“I’m sorry to hear that. How did your dad...”
Before I could question the rudeness factor of my question, she said gave me lopsided smile. “Cancer. It was a hard two years before he lost the fight.”
I nodded, feeling for her. I knew what it was like to lose parents. Except unlike other people, I somehow managed to recover not one but both of my parents, even if my mom was currently in a coma.
Straightening shoulders, Mika got down to business. “But this is about you. As an offering to the Propheros, I wanted to give you a reading.”
“Should I have gotten tea so you could read the leaves? Or do you want my palm?” Half of me was excited. I used to enjoy the occasional visit to a psychic with friends for fun when I was younger. But since being named the Propheros, it seemed like all of my futures were damned. I turned the mug in my hands. Maybe it was a bad idea coming here.
Mika shook her head with an amused smile. She pulled out a small bag and slid out a deck of cards from it.
“Tarot cards?”
She continued to smile as she shuffled then held out the deck to me. “Place your hand on the deck and try to send it your energy, then cut the deck as many times as you need then hand it back to me.”
I completed the task and Mika took the deck and laid the first card on the table. A sudden bout of nerves overcame me, and my knee began to shake under the table.
She pointed to the first card that was decorated in ornate swords. “It seems as though you are at a crossroads.”
“Well I am about to get married.”
“Maybe,” she said, but she didn’t seem convinced. Pulling another card and laying it over top the previous card, her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, you were previously at a crossroads and you made your choice. You picked a path and now it is playing out.”
“Again, getting married. I’m not sure what Jo told you, but my fiancé and I have been through a lot. But I chose Calan over everything else, repeatedly, so now the gorgeous sucker is stuck with me forever.”
She studied the card intently. “I get the sense this... isn’t about your marriage. This is about a secret side. Your secret. Something you’ve gone to great lengths to keep hidden from others.”
She pulled another card, a tower ablaze and a woman clearly jumping out only to plummet to her death. Mika’s face first screwed up in consternation then emptied of expression and somehow I knew she’d intentionally put on her poker face because she’d been thrown for a loop. My knee bounced a little faster.
“Your reading is...strange.”
“You mean bad.”
Her dark eyes flicked up to me. “I mean strange.”
Ice water dripped in my belly. Could she tell about my powers from a little reading? If the Orders knew what I was capable of, I had no doubt the hijinks of trying to capture and contain me would ensue all over again.
“What, do I have like an evil Dr. Jekyll side?” I laughed but heard the nerves in my voice.
Why the hell did I say that?
“It’s not clear... let me try something.” Mika eyes fluttered close as she took my hand in hers. “It’s...it’s...”
Something prickled under my skin and my heart sped up. Mika didn’t only read cards, she had some kind of extra sense. She was trying to take a peek inside of me, and she would if I let her. Part of me wanted to let her. Maybe she could help diagnose or help understand what was happening to me.
I yanked my hand out of her grasp. Mika looked up at me, but it took them a moment for her eyes to focus again. Instead of looking horrified, she looked awed. “You made a sacrifice. You knew you were doing it, and you knew what it would mean. You knew the sacrifice would save everyone in the end even if there was a cost.”
My heart was pounding now, and my mouth had gone dry. I didn’t want to hear any more yet I was riveted.
Her face softened into a look of compassion. “I don’t know what you did, or what sacrifice you made, but I can tell you that you were always meant to end up at the crossroads.”
Suddenly I felt exposed, naked, and I didn’t like it. Straightening in my seat, I rubbed my hands over my knees.
“I’m sorry, I’ve made you uncomfortable.” Mika bowed her head slightly. “I am so used to this work that I forget not everyone is ready to delve in so deeply. It was meant to be a gift. You’ve done so much to fight the Stygian, I was compelled to reach out and read for you.”
I mutely nodded, still unable to bring myself to speak.
In a softer voice she added, “You and Calan were fated to be together too. The Propheros and her Chevalier. You shared a psychic bond because it is what the gods always intended.”
