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I was dying to know what he had planned for tomorrow. Unfortunately, I was likely to learn about it too late to do anything about it.
“Is that all you have for me?”
“Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
He hesitated a long time, his forehead creased. Finally, he asked, “Can you tell me the fate of my company?”
“You’ll have to give me something to work with to read it. Do you have anything on you that represents your company?”
He opened his eyes to reach into his breast pocket and take out a business card. He handed it to her, and she held it briefly, her eyes closed, before waving it over the bowl. She glanced inside, frowned, and waved it again. “Sorry, I’m getting nothing. Is this card for real? Because the results I’m getting suggest that it’s just a front.”
I bit my lip and hoped Roger didn’t glance at me. I was pretty sure Minerva was only doing this to make him admit he was Collegium.
He paused for a moment before unfastening the tiny tie tack he wore. “Maybe this will work.”
“Let’s give it a shot.” She waved it over the bowl. “Hmm, looks like your fate and its fate are bound together. If you succeed, your company will thrive. If you fail, you could bring it down with you.”
“And if I don’t act?”
“If you don’t act, it carries on as before.”
I could see the egomania flare up in his eyes. “So, it all depends on me! I knew it was my destiny.”
Minerva gave me the slightest of glances out of the corner of her eye, with a hint of a smirk. He’d completely disregarded the part where if he didn’t engage in his plan to take over, the Collegium would do just fine. But hey, failure was what I wanted, so who was I to point out the flaws in his thinking?
“Anything else you want to know? Stock tips, sports scores?”
“No, none of that. You’ve been helpful.” Beaming brightly enough to light up the room, he pulled a roll of cash from his breast pocket and handed it to her. “Thank you. I may call on you again.”
“You do that,” she said, tucking the cash somewhere in the voluminous folds around her body.
“Then if we’re through here, I’ll leave. Katie, I’ll see you in the morning. Feel free to order anything you want from room service.”
When he was gone, Minerva said, “Want to take him up on it? I could do with a drink.”
“Why not?” I found the room service menu and we ordered drinks and some snacks.
After they’d been delivered, Minerva performed what I recognized to be the silence spell. “That little thing sure does come in handy,” she said. “You’ll have to thank your fellow for that.”
“You’ll probably talk to him before I do,” I said, unable to stop myself from sounding a little morose.
“Yeah, I bet it’s a big change going from him to spending all your time with that piece of work.” She gestured with her head in the direction of the door where Roger had departed.
“Believe it or not, he’s not bad to work for,” I said. “I’ve only seen the psycho side of him a few times. Otherwise, he treats me well, anticipates my needs, and gives me credit for my work. There’s just that teeny problem of what he does to anyone who gets in his way.”
“Well, we’ve got countermeasures for any of those spells you’ve found, so we’re making progress. Let’s see, what else was I supposed to tell you?”
“Did you get any kind of clue what choice he has to make tomorrow?”
“Sorry, I really didn’t get any more than I told him. I just know that if he does one thing, he’ll fail, and if he does the other, he might still have a chance of succeeding.” She drained her glass. “It does seem like actions tend to give you the exact opposite result from what you’d think. Which is why prophecy like this is so tricky. The thing you do to avoid the outcome you’re afraid of is usually exactly what makes it happen. That’s why we mostly only use our gifts for finding things or for spotting trends. Trying to dig into outcomes for an individual only leads to trouble. Shakespeare knew what he was doing when he wrote all those tragedies about prophecies bringing about someone’s downfall.”
Once she’d left, it felt a little weird being all alone in a luxurious hotel suite. I’d have been tempted to call Owen if I’d had my own phone with me. I didn’t dare do so on the company phone, and I was afraid that any numbers I called from the room would end up on the bill.
Still, it was a luxurious hotel suite that I didn’t have to pay for. I wasn’t sure when I’d ever get to stay in a place like this again. Then I remembered that I was marrying a millionaire. Owen tended not to live like a wealthy person, other than his house, so it was easy to forget. I imagined he probably wouldn’t spring for something like this on a regular basis, but we might do it for special occasions. I made a mental note of how nice this place might be for a wedding night.
If I ever got to go back to my real life to plan and have a wedding. But Minerva had said the critical time would be in the next few weeks, starting tomorrow.
*
