Now that it was mine, it had changed to soft dawn gray walls, midnight blue shelves for books, and jewel-toned, comfortable furnishings with quilted and wooly blankets.
Woven baskets held rare magical devices. Stones and crystals were tucked into nooks, and random bits and bobs, which were deceptively powerful, filled the rest of the space.
A high, square window directly across from the door allowed a view of blue sky.
I loved it here. Other than the kitchen and porch, I always felt closest to the Crossroads in this room.
The door shut behind me, and a candle on the little desk lit. A pot of tea appeared next to the couch, the orange and cinnamon steam tempting me to stay, to rest.
“Not right now,” I said to the room, to the house, to the magic that shuffled and mixed like a deck of cards.
“I need to help Cardamom. He’s looking for Fate’s coins. What should I take to help get them back?”
This was always a bit of a risk. The Crossroads contained scrying magic, but that didn’t make its guesses one hundred percent accurate.
The Crossroads didn’t know the future, didn’t know destiny. But because it was made out of patchworked magic, it was tied to a million different things in the universe.
Sometimes it could sense a pattern, which made its guesses very, very good. I was asking it to look for a pattern around Card, around the tangle of knotted threads he’d stepped into.
Several items on the shelf disappeared to be replaced by other items deemed more helpful. Books swapped out with other volumes, scrolls shuffled and were pushed away, then a shallow bowl of stones appeared on the desk. Next to that, glistening and dark, was a rare Minotaur horn.
“No other hints?”
A moment passed. Then a single sheet of paper appeared in the middle of it all.
The language was old, an account of a prophet’s dreams. With no key to her particular dream, it was nearly impossible to read.
For most people.
I pressed the heel of my palm to the tattooed eye above my elbow. I snapped my fingers and made a circle with the fingers on my other hand. My tattoo flared, and I held my circled fingers to my eye and read the page through them.
Fate’s coins, spindle, scroll, scissors, fall from my hand with no sound. Spent for the whole of nothing. Where are your promised gifts, Fate? From what fingers will you answer true?
It sounded more like a customer service complaint than a dream, but I read it silently once, then whispered it out loud, so I could commit it to memory.
“Something in this is useful?”
The Crossroads hummed, agreeing.
“Thank you. Please put it back where it will be safe. I’ll take the pebbles and horn with me.”
The Crossroads spiked with the stench of burnt ozone, the salty scent of fear.
“I’m not leaving you. Not alone. Val is going to be here to keep you company.”
The ozone grew stronger, mixing with the chemical stink of burnt fireworks.
I pressed my fingertips over my heart where an infinity sign—the first and deepest connection between me and the Crossroads—was inked.
“I’ll be gone for a few hours at the longest. We need to get Fate’s coins, or Fate will kill his tree.”
The Crossroads was conflicted. Card had saved me, but even more, he had saved the Crossroads.
When my dad had disconnected his soul from the place, the Crossroads had done two things: panicked and gone into a rage.
The Crossroads had reached out to me, maybe only because I was nearby, or maybe because I carried Dad’s DNA. But unlike my dad, I was not born to be a Crossroads.
The Crossroads’ magic had torn through me, ripping me apart as it begged me to be its keeper, as it begged me not to let it be devoured by the chaos and disarray of the unmoored magics within it.
