AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She absently shuffles her cards in front of her, tossing a few on the table in no particular pattern with the same care of someone dealing poker. She reaches out, peeks at the one closest to her, and frowns. Shuffles the deck again, and tosses out more cards. “I hate busy days like this, I end up with such chaotic card energy.” She holds out her deck to me. “Take one.”
I humor her, hoping she’ll get on with it and answer my question. “Why won’t you help?”
She keeps shuffling. “The Order does a lot of great things. Here, I mean, ‘great’ in its original meaning. The Order does significant and powerful things in the world, but those are not alwaysgoodthings.”
“They’re not always bad things either,” I say for the sake of the argument.
“True,” she says simply, leaving my thoughts to spin off on what she might be thinking. “But I want no part in it anymore, and I don’t want to help my niece join either.”
I glare at her. “Etta isn’t like that. She’s a good person.”
“And the Order corrupts good people. I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Not her. This is a woman who wants to go to school and save her family. That’s it. This whole insane thing is because she thinks she can single handedly end a centuries long feud just by wanting it enough.”
“You love her.” It’s just a statement.
“Yes,” I don’t even bother denying it.
“Then take her and leave.”
“I’ve tried,” I almost laugh with exasperation. “She won’t go.”
“You’re already in it so you can’t see, I’m sure—”
“—No,” I cut her off. “Fuck the Order. I don’t care about that, see, you’re not getting it. I’m not a good person. At best, I was an entitled prick growing up and even that is dead now. All I care about is her. All I want is to protect her, so if what you’re afraid of is someone getting to Etta, that won’t happen because I’d be standing in front of her and the Order can’t corrupt me because there’s nothing left.”
“It’s a good speech kid, but I’m not the one to give it to.”
I bristle, more at the word “kid” than anything else. “Never mind.” I push my seat back. This was clearly a waste of time.
“Sit back down,” she says, waving a hand. “I’m not done yet. Pick a card.”
I look down my nose at her and slowly sit back down. “This isn’t my thing.”
“I don’t understand that,” she muses. “You cast runes.”
“I don’t,” I argue, knowing it’s somewhat hypocritical.
She clearly doesn’t believe me and ignores it. “You had a star-chart done, but you don’t believe in fate?”
I don’t have the energy to explain to her that fate keeps trying to fuck me, that if I left things up to the universe or to the gods I would spend every hour of my life wallowing in the abject fuckery of my existence. Of the prison of my own mind, in my objectively privileged life. Instead, I pick a card.
I’m not sure what I’m looking at, as I’ve never cared nor bothered to learn to read Tarot, but I hold it up to show her.
“Nine of swords. Well, at least my deck is energetically aligned again.”
I scowl at her. “Can we just—”
“You pick, I’ll talk.”
“Fine.”
She holds the deck out and I grab another card at random, handing it to her without looking. Satisfied, she says: “I take it from my brief conversation with Etta that you both have the impression you need witnesses from every house to get married.”
“We do,” I say, taking another card. “To get married in the Order. I checked.”
“You checked wrong, then. Or you asked the wrong question.”
