Page 86 of A Seer and Present Danger

“His powers.”

I blinked. “Can you do that? Is that one of your abilities?”

“I’m a demigod, Piper. Unlike you, and unlike Vandre,” she sneered, “I use my power any way I want to. If I want to make it so Vandre can’t see into a future, well, I’ll choose a future where he’s blind to it.”

“Is that what you did to Jean?”

“Jean was in the way. But she turned out to be useful. She doesn’t remember me being out there that night, doesn’t remember me putting blood on her hands because I chose a future where she wouldn’t. And that meant Delaney couldn’t investigate the crime her sister committed. Win and win!”

“You blocked Yancy’s vision too.”

She shrugged. “Nah. Seers not seeing was just the collateral damage of the futures I wanted to become real. Worth it. Hugo needed to get into that storage unit, and I needed to make sure no one would see our plan.”

Our plan. So, she’d been in on this from the beginning.

“Why did you even have Hugo steal it? If you knew it was in the storage unit, why didn’t you steal it yourself?”

“Ordinary. Rotten little town just filthy with magic. A demigod entering Ordinary alerts Delaney now, especially if I use my power. It didn’t used to be like that. I used to be able to slip in and out without her noticing. But not anymore. It’s annoying.”

I had a good idea why Delaney had set a magical alert to warn when a demigod was near: me. I’d come here and made some huge mistakes.

I’m sure Delaney had decided it would be best not to repeat the process with another misguided or misbehaving demigod.

“So, you needed Hugo to get the box out of storage. What did you promise him?”

“Money, of course. Enough he could leave this life behind. I would have been good for it too. But the little rat stabbed me in the back.”

“You stabbed him—wait, why didn’t you see that he wouldn’t bring the box with him to meet you here?”

“Petty little Vandre was pushing on the future too. He thinks he can tell the rest of us what we can do and how we can do it. He thinks we have to follow mortal laws. No stealing. No killing. Why should we listen to him? Why should we follow a law? We’re not mortal! We’re better than them. We deserve better than what they have.”

“So, you killed him too.”

She glanced over my shoulder back at the kitchen. “He’s probably still alive. He’s like that. After I’m done with you, though, I’ll take care of him. For good.”

Welp. Now was the perfect time to try to do a little choosing the outcome I wanted no matter how it messed up time.

I pressed my hand down on my thigh, hard, but I didn’t look for the future.

I looked for the past.

Maybe I couldn’t manipulate the future like Vandre and Aggie. Maybe I was stuck here in the Now facing down a woman with a gun in her hand, a grudge bigger than the storm roaring outside, and no cell signal.

But I still had choices. I still dabbled in power.

Time to see if I could do more than dabble.

“But you forgot Vandre also has a gun,” I said.

Pasts spun out like cast fishing lines, filaments of possibilities zinging out, splitting, growing, careening into pasts that had never happened, pasts that had, and sparking a thousand other images of what may have been.

Vandre driving here to the diner. His car parked around back so he wasn’t seen.

Aggie already here, hiding out, having been dropped off hours ago.

Aggie pushing on every future she could to force me to come here.

Even in the storm.