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Oh dear.

I dropped my head and tried to shuffle away.

“Cursed!”

Several people and Lost Ones side-eyed me.

I laughed and shrugged, and tried to convey a she’s-crazy expression.

The old fortune teller shot to her feet pretty fast for someone who surely had joint issues. “Terror in your heart!” she screeched.

I winced. The crowd had taken notice now, and figured they’d watch the crazy old lady shout at a boring, clearly innocent human.

“Doomed!”

I sighed, shoved my hand into my back pocket, marched to her table, and slammed five bucks down, then pinned it under one finger. “This is all I’ve got. Please be quiet.”

She narrowed her eyes. Intelligence sparkled there. As her smile grew, she plucked the five bucks out from under my finger. “Pleasure doing business with you,” she said, in a very measured and controlled voice.

I’d just been had.

“You’re not very nice,” I said, as my leaving retort.

“I’m the least of your worries.” She took her time folding my five bucks in half and stuffed it down her bra. “I know your kind. Your heart is not made of fortune but tragedy. Others will come. For revenge, for freedom, for the fate of all.”

I leaned in. ”Hey, lady. Repeat that to anyone and I will come back here and . . .” Do what? Break her legs? Smash her skull? Crush her into pie filling? “Steal your shiny ball.”

She cackled and sat back. “You’re so fucked.”

“Adam!” Zodiac shoved through the crowd and stumbled into me. “Look!” He thrust a cat ornament under my nose. “It’s adorable. The tail, the murder mittens. Why aren’t you looking?” Then Zee either saw my face, or picked up on the tumultuous churn of emotion going on inside me. “Who’s she? What the fuck you looking at? You never seen a demon this handsome before?”

“He doesn’t know, does he?” She smiled, as though maybe she’d extort more than five bucks out of me if we stayed a second longer.

I grabbed Zee and shoved him into the crowd ahead of me, stopping after we’d passed several more tables and were out of the fortune teller’s sight.

“What was that all about?”

“Nothing.”

Zee’s tail twitched. He glanced back, searching for the fortune teller’s table, but we’d moved on too far. He wanted to ask, but didn’t. Instead, he grinned, and tossed me the cat ornament. “I had to buy it for you.”

“I love it.” It was really cute, and perfect for my collection.

“There’s more, look!” He dragged me toward a table overflowing with all sorts of trinkets, mostly animal ornaments, but some odd charms too. Zee waffled on about the cute animals, but one charm caught my eye. A weirdly shriveled looking thing clasped in a metal pendant. It kind of looked like a moldy piece of popcorn rattling around in a cage.

“Ah, you have a good eye, sir. That’s a piece of wyvern’s heart,” the seller, a short man with a friendly face, said. “Brings good luck.”

I eyed the blackened thing. “An actual piece of its heart?”

“Indeed. Very rare.”

Zee snorted. “Rare, my ass. Wyverns aren’t real,” he said, picking up a small green frog ornament and squinting suspiciously at it.

“They are,” I said, and the seller nodded, agreeing.

“No, they aren’t.” Zee continued to eye the frog. “Wyverns are myths. They don’t exist. Like frogs.”

Hold up. “But frogs are real.”