Page 74 of Bitten By the Basilisk

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. There’s a reason we can’t see whom fate has chosen for us.”

Alice slouched, disappointment quickly crushing her brief glimmer of hope. As her concentration faltered, Yōko’s glamour reasserted itself.

“What I can tell you,” Yōko continued, “is that you’ll soon be offered the promotion you wanted, and if you negotiate a bit, they’ll give you a higher salary than what the position pays.”

The news didn’t thrill Alice the way she would’ve expected it to. In her heart, she had already been entertaining the idea of staying in Indigo Cove, with Silas and her mom.

Now she couldn’t help worrying that Yōko was hinting that she should go back to Chicago and that Silas wasn’t, in fact, the One.

“Take heart, dear,” Yōko said with sympathy. “You’ll know the right decision when the time comes. Now, go and enjoy your drink. And please tell your mother she’ll be brilliant tonight.”

Alice nodded and took a deep breath that loosened the invisible band around her chest. She then stood and bowed respectfully before walking away.

When she glanced back, Yōko and her tent had vanished.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Silas

When Alice returned from speaking with the fortune teller, the smile she sent him didn’t reach her eyes, making Silas wonder if she was still on edge after their run-in with Lance.

“So, what did the fortune teller say?” Grace excitedly asked as Alice took a sip of the white peach ginger beer he’d selected for her. “Anything about…a certain someone?”

Alice had to fight to swallow her drink, then flicked her gaze at him. “She uh…predicted that I’d get the promotion I’ve been wanting, and an even better salary than I was aiming for.”

Silas’s cup creaked as he squeezed it without thinking.

“Oh,” Grace said, smiling through her disappointment, before reaching out to pat her daughter’s hand. “Congratulations in advance, sweetie.”

Alice smiled back awkwardly. “Thanks—if she ends up being right, that is.”

“We are in Indigo Cove,” Grace pointed out, gesturing around them. “If there were any place where you could come across a real seer, it would be here.”

“Would you like to try mine?” Silas offered, setting his apple cider slushie in front of Alice, seeking to change the subject. He stared as she delicately wrapped her lips around the straw and drew a small mouthful before pulling off.

“Mm, that’s good,” she said, pushing his drink back toward him.

As nonchalantly as he could manage, he picked it up and took another sip from the straw that had just been in her mouth.

“You’re welcome to finish mine,” Grace said, pulling her purse strap over her shoulder. “It’s almost call time for cast and crew.”

Alice’s eyes widened. “It’s already four?”

“Nearly,” Grace said, getting up from the table. “Thankfully, the community center is right there.” She gestured toward the familiar building on the edge of Town Square.

“We’ll walk you there,” Silas declared, getting up as well.

The three of them swung by a disposal station to toss Grace’s nearly empty drink, before heading toward the community center.

“By the way,” Alice said to her mother, “the fortune teller said you would do brilliantly tonight.”

“After this morning’s rehearsal, it’s not my performance I’m most worried about,” Grace said with a wince. “Oh, and you can leave the things we bought with me. I’ll find somewhere safe to keep it all so you won’t have to carry it around.”

All three of them went inside the community center—Grace to help set up for tonight’s performance, he and Alice to visit the restroom and dispose of their drinks. Once he was ready, he waited for Alice just outside the building’s entrance.

While standing there, he wondered how he and Alice might kill a couple of hours until showtime. They had thoroughly explored the town square booths, and it was far too early for most of Indigo Cove’s most famous attractions.

Then he spied something interesting in the distance, floating above the roofs between here and the water…