AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She turned, her shoes clicking on the moonstone floor as she sauntered away.
Chapter 26
Much as I tried not to let them, Scathanna’s words haunted me the rest of the day.
I bathed Artemis and redressed her wounds in the sink of the bathing chamber, which she grudgingly bore with only a few hoots of indignant protest.
I tried to distract myself with work, sketching out the witch signs that would need to be drawn around the frame of the mirror to create a portal, and making a list of supplies for a truth spell, and any other offensive spell that might be useful when we faced my grandmother.
By the time Cerridwen and Brigid knocked on the door, asking if I would take tea with them, I was worked up into a frantic state of anxiety.
“Scathanna is a lying bitch,” said Cerridwen, when I told them what she had said. “And that’s all there is to it.”
“I’ve heard things from the Court of Shadows,” Brigid countered, frowning at her tea. “Things about his reputation. But it’s probably just talk.”
“If Carnon did kill this female, there must be a good reason for it,” Cerridwen added, picking a purple macaron from the plate sent up by Pierre and biting delicately into it. “Just ask him, Elara.”
I pursed my lips, willing myself to trust that Carnon would indeed tell me the truth. Brigid cleared her throat, producing a deck of what looked like intricately illustrated cards from the pocket of her gown.
“I wanted to try something,” she said, dealing out the cards face down on the small, now very chalky coffee table. “Before I tell you what I found out from our libraries. About the prophecy.”
“What are these?” I asked, leaning forward to study the cards. They were all identical, a pale pink with a floral design in the center of each. I reached to turn one over, and Brigid caught my hand.
“Wait,” she said as I withdrew with a raised brow at her. “The order you choose them is important.” She finished laying out all of the cards, twenty-two in all, and looked at me. “Now, choose three,” she said, indicating the spread of cards.
“How do I choose?” I asked, frowning at the identical cards before me.
“However you wish,” she answers. “Follow your instincts. The gods will nudge you in the direction of your fate.”
“Thatdoesn’t sound ominous,” Cerridwen quipped, looking on with interest as I selected three cards from the spread. Brigid placed the three before me in the order I had chosen them from left to right, replacing the others in their little pouch.
“Past,” Brigid said, flipping the first card to show the illustrated figure of a man hung by a noose. “The Hanged Man,” Brigid intoned. “This means sacrifice or martyrdom. Someone gave something up for you in your past. Something that led to your presence here.”
“How certain are you about the accuracy of these cards?” Cerridwen asked, looking skeptically at the Hanged Man. Other than Mama losing my father, and giving up her authority in the Coven, I couldn’t think of a sacrifice that fit.
Brigid shrugged. “I’m no expert,” she said, giving me a rueful smile. “My magic trends toward engulfing things in flame over sight or prophecy. But I have a little skill in it.”
“Keep going,” I said, a little breathless as she flipped the next card.
Brigid smiled and Cerridwen burst out laughing. “The Devil in reverse,” Brigid said, giving me a bemused look. I glanced down at the card, the image of a horned demon upside down. “This represents the present. Aside from the obvious, this means freedom or release. A gaining of control.”
“Well that’s good, right?” I asked warily, glancing at Cerridwen.
She shrugged. “I have never known my dear brother to give up control to anyone.”
“But maybe loving him, accepting him,” I said, trying to express my feelings elegantly and failing spectacularly, “maybe that has freed me. From fear and loneliness and anger.”
Brigid made a sympathetic sound as Cerridwen’s gaze softened.
“The last card is the future,” Brigid said, her hand reaching out to the last card. She paused, giving me a long look. “Just remember there can be multiple interpretations of whatever we see here.”
“Okay,” I said, hesitant as she flipped it. The image of an illustrated skeleton atop a horse stared out at me from the surface of the card.
“Death?” Cerridwen asked, leaning over Brigid’s shoulder. She cast me a wide-eyed panicked look, and Brigid frowned.
“Yes, and no,” Brigid said thoughtfully. “Death usually doesn’t mean literal death but transformation. Rebirth or reincarnation. Interesting.”
“You sound like Carnon now,” I said, sipping my tea and trying not to panic at the mysterious cards.
