was hard, pulled into a tight grimace, but her eyes were softening. "What did you do?"
Lillian sniffed. "Is it important? It didn't work."
"I'd say it was important," Octavia said, at last tearing her eyes away from her cup. "Especially since you're planning on doing it again."
I started. How...?
Sofia glanced between her mother and us. "What are you going to do, Lillian?"
Lillian drew a deep breath into my lungs before telling her. "We're going to seal the Malix inside someone and then kill them."
Sofia's mouth dropped open. Anne stiffened at the words, her eyes going wide—I doubted she had considered me capable of murder, even while possessed. And if I was being honest with myself, I still wasn't sure if I was. Even if it was Matilda...
"And just who are you going to use?" Sofia said, her voice rising sharply again. Her gaze shifted, just a little, so that she was looking at me. "Not this girl..."
"Of course not! I'm not a monster like The Gathered likes to make me out to be," Lillian snapped, her voice getting truly sharp. "And this girl is named Rachel."
Sofia narrowed her eyes. "Well you have to kill someone, so don't act so high and mighty. If not her, then who?" Then she bristled, like she expected Lillian to try and snatch Anne or something.
Lillian chewed her lip instead of answering. From inside, I could feel her hesitation, the same hesitation that she felt when I had first suggested it—she still thought it was nuts that our best choice was Matilda. I didn't blame her. But we had no better option...
Sofia eyed us, her eyes narrowing like she could see the lie in our faces even though we hadn't said a word.
Octavia clucked her tongue. "See, that's the part that bothers me," she said. She was looking back into the cup. "That plan is sure to fail."
It was like someone had breathed cold air on my neck. My heart started pounding in my ears. No. No! "You can't know that—"
Octavia tilted her head at me. She didn't need to say anything. I already knew what I had said was stupid.
Of course she could know that.
But that made it all the worse.
I felt tears prickle in my eyes. "It has to work!" I cried. "I can't just leave him there. We have to save him. We have to!"
"Not this way," Octavia said. "Your vessel of choice is too strong. But, don't cry, my dear. There's a better way."
She held out the cup to me again. The dregs of tea were still arranged in random clumps at the bottom of the cup. I gave her an unsure look, but she just nodded and pushed the cup closer to me.
I took it, cupping my hand under its delicate bottom. I peered into the cup, staring hard, hoping for some sense in the mess. Then, as I blinked, I could suddenly make sense of the shapes.
The leaves clung together in long strokes with rounded edges, stacked atop each other in a neat pile... It was suddenly so obvious that I was surprised I hadn't seen it sooner.
Bones.
🔮
Something tells me the tea leaves isn't talking about chicken bones.
Where are they going to get some bones?!
🔮
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