“You know what I want. I want you to find something for me. Here is my good faith offer. A truth for you. One very clear truth of your future.
“The god wants you dead. The moment you find the spell book and put your hand on it, the god will kill you and then Death himself will come for your soul.”
CHAPTEREIGHT
It should have shocked me, hearing I might die, but I’d spent a lot of time being halfway to the grave anyway, and Death himself, as Eunice had said, had never once come calling.
“I’m assuming there are loopholes in that prediction,” I said.
She blinked. “What are you talking about? I just told you a true thing that will happen in your future if you don’t change your path, change your decisions. Didn’t you hear me? Didn’t you hear the words I said?”
“I heard the words. But I’ve heard predictions before. We put years into tracking down any priestess, soothsayer, or fortune-teller who could tell us what we could do to change our fate. Nothing they told us came true how any of the tellers said it would. So yes, I heard your words. I don’t think they are as reliable as they seem on the surface.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You are calling me a liar?”
“Not lies. You said it was the truth, and I believe it is the truth asyousee it at this moment. But there hasn’t been any hand dealt to Lula or me we haven’t had some way of turning to our advantage. Words of a prophet aren’t always what they seem. They might be a hell of a lot more. Or less.”
“I told you a god is using you. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“We made a deal with the god, and we’re going to see through our side of it.”
She frowned. “You’re making a mistake, Brogan. I can’t…I don’t know how I can say it any plainer than I have. You have a chance to make a different choice. A choice that will help me. If you forget about the spell book and walk away from the god, things will be…well, I can’t say they will be easy, but I don’t see your death down that road. Not soon. Notassoon.”
“I won’t be talked into going against my word by you. I’m not afraid of death, would have welcomed it some years.”
She gave a little cackle that was surprisingly musical. “Oh, I can see there will be no talking you into anything.” She looked me up and down. When her gaze met mine again, the awareness of a thousand seers shone in her eyes.
“You will change this world, Brogan Gauge. You and Lula both. The family you choose, the family you make. With our help, without it. But heed our warning. The god will betray you, and that sorrow will break Lula’s heart beyond mending.”
She clapped her hands once.
It was a soft sound, like a wooden box closing, a door slipping the latch, a heavy stone thudding into deep sand.
Then music wound back up to speed, like a turntable switching gears, the fog clearing as if it had never been there.
The smell of hot grease, charred meat, and root beer filled my nostrils.
The Formica tabletop was cool under my fingertips.
Eunice was gone, not even a bead left behind.
“Brogan?” Lula gave me a funny look, already halfway out of her chair, concern creasing her forehead.
“Oh no,” Abbi said, twisting so she could see the door. “They’re here.”
Like a square peg in a round hole, I was having a hard time clicking into place with this reality. For a long moment, too long, I fought off a sweaty panic attack. Thoughts of being out of step in time, out of step in the flow of the real world, of notexistinglike a real living human, burned like wildfire through my brain.
It was nightmare fuel for me, too long a spirit, too long existing asnothing— drifting and ineffectual—while Lu was right there, in my reach and forever beyond it.
I couldn’t do that again. I refused to do that again.
I took a deep breath, tried to calm my mind, my nerves screaming that everything was wrong, everything wasverywrong, that I had no control, had no power to make it even slightly right again.
I slapped my palm flat on the cold, slightly greasy table.
The shock of it, the pricking pain, cleared my thoughts. Square peg hammered into the round hole of this moment.
I was here. I was real. I was alive.
