I blink. “I’m sorry, I think my brain just hemorrhaged. You said?—”
“You didn’t know?” She chuckles as if I just delivered the punch line to a joke.
“No—I—that’s impossible.”
“Rare, but not impossible. I’ve seen it before, multiple bonds. The Fates work in mysterious ways.”
My eyes narrow in confusion. “The Fates? But I thoughtAdelphi?—”
“Like most of the gods, Adelphi has not concerned herself with matters of our kind in centuries. The Fates now choose.”
“But why would they do this?”
“They are like the gods. Old as time itself, always searching for entertainment, amusement, ways to feel alive. Seeing our struggles, watching our pain and our joy—I think it reminds them of a time they felt all of that too. A time that has been long forgotten.”
“So they thought it would befunto stick me with two mates and make me choose between them?”
“Not two,” she whispers, a fascinated look in her eyes. “Three.”
“Three?!” I practically shriek.
She nods. I burst into laughter. Even though I don’t find it funny. Not at all.
“No.No.”
She reaches out a hand and flips over the second card laid before me.The Lovers.
“Choosing between them seems highly unlikely,” she continues as if I’m not sitting here having an actual mental breakdown. “It would be like trying to sever one of your own limbs. A part of your soul is shared among them. Though I fear one choice has already been made for you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
She flips the third card over, and on the back I read two words—so final and heavy.
The Tower.
Her oval-shaped nail taps the painted card as she goes on, “One among them is your true enemy.”
I stop breathing.
“Where your paths cross, misfortune follows. Pain, heartache, even death.” She peels the card off the table and balances it between two lithe fingers. “The two of you will try to fight it, but just as you were born to rule, he was born to destroy.”
“Who is he?” I demand, teetering on the edge of my seat.
“You will know him by the suffering your bond brings,” she explains. “The love between you may be strong, but it is blinding. Itleads to irrational, desperate decisions with calamitous results.” She leans in a touch closer. “Iurge you to stay away from that one.”
“But mates are meant to be together. That’s the whole point,” I argue. I may not know much on the subject, but that’s a pretty universal concept.
“Just because two people are meant for each other does not mean they are good for each other. Or for the people around them. I think it’s what you earthlings calltoxic.”
This is absurd. All of it. Three mates? One that just so happens to be my enemy?
“What if I can’t stay away from him? What happens then?”
Her voice sends ice up my arms as she whispers, “You will tear each other apart, and those around you will pay the price.”
My blood freezes over, my head reeling.
What does that even mean?
